We’ve been spending quite some time with the Nokia E72 of late and while it would be easy to dismiss this smartphone as a soft-option upgrade, the Nokia E72 is an impressive beast in its own right. Find out what we mean with our full Nokia E72 review…
The Nokia E72 has the same overall shape and appearance as the Nokia E71 and due to the amazing success of that device, why bother changing? So, the design may stay the same but Nokia has clearly taken the smartphone back to the drawing board.
Check out our Nokia E72 Unboxing
Now weighing just 128g and measuring 10.1mm at its thickest point, this is a slimmer and lighter device. You’ll still find the QWERTY keyboard in place but the keys have been reworked so the rubber coating is smooth and the more rounded shape of the keys makes them easier to use.
We were quite surprised with how much space between the keys there is as you type. Sure, you still have to use your thumbs but once you get the hang of holding the E72 and slightly twisting it as you type, you can get a nice rhythm going.
However, what really works for us is the new Optical Navi Key that acts like a mini-trackpad on a laptop. It allows you to scroll around the screen with ease and with a gentle push you’ll find whatever you’ll highlighted is activated.
When it comes to performance, you’ll find the Nokia E72 uses the 600MHz ARM 11 processor so apps load and run a great deal smoother and faster. We were impressed with how smoothly you can get around the Symbian S60 3rd Edition OS using the Navi Pad by touch or by clicking from icon to icon.
With 512MB of NAND memory and 128MB SDRAM, you’ll find there is 250MB of user storage onboard – enough to keep on top of you email as long as you don’t start downloading all attachments. That said, the microSD slot, which is hidden away under a rather sturdy cover to the left of the screen, can handle up to 16GB and a 4GB card is shipped with the phone, so storage shouldn’t be an issue.
There are a couple of tiny niggles with the overall design. The metal back cover adds protection but the clasp is a little soft, so the cover pops open. That and the camera mounting protrudes a little too much, almost forcing you to get a protective sleeve. Fortunately, Nokia supplies one in the box, so that shouldn’t be an issue.
We’ll be looking at the camera in a separate review but with a 5-Megapixel CCD very much the default standard on most Nokia phones, the Nokia E72 is very much in keeping with the likes of the Nokia 6700, Nokia X6 and Nokia N97 Mini.
It’s not just as a smartphone that improvements have been made. When it comes using the Nokia E72 as just a phone, we found the audio quality to be improved with voices sounding a lot clearer.
Overall, we the Nokia E72 is a great success. It takes what everyone found appealing about the Nokia E71 and simply improves upon it. This may not sound like a good enough reason to upgrade but we’re convinced one you switch there would be no going back!
Check out our Nokia E72 image gallery:
