Nokia E72 – And The Wait Is Over

I have friends who swear by the Eseries (while I am more of a Nseries dude).  When the E75 was out, I asked one friend of mine if she would get that but she got the E71 instead.  Why?  I suppose having the full QWERTY keyboard right underneath the screen does have its appeal, a design without a need to slide out the keyboard.  Knowing that I would attend this Nokia event, I did some homework, ‘interviewed’ my friend and got to know a bit more about Nokia Eseries.

Now that I have touched and felt the new E72, I can understand why my friend – in her own words – loves the Eseries.  For those who are constantly on the go and need an efficient phone and messaging device – both email and instant messaging (and also social networking), the Eseries is optimized for just that.  There are dedicated buttons on the E72 to quickly access the calendar, contact, and messaging functions.  Holding one of these buttons create a new calendar entry, a new contact, or a new message (imagine if my N97 has that!).  There is a button to instantly return to the home screen too and by holding it, you can toggle between various opened applications.  At the center of the phone is the new Optical Navi™ Key.  It senses the motion of your finger (or thumb) as you scroll your long emails up and down.  And you can use that key to scroll through any onscreen items.  From my brief experience, it feels responsive.  And I do like the keyboard design too.  The common punctuation symbols are easily accessible, a different experience I have with my N97.

In fact, the entire phone interface feels responsive thanks to the Symbian S60 3rd Edition operating system.  For those who are already using E71, this could be a worthwhile upgrade for the following reasons.

• 5 mega-pixel camera
• 250MB internal memory and supports up to 16GB microSD memory card
• 3.5 mm audio connector (now you can use the standard earphones)
• Able to synchronize calendar items to Outlook (on top of emails and contacts that E71 is able to)
• Better battery performance
• Slimmer design

And for those who are curious about the key features of email and instant messaging, on email, E72 supports Mail for Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes Traveler, Nokia Messaging service (lifetime license), and POP/IMAP.  On instant messaging, it supports MSN, GoogleTalk, OVI Chat, Y! Messenger, and more.  E72 is now available in Singapore selling at a RRP of S$750 (excluding operator plan and GST).  If you have questions for Nokia, please drop me a comment here or send me an email.

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I have always enjoy blogger events hosted by Nokia and Text100.  And I had such a great time catching up with old friends, making new friends.  During the event, there was a little contest that involved a bit of instant messaging using the new E72 and a bit of creativity.  Shocking to me, I won this little Nokia Mini Speakers (MD-6).  I have no idea if Nokia does sell those little beauties but had I known such thing exists, I would certainly have bought them long ago.  Great for traveling (comes with a pouch).  And great for playing music in the bathroom while showering too!  These are active speakers taking in 4 AAA batteries.  Definitely better sound quality than the phone speakers, a design more geared towards the XpressMusic series.  So this looks really good pairing with Cynthia’s XpressMusic 5800 than my N97.