Nokia E72 review: The business of messaging

Introduction

Nokia E72 is one of those handsets everybody is talking about long before their release. There may be nothing much to talk about - after all everyone knows what to expect of the Eseries and they have never let us down. But still, savoring the next batch of Eseries steel is always a pleasure.

The Finns keep feeding business ammo to the market and there's nothing out of the usual at first sight. We already tasted the new Eseries generation and the E52 and E55 were the usual good healthy meals. The E72 though needs to be nothing short of delicious.

    
Nokia E72 official photos

There's no need to tell you the Nokia E72 walks and talks business. The big one though has greater responsibility to carry. We guess the E72 will not fear being judged against the best messengers in its class. But it will certainly look back to a haunting shadow within its own family. The Nokia E72 can certainly go where the E71 would not venture. But it's not only the equipment (of which the E72 has aplenty) that makes a winner.

Key features:

• Quad-band GSM support
• 3G with HSDPA 10.2Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps
• Landscape 2.36" 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
• Comfortable full QWERTY keypad
• Optical trackpad on the D-pad
• Symbian 9.3 OS, S60 UI with FP2
• 600 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB of SDRAM
• 5 megapixel auto focus camera with LED flash
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology, DLNA support
• Built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS support, digital compass
• Accelerometer for turn-to-mute
• 250 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion, ships with a 4GB card
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP support and microUSB v2.0
• FM radio with RDS
• Remote Wipe
• Great battery life
• Office document editor (including MS Office 2007)
• User-friendly Mode Switch for swapping two homescreen setups
• Smart dialing
• Full Flash support
• Great audio output quality
• Lifetime Nokia Messaging subscription

Main disadvantages:

• Optical trackpad is not as handy as we'd like
• Limited camera features, no geotagging, video recording maxes out at VGA@15fps
• No DivX or XviD support (can be enabled, possibly requiring a purchase)
• No TV-out functionality
• No dedicated camera key (trackpad compensates for that)
• Poor loudspeaker performance

Eseries are always trying to get more skills on their resume. But the one that's supposed to be the next big thing in its class is really pushing it. Nokia didn't have to try and experiment with the E72. Build muscle on the E71 was their main objective. And by the looks of it they did more than well. The E72 promises richer experience and superior skill. But it will still be expected to deliver more than the sum of its parts if it wants to prove anything to the standard-setting E71.

    
Nokia E72 in our office

The Eseries spirit is all there - and we guess in-house competition is always in the picture. The E72 is bold and impressive, but manages to keep its cool too, as befits a conservative business handset. Armed and dangerous or polite and elaborate - the E72 will be whatever you want it to be. So, make up your mind, and take the jump. We're unboxing and feeling the cold Eseries steel in our hands.

A lot of goodies in the box

The retail package of Nokia E72 has all the essential luggage for a business tool. It's hardly a surprise though, as the E71 already had nearly the same ingredients. The E72 comes with a standard charger (not the smaller variety that we expected) and a really short data cable (microUSB). We didn't quite expect Nokia to cut corners with an expensive phone like E72 but they obviously did.

A 4GB microSD card is prebundled (E71 had 2-gigs of complimentary storage) and so is a standard Nokia headset. It is one piece, which means you cannot use the remote with another set of headphones.

   
The retail package brings a number of nice surprises

The extra content in the box includes a leather lanyard, a leather carrying case and a branded cleaning cloth. The rest is the usual paperwork and leaflets.

Nokia E72 360-degree spin

Nokia E72 stands at 114 x 58 x 10 mm and weighs 128g, which is - you guessed it right - almost exactly the same as the E71 (114 x 57 x 10 mm, 127g). It is obvious that Nokia had little choice but follow the E71 recipe as closely as possible. Yep, they've used the more recent Eseries styling (E52 and E55) but the form factor and general feel just couldn't have been much different. The actual upgrades the E72 brings over the E71 are not the point here. It's the styling and the first impression. Our initial feeling is the E72 is trying to show more sophistication but does it look a bit softer or is it just us? Let's see.