Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Nokia E75 Review

The Windows Mobile community long had the bar with qwerty keyboard slider form factor with their HTC S710. Finally Nokia delivers a S60 device in this form factor to meet the demands of the continually growing text messaging crowd. This was the form factor that I had hoped for a long time that Nokia would make. The slider merges the convenience of a keypad for quick calls while offering a full qwerty for typing out long messages. Find out if the E75 delivers the goods in my review. The firmware on my E75-2 is V 100.48.78 25-03-09 (the initial production firmware). The box contains the phone, AC-8U charger, CA-101 USB data cable, HS-43 Stereo Music Headset, Nokia 4GB microSDHC class 4 memory card, Nokia E-series carrying case, and Nokia CD with utilities and programs.



I must admit, I didn't think I'd get the chance to review the E75-2 NAM so soon. Thanks to WOM World for supplying me the E75-2 in this review.

Full review after the jump.

Quick facts:
Name: Nokia E75-2 NAM (RM-413)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 850/1900
Weight: 139 g
Dimensions: 112 x 50 x 14.4 mm
Battery life (stand by): 270 hours (WCDMA), 280 hours (GSM)
Battery life (talk): 260 minutes (WCDMA), 320 minutes (GSM)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S
RAM: 128 MB

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) China.

The E75 closed:

A simple looking bar phone with the classic Nokia looks.

The E75 opened:

Inside hides the slide out QWERTY keyboard for increased typing speeds.

Top of the phone features simply the 3.5mm headset jack. Left of the phone have the microUSB and microSD slot which have a slight bump for your finger to nudge open. Right of the phone has the recorder, volume rocker, and dedicated camera button (great addition to the E-series devices). The volume rocker is not lighted but is sturdy like the E71.

Aesthetics
Nokia has been hitting the right design cues in their phones lately and the E75 is no exception with its nice metal accent and classy design. Its slide out keyboard has made many people compare the E75 to the very popular E71 and venerable E90.
The glossy top half of the phone mean you'll have lots of fingerprint smudges. The E75's top half has a little noticable wobble when closed and opened. Pushing on the top while the phone is open bends the top slightly. It didn't feel like it would break but makes you a little worried.

The E75 shares a number of design cues from the E71 (right).

The status LED lies right under the d-pad so the ring between the center key and navigation ring will blink when an e-mail arrives. Unfortunately the LED doesn't blink frequent enough and not bright enough to notice. I couldn't tell the difference between the normal blink and the email notification blink.

The keypad light is strong. As with most phones these days, lighting is controlled by a light sensor.

The E75 while closed


The E75 while opened

The number pad is disabled while the phone is opened so it's not lighted.

The SIM mechanism is similar to the E71 but even worst. I have a hard time sliding out the SIM card from its holder.

Although the E75 doesn't have a rubber padding on the back of the battery cover, the snug fit and finish of the E75 produces no creaking or rattling.

In terms of thickness, the E75 is just a tad thicker than the E71 if you factor in the E71's camera bulge:

The E75 is thin compared to Nokia's older bar phones like the N82:


Display
The E75 uses a 2.4 inch screen with the same pixel density (320x240) as many of Nokia's other non-touch S60 phones. The screen feels small on this phone because of the large amount of black at the top when closed. But the screen is not too off center when the phone is opened. The E75 perfomed well under direct sunlight with emails readable without having to tilt the screen.

The E75 display has a higher contrast compared to the E71. It looks more vivid than the N82

To help conserve battery power, the E75 has a power saver timeout that blanks the entire screen and blinks the LED under the D-pad. unlike the E71, turning off the Breathing Light will not disable the screen from turning all black.

Keypad

The combination of a number pad and slide out QWERTY keyboard in a compact phone is the E75's selling point. But were compromises made in Nokia's first slide out keyboard phone?

The number pad:

The numberpad keys are very loose and feel cheap feeling. You can push them in between the rows of keys.


