Nokia E75 Review

The Nokia E75 was only recently announced at this years MWC (formally known as 3GSM) in Barcelona.  2 new E-Series handsets were announced to the world in the form of the E75 and the E55, this is a review on the side sliding E75 device.

This review would not have been possible without the help and support from WOM World who yet again surprised me with a pre-release loan of a device.  The E75 is not currently on sale so a huge thank you to WOM for letting us have such a sought after handset so quick.

The main features of the E75 are:

S60 3rd Edition

Feature Pack 3.2

Dimensions: 111.8 x 50 x 14.4 mm

Weight: 139 g

369 MHz Processor

3.2 megapixel camera (2048 x 1536 pixels)

320 x 240 (QVGA) at 15 fps (Video Capture)

50 MB internal dynamic memory

Now onto the main part of the review starting with a look at the phone.

Looking Around The E75

You can pretty much look at the E75 as the next step up from the E71 which was a standard candybar form factor but with a QWERTY keypad to allow quick text entry.  The E75 has gone a step further by adding a normal keypad on the front and a slide out keyboard to the side which will allow fast text input but is not in your face when you dont need it.

So looking at the left hand side of the E75 you get a Mini USB port which is used to connect the handset to a computer for backing up data, printing your pictures, updating firmware and for software updates.  You can also use the phone as a Mass Storage device like a USB stick.  Below that is a memory card slot which comes with a 4GB card as standard in the box (MicroSD Format).  Ben Smith over at Mobile Industry Review also got hands on a E75 and is reporting the same as me with how hard the cover is to get off from the memory card slot if you wanted to swap over memory cards.  If more people report this once the handset is on sale it would have to go down as a design flaw which is surprising for a high end E-Series handset.

The right hand side of the phone as the volume up and down keys which is used for in calls and on the main menu. In between the volume buttons is asmall rectangle button with a small bobble on it which once held down opens up voice commands.

Below these you have the camera button which like on most phones, once you hold onto this the camera application loads up and you hold the phone like a normal camera to take a photo and save it.  You also get a lanyard hole in case you would want to wear this around your neck (I have yet to see anyone do this out and about)

The top of the E75 has a single 3.5mm headset jack which is great if you have your own headset like from an iPod or other music device.  The supplied headset does a good job but some premoim £50+ headsets do a great job on music playback and by having a 3.5mm jack you can choose which headset you want to use.

The bottom of the phone is simple too just having the now single small pin charger port to charge the phone using the supplied charger.

The back of the phone has a nice metal finish which really does make the E75 look a high end premium device and adds to the overall great look of the phone.  The back is where you will find the speakerphone, the 3.2 megapixel camera, LED flash and mirror for taking your own photo (does anyone know someone who actually uses this?)

Now onto the main part of the phone, the front.  Looking from the top you get a VGA camera which is used for video calls (well done Nokia for keeping the video call camera), the speaker for calls and a light sensor.

Below is a medium sized 2.4 inch screen which has had many people on forums complaining that it is too small. Well yes it is smaller than the E71 because that was a widescreen but in my testing for nearly 2 weeks I can honestly say from my personal point of view the screen size was NEVER a problem and not once did I wish it was bigger, I just got on using all the features.

Below the screen you will find the 2 shortcut keys, a green to call and red to end a call, Home, Delete, Calendar and Message shortcuts (as found on most E-Series now) and the 5 button navigational pad which has a glowing light when you have a missed call or a text.

Now for the new part from Nokia, the slide out keyboard.  Just turn the phone to the left and slide up the screen to reveal the 39 key QWERTY setup.  Each key has a letter and some have blue letters or numbers assigned to them.  To use these just press the blue arrow button and then the blue button of your choice.

When the E75 was announced I was really excited about getting the handset because as a heavy text user the thought of having a normal phone but a full QWERTY when needed was perfect for me.  However after using the phone I can only think of 2 occasions when I have actually used the slide out QWERTY, 98% of the time I have used the standard phone pad even for texting and emailing.  This was a big surprise when I looked back at how I used the phone for the 2 weeks because it was a main selling point for me before.

The only reason for the lack of QWERTY use I can really think of is that the keys are flat with the base of the phone so the keys are not raised.  This made it a little harder to type on than I had expected so went pack to the more traditional method.

Everyone will have their own opinion on the keypad and the screen size so where as I was fine with the screen and did not get on with the QWERTY, someone else might be the opposite.  My suggestion if possible is take time to try a handset in a Nokia store first if you are at all unsure about getting one.

Specification & Features

The E75 is defiantly not feature shy, it takes all of the great features from the top selling E71 and made them more up to date.

What I did like was on the home screen rather than having to go into your contacts, find the person you want to call and hit the green call button, all you have to do is start typing the name using the QWERTY keys. If will find the name of the person you want to contact, then when you select that contact you get options to voice call, video call (when in 3G coverage only), send a MMS or sent a SMS. This is such a handy feature and is found in the BlackBerry range so Nokia really are going all out to bring the best features to as many people as possible. This was my favourite feature of the E75 because it was just so handy when you wanted to contact people. I will really miss this feature when moving back to another phone from this.

Nokia Maps is included and this time in version 3.0 which is bang up to date with all the new features including my personal favorite where you can plan a trip online with your computer and then download it to your handset using OVI.  Very handy as long as you have Windows that is as it uses Internet Explorer so Mac fans have to wait…. myself included.

