Nokia E72 Full Review - The Verdict (Updated 15/12/09)

I’ve spent the last week with a Finnish device that has a heavy burden on the shoulders: to stand up to all E71 lovers’ expectations and perhaps draw in a dozen Nseries fanatics. Usually, the more you expect from a certain a device the less you tend to like if it fails to deliver. Like when the N97 came out, we all thought it was going to be THE Nokia device that will replace all. Unfortunately, the N97 needed and still needs a bit of tweaking and upgrading to live up to that hype. The E72, well, it did not disappoint me. Truth be told, whatever I expected it to be turned out a fact, and though I had been a hardcore E71 user and Eseries lover for the past year, I’m totally convinced the shift to the E72 is justified. It should be made.

Nokia E72 Full Review - Part 4: Multimedia/Browsing

The fourth part of this extensive review covers the multimedia and browsing capabilities of the E72. Note that I had previously mentioned the battery was still on 3 bars for 3 days, but when I fired off the Maps application and the GPS got a lock for a couple of minutes and then closed that and listened to some music (for around half an hour), I had to recharge by the end of that session. So now that the phone is juiced up, we can continue abusing it.

Nokia E72 Full Review - Part 3: Performance/UI

One of the few things I’d think of changing with the E71 is its performance. One of the best if not THE best Nokia performer of all-time, the E71 was able to handle anything I threw at it, except bullets of course, but with the right application and Python runtime installed, maybe it’ll be able to do some dodging, Neo-style. So the E72 comes in this year keeping the same amount of RAM the E71 has – 128MB – which seemed great for the predecessor. The upgrade also features a new speedy processor – 600MHz instead of 369MHz, and the now-mature Feature Pack 2. One of the letdowns of the announcement back in June 2008 was the OS version. The FP2 had surfaced for a while, the N78 was out running it, but Nokia went for FP1 instead. Before I move on, if some terms sound like gibberish to you, then maybe you ought read Eldar’s review of both the FP1 and FP2. Let’s carry on. So I guess Nokia played it safe. Instead of letting its Superphone run a new OS version, Nokia decided to inject it with the stable FP1 version, along with some crappy looking icons. I could live with that feature pack but I could never look at my phone’s menu with those hideous grey icons around. They just felt...old. But now, all that has changed.

Nokia E72 Full Review - Part 2: Camera

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And in this case, I believe all you’re interested in is to see how good the pictures taken by the E72 really are. So I’m posting around 30 thousand words worth of pictures and going to be bed early tonight.

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.

Nokia E72: First Impressions

One of the devices I’ve been eagerly waiting to get my hands on is the Nokia E72 – the successor to one of Nokia’s most successful devices ever – the E71. Up until the day I’ve won the N97, my primary device was the E71, while I used to test all others for a couple of days before getting back to my favorite keyboard. Today was on happy day; I got a call, the Nokia E72 was on its way to my desk. I was excited but a bit worried; I didn’t want anything to ruin the fact that I still think the E71 rules and wanted the E72 to rule as well.

Contra Theme feels like Deep Ocean

Another fellow Symbian themer out there providing Symbian lovers with free/paid themes is Dhanusaud. Today I’ve picked the Contra 3.0 theme for review. It’ a full SVG theme meaning it’ll fit your screen no matter what, and it features a new digital/analog clock and a nicely integrated background. Besides the green color, blue is a favorite. And this theme right here ticks the correct boxes.

Nokia N97 versus my laptop

Since my 5530XM has been sent to get some work done – I dropped it at the NCC for replacing the antenna; I will have to delay reviewing it. Meanwhile, here’s a post I’ve been preparing during my last trip to Germany.

The EVOLUTION of Themes

Tehk is definitely my favorite themer right now. If you recall in my first post I had mentioned that my current preferred theme was SHI by Tehkseven and this particular theme is the first that I install whenever I’m customizing a new phone. Just yesterday, Tehk released another great paid theme called Evo Bold. This one is dark and could suit the Darth Vader in you. I like dark themes too damn much and I’m loving this one. Actually, Tehk made it awfully hard for me to choose between the warm red-colored SHI and the dark 3D-looking EVO.

Nokia 5530XpressMusic: First Impressions

The newest addition to my arsenal of mobile phones is the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic. As part of the routine, here-below is an overview of the device before the big review – a small “first impressions” piece. This will give readers a quick heads-up on what the device feels like out of the box, and would help me set some signposts for the review. Being totally objective with this, expect some points to be proven wrong when the full in-depth review comes out. Here it goes:

Back in business

A quick apology to all the readers of the blog; I'll be back to blogging as of tonight. I have been on a business trip to Germany - no, not for Nokia World - nevertheless, I will be covering the event and the new handsets once I'm back home. I had the chance to mess around with the Nokia N97 mini and the X6 and quite frankly, as a first impression, I found the former to be simply a smaller replica of the N97 (that's what the name says anyway) and the latter to be a bigger version of the 5530XM. Anyway, more to come on both handsets and the rest of the good stuff during the upcoming few days.

Thank you for your patience.