The number keys have a lot of give when you push between them

The lowest set of keys are too low on the phone making some keys like * very hard to hit. The left soft key is very close to the home key so i frequently hit the Home key instead so i have to navigate back to where i was. The right soft key shares the same piece of plastic as the Delete key so it's not unusual to hit delete and see the e75 try to delete an application while navigating the menus.
The D pad is very creaky when i push up and also very stiff.
The Bluetooth toogle on the * key is a nice addition allowing quick enabling and disabling of Bluetooth.

The QWERTY keyboard:


Tactile feedback on the qwerty keyboard is at the center of the key so if you hit off center, the phone registers the keypress but you don't get a satisfying feedback. The keys are not very deep so feedback is limited. It takes me more energy to type on the E75's full keyboard than on the E71. The keys are fairly wide so one handed operation is close to impossible. with my index fingers along the sides of the phone when typing, i found it hard to reach the left most keys with my left hand and right most keys with my right hand. It's nice that nokia included the backspace key in both the top have of the phone and bottom. The phone is top heavy so it lies well in your hand with your thumbs behind but typing upside down is a challenge as it tends to fall forward. Pushing the D pad with the phone open will slightly bend the top half back and creak a bit. I was concerned it'd break on me.

The QWERTY keyboards compared between the E75 and the E71:

I still find the E71 more comfortable to type with because it has more closely packed domed keys

I've typed this review on the E75 using the included Notes and find it more difficult to type compared to the E71. I wasn't fond of the flat keys making it difficult to feel the separation.


Software

The E75 is a snappy phone with very fast response throughout the menu.

Impressively, the E75 switches between landscape (QWERTY keyboard opened) and portrait (QWERTY keyboard closed) very quickly. By default the keypad will lock when you close the slider but you can customize this in Ctrl. Panel > Settings > General > Slide Handling

As you may have heard, or not, the E75 runs S60 FP2 but with some modifications. It's very similar to the E71 modifications but include improved icons based on FP5.

Note that some software don't work with the E75 so be sure to test out all your applications. This is what I've observed:
- S60SpotOn doesn't work
- Screenshot doesn't work.
- Vampent vBag doesn't work

Although Nokia has once again rejuggled where everything is again. S60 still needs a lot more work to be intuitive for first time users. For example to handle Wifi connections you don't look under Control Panel > Connectivity (where WLAN wizard and Conn. Mgr reside) but you have to look in Ctrl Panel > Settings > Connection > Destination > Internet.

Mail
Nokia has finally added HTML support to their S60 mail but the HTML version of the email arrives as an attachment to the text email. The recently released Blackberry Bold and iPhone both support embedded HTML so the email appears formatted once you open it.
Email allows you to highlight the sender and recipients but you still can't copy or email them individually.
Unlike the Blackberry, the E71 will continue to display a wallpaper behind emails messages instead of a flat color as it does when scrolling down the contacts page. This can make reading emails difficult if the background has similar colors to the text. Thankfully the included themes use a white text and dark background.

Blackberry
Much to the bemoan of a few users, the Nokia E75 doesn't supports Blackberry Connect like the E61. The E75 supports Microsoft's Exchange Active Sync through their Mail for Exchange software. Unlike other E-series, you can't upgrade the Mail for Exchange software through the separate Mail for Exchange install file.

Stability
During my time with the E75, I only recall about 3 reboots in the three weeks I've had the phone.

Multimedia
Those who say S60 is designed mainly for creating and not geared as much to consume multimedia must not fully use their phone. Out of the box the E71 supports H.264 video, the same video format used by the iPhone. With some added third party software like Coreplayer and MobiTubia, the E75 can open DiVX movies and stream YouTube videos. With the included 3.5mm stereo headsets (or get yourself a pair of AD2P stereo Bluetooth headsets) and music player supporting album art, you can easily have your favorite MP3s blasting in your ears. If you're an audiophile then you can install OggPlayer. S60 gives you more flexibility than both the locked down iPhone and the "lacking in software" Blackberry.

