The Nokia E71 set the benchmark for what a messenger phone should be – easy to use, great screen and near-perfect QWERTY keyboard. So it comes as no great surprise that the upcoming Nokia E72 builds on this foundation with some cracking results. Curious as to the changes that have been made to the Nokia E72? Well, check out the Nokia E72 Preview to find out for yourself...

The Nokia E71 may be getting close to two-years old but for anyone who needs to reply to emails throughout the day, it holds a special place in the hand (and the heart). Naturally, there is a lot of buzz around the imminent release of the refresh, the Nokia E72.

The Nokia E72 was announced back in June but we're not expecting it to ship until later this year. If you're curious as to the full tech spec of the Nokia E72 it has everything we've come to expect from a high-end messenger, including A-GPS, a new camera and better battery life.

Russian site Mobile Review has this knack of getting their hands on a device months before it ships. Thankfully, they put this privilege to great effect, giving in this case the Nokia E72 an exhaustive review looking at the smartphone from all angles.

The move to a 5-Megapixel camera is very much a given, as it seems to be the new benchmark set by the Nokia N97. We've already been given a hands-on review of the Nokia E72 camera in action, so it's the other features we're most keen on seeing.

So, what can we expect from this latest update of the knock-out Nokia E71? Well, we have a faster processor that seems to really hit the mark. Then we have the move to S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, which for most people will be reason enough to want to upgrade. The battery is also promised to deliver more and for us, the best bit of the preview was the breakdown in battery usage.

Here are the maximum working time in different modes:

* GPS-navigation - 6.5 hours

* View video - 7 hours 50 minutes

* WEB-surfing (EDGE-connection) - 5 hours

* Listening to music in your headphones - 32 hours

*  WiFi - said up to 110 hours of operation in standby mode, with continuous transmission of data - 8 hours

Then there are little changes, like the addition of a 3.5mm audio jack for adding a standard set of headphones. However, it's the tweaks that have been made to the keyboard and the new optical trackpad. According to Mobile Review, the keyboard isn't the same as the Nokia E71 but takes the one found on the Nokia E66 and builds on this. So, we find slightly less secondary keys but the overall effect is that the keys are bigger and slightly higher.

The Nokia E72 looks as though it's going to deliver exactly what everyone wants from this smartphone – a logical upgrade path that builds on the success of the earlier Nokia E71.

Via: Mobile Review