Dec 29, 2009 05:31 AM
4163 Views
(Updated Mar 13, 2010 11:09 AM)
Roughly a Week ago I was offered to trial a Nokia E72 by my good Friends of WOM World Nokia. Already having experienced the Awesomeness that was the Nokia E71, I was very eager to get my Hands its Successor.
Filled in the Trial Form, sent it back to WOM World and here we go, the Adventure that is the E72 begins: I received the Box on late Friday afternoon and went to work with it on Saturday Morning. After I first took the Device in my Hands i’ve decided to come up with a few Words to the Person who trialed the E72 before me: You’re in a very elite Group, Pal.
You have the Privilege to get your Hands on one of Nokia’s latest Devices. The Handset came in a Condition that some of my 2 year old Phones not even look like. The Screen is scratched, some Corners look like they’re losing small Chips of Chrome the hard way. So in my Opinion the Device has been dropped and not at all been taken care of. If you don’t know how to treat a Test Device, you better leave them to People who do. Seriously, you don’t deserve it. Not cool.
Anyways, back to the E72: Out of the Box, the E72 met my Expectations, in being a very premium Device. Lots of chromed Parts and stylish black mix up to a good Experience, feeling immediately well in the Hand. With a Size of 114 x 58.3 x 10.1 mm and approx. 128g of Weight, the Handset offers a great Size for this Formfactor. Let’s have a closer Look at the Front of the E72, shall we? Starting on Top we have the Loudspeaker for Calls, which offers a very good Call Quality. Right next to it is the VGA Front Camera for Video Calls and the Light Sensor. The Display is the well known 2, 36? QVGA Screen (320×240 Pixels) in landscape Format. I just can’t leave this without pointing the Finger at the ridiculous Resolution.
Wouldn’t it be time already to upgrade to something a bit more crisper? How about 480×320 AMOLED? It’s 2010, you know? The whole D-Pad Area is made off stainless Steel, which looks fantastic and furthermore continues the Line of High Quality Material, just like i’m used to on E-Series! The Navi Key is all black now and is a small something that makes me acknowledge the E72 to his older brother, the E71. A new Feature on the Navi Key? Optical Usage Baby! Yes thats right, the E72 is sporting an optical Navi Key, enabling you to scroll around with just slight touching it, instead of using it “old school”, with pressing. While this sounds like a cool Feature on Paper, I found myself switching this Feature off roughly 2 Days after using it.
The Thing about this Feature is this: When I was actually concentrating on using the Device, I worked the optical Way and it worked okay. But, when I did something I was doing regularly, I always used the Navi Key the normal Way. F.e. when I received a Text Message, I grabbed the E72, unlocked and immediately pressed my Way down to the Standby Notification. This is coming from itself, as I’m very used to this kind of Actions. Both Ways work fine, but they do not work at the same Time, meaning that I had a lot of accidental Presses.
A very cool Thing again is, that the Navi Key has a pulsating Light Ring in it for Standby Mode and/or Notifications, so you basically always know what’s going on, without unlocking the Screen. Very nice Feature, but one Thing I’d like to see, is different Colours for different Events, with of Course the Freedom to configure it in whichever Way I want. On each Side of the Navi Key, we have the E-series typical “One-Touch-Keys”. Calendar, Contacts and Messaging-Buttons all open the corresponding Application, or if you wish, can be customized, to open whatever you want. In my Case, I had the Messaging Button set to open the Messaging App on short Press and Profimail, the World’s best Mail Client for Symbian, on long Press. This comes in really handy, and I really miss this on N-Series as well.
The Selection and Call/End Keys are all implemented in a Piece of stainless Steel, which is nothing short but awesome If we look a bit down, the biggest Recognition Point of the Nokia E72 – it’s full QWERTY keypad. and my god this thing Thing awesome! Definitely suited for People with smaller Thumbs, this Keyboard can be either your best Friend or your worst Enemy, for me it’s the first One. Me and this Keyboard have become very good Friends of the Course of those 2 Weeks, really good Ones. I can’t really spare my Girlfriends “This thing is soooo ugly”-point of view, because I think it’s just georgeous and well made. Similar to the E71, this Keyboard has 4 Rows, the Keys are very tactile and have a rounded Surface, so you always feel the Difference between one key to another. A new torch light option has been laid onto the Space key, so if you do a long press on that one, the Camera LED will guide you through the Night. Speaking of the Space Key, this one has been made clearly smaller than on the E71, but therefore we have some more usefull Keys.
I normally would judge this as a bad Thing – not in the Case of the E72, as Nokia has implemented important Keys like a separated Symbol Key (which also can be used to fire up your Bluetooth) or, and this is very cool, a separated button for the Exclamation Mark (!) has been added. I’m normally a critical Person, but in the E72 Case, I can’t praise it high enough. If you are looking for a Candybar Phone, the E72 should be yours!