Camera
The E75 includes a 3.2 MP camera with autofocus and macro mode. Sounds the same as the E71 but it's a lot better.

The E75 sports a LED for flash and a mirror for self portraits

The E75 uses the same camera software as the N-series line of devices.

Camera uses the dedicated camera button which is a big improvement over the E71.
You can silent the camera but the led will automatically flash.

Outdoor Auto (E75, E71, N82):


Indoor Macro (E75, E71, N82):


Outdoor Auto (E75, N82):


Outdoor Macro (E75, N82):


Dim Indoor with Nightmode (E75, E71, N82):


Dim Indoor with flash (E75, E71, N82):


The E75 produced very impressive photos under direct sunlight that rivalled Nokia's photo-centric N82. Colors reproduction was more accurate just siding a little to more vivid. The night photos with and without flash were very poor. The E71 photos were poor in any condition and not worth mentioning.

Video
The maximum video recording resolution supported by the E75 is 640 x 480 at 29fps which puts it on par with N-series devices. Unfortuately, the results weren't so great.

These are the available quality settings:
TV high quality: MP4 640 x 480 29fps 2.93Mbps
TV normal quality: MP4 640 x 480 15fps 1.46Mbps
E-mail high quality: MP4 320 x 240 29fps 873kbps
E-mail norm. quality: MP4 320 x 240 15fps 454.
Sharing quality: 3GPP 176 x 144 15fps 93kbps

*Sample video offline*

The image quality is very grainy in an indoor setting. The camera is also not set to be focussed on close up objects.


Reception
The E75 had about the same number of bars as the N82. Although bars isn't an accurate measurement of a phone's reception but a phone without bars can't make calls.

Speakerphone
The audio was not as loud as the N82 but good in a quiet setting.

Headset
I didn't have a chance to test this.

Connectivity
Unlike the Blackberry and iPhone, the E75 offers a wealth of Bluetooth profiles that allows you to share files with other devices, listen to music over a wireless stereo bluetooth headset, or sync data to your home computer.
Sadly, after a number of criticisms, Nokia has removed infrared from this E-series device. I still primarily use infrared to share small files between laptops that don't yet have Bluetooth.
Connecting the E71 to a computer using a USB cable will automatically keypad unlock the phone (but not phone unlock) allowing you to select the connection type (mass storage, nokia suite, etc.)

WiFi
The WiFi sensitivity is weaker, picking up less wireless routers, than the Nokia N82 but stronger than the E71. As usual, the sensitivity is weaker than the standard Centrino package from Intel for laptops.

In case you were wondering, you can find the E75's MAC address behind the battery or on the box. I wish it came up with the *#0000# command on the home screen.

Global Positioning (GPS)
The E75 has an integrated GPS chip to get an accurate position of the phone.

Here is a comparison of the E75 to the E71 GPS status screen:

Both phones had their GPS started at the same time from cold boot

The N82 was consistently faster at locking a position and much more sensitive. The E75 usually took 1 minute more to lock compared to the N82. The E75 locked on far faster than the E71 which never achieved a lock on within 10 minutes.

Time to lock is dependent on your location and weather conditions. Turning on assisted GPS in Tools > Settings > General > Positioning > Positioning Methods will reduce lock time but requires a data connection.

External Memory
Like most other S60 Nokia handsets, the E75-2 NAM includes a memory card with the retail package (4GB microSDHC class 4). However it easily supported the 2GB microSD and 8GB microSDHC cards I had on hand. The small slot and rubber cover make inserting the memory card very tricky. Make sure you don't insert the card upside down because it's really hard to take out. The memory card goes gold connector side facing up.

Battery
The E75 uses a thin BL4U Nokia battery with 1000mAH to keep the thickness down. The 1000mAH is adequate for light usage. Under medium usage with occasion wifi and GPS usage, the E75 lasted about 1.5 days compared to 3 days with my E71 under similar usage.

