Nokia E72 Full Review - Part 1: Physical Aspects

Camera, lights, action! Here goes the first part of the full E72 review which will be covering the physical aspects of the phone. As usual, I like to pit phones against each other, and what’s better than the prime iron messenger – E71 – to go nose to nose with the new E72.



A. Measurements:
The E72 measures 114 x 58 x 10 mm as opposed to the E71’s 114 x 57 x 10 mm. Only 1 mm difference in width, you’d think it’s probably nothing, but if you’re really used to the E71 you’ll notice it immediately. To your eye, the E71 would still look narrower. And not by just 1 mm. The E72 gives you the impression it is a wide device when it’s truly not. That’s due to the fact that the empty space below the keyboard has been reduced for the sake of extending the space occupied by the Navi key / softkeys / One-touch buttons, of course for more comfortable operation. If you place the two phones exactly next to each other, you’ll notice that the first row of keys on the E72 begins almost entirely next to the second row of keys on the E71. I think what made so E71 so strange when I first held it in my hand back in June 2008 was that weird gap beneath the keys. When I inquired about it, I was told this space was extended for better grip and single-handed use. Although I used to think the E71 was one of the best looking devices out there, I believe the E72 looks even better now. The wider middle part of the phone which includes the shortcut and control keys makes things look more proportioned. Bottom line: looks wise, I’d go for an E72 over the E71.


B. Material
One of the letdowns was the back cover. I had expected something more like the E52 – brushed aluminum that’s not all shiny. Well, the E72’s cover is just like the E71’s: prone to fingerprints and it does a better job at keeping them on, thus it beats the E71.



Both back-covers can be used as mirrors, which is good for the ladies. My E71’s back-cover has a pattern of tiny squares which I like, whereas the E72 has the normal striped pattern. The back-cover is now shorter in length and stops at around 8 mm from the camera. It also doesn’t “hug” the phone on the sides like the E71’s back-cover did. You can remove it by sliding a little lock at the bottom of it. I had earlier mentioned that the back-cover on the E72 was loose. It actually is, but I got a confirmation that this is only because the device I have is a prototype and obviously has been through some cruel testing. It is guaranteed that the final version of the phone which will sell on the market will feel more robust and surely have a different firmware – to be covered later on. The material used is the same for both phones; shiny stainless steel combined with solid plastic, and an addition of brushed metal for the soft keys/call keys of the E72. The weight is approximately the same (on paper the E72 is 2g heavier than the E71) but in hand they feel the same.




C. Keyboard



And this is the main highlight here, the biggest part of this review. I will only be covering the physical aspect of the keyboard, leaving me some more time to test the rest of the phone features and compare differences with the E71. The Optical Navi Key will be covered later on as well.

First off, the keyboards on both phones are almost identical. I say almost because the E72 sports a smaller space-bar key which has left room for 2 additional keys on the bottom row. One is on the left side and is labeled “Sym” - it will bring up the Symbols menu on-screen and also functions as a shortcut for activating Bluetooth when pressed for 2 seconds. The E71 had this feature as well but with the U/asterisk key which now doesn’t activate anything on the E72. This new “Sym” button is clearly marked with the Bluetooth logo, and I find that nice. The second additional key is on the right and it could be any of the bottom 4 depending on how you see it; so here’s the succession of keys starting from the far right:

- Control button with “Silent” function marked with a barred musical note (same note appears on-screen next to the profile name when ringtones are turned off). It acts as a shortcut for switching between the General and Silent profiles. This feature was present in the E71 by pressing the hash key (J/#) for 2 seconds. I find the E72’s new layout to be more intuitive since you could locate this “silencer” key without looking at the keyboard. It’s the last button on the bottom row, hence you have quick access to it.

- The Apostrophe key with the “&” as a second function; short press for the first, long press for the second, or fn + key or shift + key… you know the drill.

- The Exclamation Mark key with the right parenthesis.

- The Question Mark key with the left parenthesis.


So what happened here is that the ? and ! have been separated and each was combined with a parenthesis, while the control key has been separated from the character key (as compared to the E71). The following images make this a bit clearer.



The space-bar key is now labeled with the space symbol and an additional torch symbol. This is because this same key can be used to switch on and off the LED flash round the back – a welcomed feature especially in my country where the electricity seems to play nasty tricks on us.

Other things to notice are the addition of the = on the O key, the changed shape of the “function” key at the bottom end on the left side, and of course the labeling of any two functions on a single key, which used to show two different characters placed one over the other but now shows two characters diagonally across the key.
Note that the last two buttons on each side of the last row are not as curved as the E71’s anymore, making them a bit bigger for a better feel.

The keyboard is evenly and well lit; I simply love it in the dark. It’s much better than the E71’s keyboard where keys used to look brightly lit towards the middle while the light faded out towards the two extremities.



Also, as you can see from the screen comparison shot, the light is much more intense on the E72 although both screens are set to their highest brightness levels. Colors are vivid, pictures look great, and the E72’s screen definitely beats the E71’s.



As for the d-pad and adjacent keys, they are much more spread on a larger space now. The d-pad is now more square-shaped, comes with the Optical Navi Key in the middle and the breathing light which is, by the way, much stronger than the one on the E71 – check below picture for that.





The One-touch keys are placed farther from the d-pad towards the extremities of the phone and have a slightly protruding/curved shape. This helps you rest your thumb on each of the keys and unmistakably distinguish between “home” and “calendar” on one side and “contacts” and “messaging” on the other.



Send/End keys are no longer in Green/Red, only plain white, and so are the rest of the keys. This color choice could be tricky with the Silver model as sometimes when the keyboard is not lit and there’s plenty of light around, the keys tend to get shiny and the labels aren’t clearly visible anymore. Same thing happens in dim light conditions and while the keyboard is not lit… It’s a contrast issue which was not there with the E71’s black/white keyboard combination, but which I have experienced with the silver E52.

D. Everything Else
The top part of the phone has lost the main highlight – the RED power button – which is now replaced by a silver power key right in the middle. The speaker is gone as well; it now sits on the back next to the camera (on the left of it). The 3.5mm audio jack (thank you Nokia) is now on the top and no longer on the side, the secondary camera and the light sensor are now on the right hand-side of the earpiece, while the bottom part has got the 2mm charging port and the strap hole.





On the left side are the microUSB charging port and the microSD card slot. Their positions have been switched in contrast to the E71 (the microSD slot used to be on top and the USB below it), and since the infrared port is gone, they now occupy the extreme top of this side.



On the other side is the record/mute button amidst the volume keys which are not similar in shape and have a silver color.




The camera on the back no longer sports the self-portrait mirror. It is labeled with “5.0 MPIX” and is yet to be put to test. The LED flash is on the left side rather than the right side. Nokia Eseries is engraved on the back-cover, nothing different to note here.



One thing I’ve also loved about the E72 is the ability to charge it by using a normal charger or a USB cable/adapter. This is not the case of, say, the N97 which you have to charge with a USB charger or by using the supplied adapter for normal chargers. Would have loved to see the little white LED next to the charging port like the one on the N97 but hey, we can’t have it all now can we?
This concludes the first part of my review. If you have any questions about the above, please let me know by comments. Next up is the camera test.