The E75 still has the smaller Nokia charger jack at the bottom. But, surprisingly, also supports USB charging through the microUSD jack! I wish all Nokia phones will keep both because I still have a lot of legacy Nokia chargers.

Conclusion
After 3 weeks of testing the E75, I grew to like it. I initially didn't like the cheap feeling numberpad and disliked the flat wide QWERTY keyboard but I slowly got used to the QWERTY keypad. The camera on the E75 is possibly the best on an E-series device. It gave my N82 a good challenge. Unfortunately photos in dim situations were not so good. The E75 supports Rogers and AT&T highspeed 3G HSDPA networks and 802.11b/g wifi giving users a variety of connection methods. Nokia's open nature with software ensures a wealth of third party software is available for the S60 platform. If you're a business user who doesn't need Blackberry support or a frequent text message sender looking for a phone with a QWERTY keyboard and multimedia capabilities, I highly recommend taking a look at the Nokia E75. It is the form factor that I had longed for but I like my E71 much more and the Xenon flash on my N82 always wins. If you can't carry two phones with you, then the E75 is a great mix of the two!

Ratings:
Performance...........9
Build quality...........8
Keypad...................7
Connectivity...............9
Features for $.........9
Software................8
Camera..................8
Battery life.............7

Overall.....................8


PROS:
*compact design
*lots of memory to run apps simultaneously
*WiFi
*very impressive camera under sunlight
*Great incoming sound
*lots of existing S60 games/apps
*landscape screen
*long lasting battery
*number pad or QWERTY keyboard when needed
*slim design

CONS:

*HTML in e-mails as attachments
*grainy camera in dark
*Paying for navigation in Nokia Maps
*small screen
*wide keyboard
*smudges easily
*organization of menu items still not intuitive

Friday, June 19, 2009

Nokia N86 8MP Preview



I'm currently at London's Heathrow Airport (LHR) in Terminal 5 International waiting for a flight back to Canada. Interestingly there is a Nokia store right inside the airport with prices usually 15% off the UK market price and no tax! Not only that - they carry the latest Nokia phones. One of them being the N97 and the other is the N86 8MP!!


It looks similar to the N85 but with a more subdued color scheme.

More photos after the jump.


The OLED screen is almost the same as the N85 but the slight tint makes it easier to see under direct light. I still have to try it under direct sunlight.


Sliding the screen up exposes the number pad.


The side profile is similar to the N85.


Sliding the screen down exposes the multimedia keys that look better than those on the N85.


The number pad looks very retro like those found on phones 5 years ago like the T610but it was very comfortable to use with great tactile feedback.


The 8MP camera exposed.

First impressions: The build quality is a big improvement over the wobbly N85. Nokia has got it right this time and it's almost as tight as the E65. The phone doesn't creak and has a good weight to it. The UI is snappy and uses a theme similar to the 5800. The camera is fast to start up and I will be updating this blog entry with sample photos I took with the N86 compared to my trusty N82. As I mentioned before the keypad looks ugly but it is very functional and nicely spaced. the buttons are a tad small if you have big fingers.

There really isn't anything bad to say about this phone in terms of build and usage but it's a phone that the N85 should've been. With the N97 stealing the spot light, the N86 is actally more exciting for me. After a little price drop, I'm definitely going to pick up this phone. I highly recommend you drop by your local Nokia store to try out the phone. You won't be disappointed!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Nokia E72 Leaked



The E71 upgrade rumoured to come with a 5MP camera and in the form of a E71i has been leaked and it's currently being called the E72.

The following are rumoured changes from the E71:
- 5MP camera with autofocus
- QWERTY keyboard to resemble the E63 with a shortened space bar
- optical mouse rather than a Dpad (allows you to swipe to scroll down like the Blackberry's navigational ball)
- 3.5mm headset jack at the top
- speakers on rear by camera
- comes in black and 2 bland greys
- runs S60 3rd edition FP2
- integrated Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat

The E71 has almost been out for a year so it's just about the right time to refresh one of Nokia's best selling phones. The 5MP camera may just push me over to upgrade so I don't need to carry my N82, for its 5MP, with me.

More photos after the jump.

The 5MP camera:

I'm glad they kept the etched battery cover.

The side profile shows the volume keys, 3.5mm headset jack, and power button:


Now featuring an optical mouse:


Different "colors":


With the addition of a 5MP camera, Nokia is keeping an already great design fresh.

Are you excited? :)

Update with live photos:

Image from budip

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Nokia N85 Review

The Nokia N85 is positioned as the successor to the Nokia's prized N95. The N95 introduced a number of firsts for Nokia such as the 5MP camera, built-in GPS, and dual slide. There is high expectations for the N85 to replace such an amazing phone. Nokia has chosen the safe route with only slightly improving the N95 formula with a spring loaded lens cover, adding dual LED flash, changing to an OLED display while keeping the camera at 5MP, GPS, and wifi. No significant new features were added. The firmware on my N85 is V 10.045 (the initial production firmware). The box contains the phone (N85-1), battery (BL-5K: Extended 850 mAh), charger (AC-10), Nokia 8GB microSD card (MU-43), Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U), USB cable (CA-101) and stereo headset with controls (HS-45, AD-54), and Nokia CD with utilities and programs.



Quick facts:
Name: Nokia N85-1
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100
Weight: 128 g
Dimensions: 103 x 50 x 16 mm
Battery life (stand by): 360 hours (GSM), 360 hours (WCDMA)
Battery life (talk): 414 minutes (GSM), 270 (WCDMA)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) Finland

Aesthetics
The N85 continues with Nokia's Nseries design with a simple glossy exterior, square ring dpad, and minimal markings.

Front Closed

The D-pad carries the Nokia ring design with a center key and up/down/left/right all on a ring. The ring is fairly narrow so playing fast paced games is a little tricky with it. The call and end buttons include a little sliver of green/red respectively to easily feel out where the buttons are. The actual call and end buttons occupy a larger area and the ends of the phone but are flush with the rest of the phone.

Back Closed

A simplistic back with a textured look. I'm not keen on the mocha brown but it does bring up the texture better than if it were all black. The difference between the black front and rear brown isn't as noticable in person

In my hands

The N85 has a good weight giving it a solid high quality feel. The N85 doesn't creak while it's closed but does have a wobble on the slide mechanism when the phone is opened. It has a better slide than the N95 but not as stiff and solid as the E65.

The phone has a glossy finish on both the front and back so the N85 collects fingerprints and smudges easily. The side is a non-glossy metallic color so it doesn't smudge. Since the phone is so smooth, I found myself having to nudge the bottom of the top half to open the N85. Not really convenient but I'd probably get used to it.

N85 compared to the N82

The N85 is a tad thinner than my N82 which is a good feat for a feature packed slider.

The phone has slightly rounded sides so it's tricky to get standing up on it's own to take photos.

The SIM mechanism is similar to the E71, which I'm not a fan of. Taking the SIM out is very tricky and I end up using my nails to slowly pull it out.


Keypad
The N85 is a dual slider like the N95 and N96 before it so you can slide the top half up to reveal the number pad or slide the top half down to reveal the 4 media keys.

Dpad


The number pad:

A rubber separates horizonal keys from each other so you can feel the top keys from the lower keys. However there is no separator between keys vertically beside each other so it's hard to feel the difference between 1 and 2 keys.

The 4 media keys are unlit when the phone is off:


Clicking either the number pad or media keys gives the user a click feedback to confirm the key was pressed. The click is loud and feels a little sticky like the number pad of the Motorola Razr or the Nokia 6650.

The keypad light is strong, evenly lit, and no light leaking. This is one of the best lighted Nokia devices. The D-pad is not lighted however. As with most phones these days, lighting is controlled by a light sensor.


Display
The stand out feature of the N85 is the 2.6 inch OLED screen used. The screen resolution is 240 x 320 and can display up to 16.7M colors. The difference between an OLED display and a traditional LED display is the lighting where each pixel lights up on the OLED so black is when pixels don't light up while traditional LED is backlit so black is still lighted up. Thus blacks look very black on an OLED giving better vibrate colors.


Unforunately there is a drawback to the OLED that is its visibility under direct sunlight. As you can see in the following photo, there is too much glare to comfortably see what's on the screen.


Multimedia Features

Camera
The N85 features a 5 megapixel (MP) camera with a Carl Zeiss lens which has been featured in numerous Nseries phones since the N95. The camera user interface (UI) in the N85 resembles recent N-series phones and takes pictures in the portait orientation.

A small spring loaded cover protects the lens. I prefer the side switch found on the N82 over pushing down on the actual cover but both work.


For a list of all the different settings and modes, please refer to my Nokia N82 review.

Daylight with Automatic setting (N85 / N82)

The N85 produced a slightly more detailed photo as you can see in the bricks around the "For Sale" sign. But the N85 photo had a slight yellow tint to it.

Daylight with Automatic setting (N85 / N82)

The N85 photo shows a lot better detail on the branches and leaves of the tree. The N82 seems to have a very narrow focus area so most of the tree ends up being a blur.

Dimly lit night mode with no flash (N85 / N82)

The N85 produced a far noiser photo but was brighter than the N82.

Dimly lit night mode with flash (N85 / N82)

There is just no competition here. The N82's Xenon flash produced a much sharper photo as you can see from the box label and less noise in the photo.

Macromode with Automatic setting and no flash (N85/ N82)

The N85 produced a noiser photo but detail is comparable.

Macromode with Automatic setting with flash (N85 / N82)

The N85 produced a slightly yellowy photo. Detail is comparable on each. Flash doesn't make as much of a difference up close.


Video
The N85 also records video. You can record directly to the memory card and length of the movie is only bound by the amount of free space available. It's the same settings as the N95 and N82. Videos came out my fuzzy and desaturated than the N82.

GPS
As with most recent Nseries, the N85 packs an internal GPS that connects to GPS satellites and does not require data. I heavily rely on this functionality to help me get around so the GPS sensitivity is an important factor for me.

So I compared the lock on time after a cold boot of the phone:

E71 vs. N85

The N85 was faster to lock on than the E71.

N82 vs. N85

The N82 locked on a lot faster than the N85

GPS sensitivity is no where close to the performance of the older N82 but at least things have improved compared to the E71 which shares the same GPS chipset.

External Memory
The memory card is hot swappable so you can take it out while the phone is on. The N85 prompts or alerts you that the memory card is being removed when you open the rubber protector. The thin plastic cover is sturdy on my phone but I don't recommend playing with it as I think it will wear out quickly and become loose.



Battery
I found myself out of power after about 2 days of use. I would have GSM only, make around 30 minutes of calls, browse the web for 10 minutes, and launch GPS for about 15 minutes. Charging from 1 bar of battery to full took less than an hour. It's unfortunate that Nokia had to shrink the battery capacity to fit the slim profile of the N85.


Ratings:
Performance...........9
Build quality...........7
Keypad...................8
Connectivity...............9
Features for $.........9
Software................9
Camera..................8
Battery life.............8

Overall.....................8


Nokia has produced a worth successor to the uber popular N95 with a smaller phone, same sized but better quality screen, and impressive imagine quality. For me, what holds the N85 from replacing my N82 is the lack of Xenon flash, poor night photos, and slow GPS lock time. I definitely recommend new users to Nokia S60 check out the N85 as their first power phone.

PROS:
*attractive design
*WiFi
*Strong RF with triband 3G
*Fast high quality camera
*GPS
*Large, sharp, and brilliant OLED display
*impressive 5MP camera quality in daylight

CONS:
*Poor display visibility under direct sunlight
*Lack of Xenon flash
*Unimpressive dimly lit photos
*Slow GPS locking