The Email client on the E75 has been completely stripped out and replaced with the Nokia Messaging setup instead which in the end I was very pleased with as it shows full HTML emails and is actually very easy to use.  The problem I had with the E75 Mail though was the initial setup in that I do not have a normal GMail, Hotmail or OVI account for my main email.  I have my own server for my worldofnokia.co.uk emails which is my primary account and this was not on the normal list of known accounts so it looked to me like it would not allow me to set it up on the E75 as all I got was error messages.  Then after clicking ‘Retry’ about 5 times it finally gave me the option to type in either an IMAP or POP3 account details which was what I needed.

Once setup though I did like the new client and it was great having it as the standard one so no need to download and have 2 email applications.

Although something I did notice was at times the E75 Email was slow to load, especially compared to the old client on my trusty Nokia 6120 Classic which still gets a lot of use even being nearly 2 years old.  On selecting Email on the menu because the new software is more animated to give a better user experience this slows down the speed of browsing and at times was a little annoying

OVI is also fully integrated in the E75 so if you take a picture and want to upload it, its right there in the camera application.  If you want to sync your phonebook or diary just use Sync built into the phone and your done.  The only thing you need is to make a free OVI account on the OVI.com website and your ready to go.

Being E-Series there are some extra business style app’s you wont find on N-Series. These are under the ‘Office’ section and include

• Active Notes which is a more advanced Notes package
• Intranet which allows you with the right settings and permissions to access a company Intranet

You also get the main ones like File Manager, Calculator, Clock and Adobe PDF for viewing of PDF files

What surprised me was there IS NGage on the E75 and it actually worked very well.  When I tried to install it on the E71 I would get an error message saying not supported and on looking on the official NGage website neither the E75 or E71 are on the list, yet the E75 had the installer under Applications and within a few minutes I was playing the free trial of Monopoly and Prince of Persia.

The controls were a little hard because unlike on the N96, N95 8GB and N85 there is no dual slide which is usually used for in game options like shoot and pass on FIFA 09.  Still, it was great to see NGage on a E-Series handset and with the new multiplayer games being made available, and many networks offering unlimited data tariffs this was a very nice addition.

The camera was also pretty good for an E-Series device at 3.2 megapixels this was more than enough for a phone aimed more at connectivity and business use.  The camera is the same as on the Nokia E71 and has Auto-Focus and a single LED light for a flash.  The camera wont blow you away but this was never the intention of the E75, if you want a 5 megapixel camera or above you would look for the N-Series which are more multimedia based.

Nokia SportsTracker

Although this software works on pretty much any Nokia with GPS it was a real joy to use on the Nokia E75.  I have never really got into this application before until now as I have been training for a 1/2 Marathon of Torbay so thought that being in the open with my Nokia E75, GPS to track me and Stereo Bluetooth headset streaming music was a great use of technology and also was just plain cool to be using it to it’s max.

The screenshot above shows the normal ‘Map’ mode and looks like a Nokia Maps screenshot.  Simply sign up for a free account on the Sports Tracker website, install the software to your Nokia (with GPS) and login.  The phone will then lock onto a GPS signal and track your movements and record them on the phone.  Once you have finished you can upload the results to your own account online to keep a track which is what I have been doing.

This is the same as the Map screen but using a Satalite view so you can get more detail of your workout.  Again very handy for someome in training to look back on or anyone who just wants to keep fit and track what they have done.

What is cool about this software is the amount of information it captures so not just mapping your distance using GPS but also working out your average speed you ran/walked, how many steps you took, the altitude vs speed so you can see where you peak and where you need to step up a gear.

For a free piece of software to do so much was a real surprise and I will miss using this when I go back to a Nokia 6120 at times (the 6120 has no GPS).  I now enjoy walking home from work because I can listen to my music and when i get back I can see a visual guide of what I just did, how many calories it has burnt, how many steps I took and compare to previous workouts.

Connectivity Options

The E75 is packed with different ways to connect to the Internet or transfer data. These are:

• HSDPA 3.6mb/s
• GPRS
• HSCSD
• EDGE
• Bluetooth
• WiFi 802.11 b/g

Just like the Nokia E71, the E75 is a connectivity powerhouse with all the main connection options for use as a modem, sending files and getting onto the internet.

This was to be expected from a top end business device such as this.

Battery Life & Build Quality

Battery life on the E75 was actually very respectable giving me between 2 and 3 days use and i had a lot of things running too.  On average I had running:

• Nokia Email checking 2 accounts every 30 minutes for new messages
• Around 3-4 hours of on and off web surfing using HSDPA
• Sent an average of 30 texts a day
• Made an average of 15mins of phone calls a day

With all this in mind and the quite heavy data use at times getting between 2 and 3 days from a single charge was more than enough for me.

I was also impressed with the build quality of the E75.  E-Series devices are usually know for their high standards especially when compared to the more plastic handsets in the N-Series range.  The only annoying thing is the memory card cover is a real pain to take off when you want to swap over memory cards.

Final Thoughts

So to wrap things up, I had use of a Nokia E75 for around 2 weeks and I used it as my main phone to get the most out of the features, and I was not disappointed.

The overall build quality was of a high standard with the metal finish on the back adding extra weight and strength to the phone.  The only problems i had with the build quality were t times the phone would ‘click’ when in use simply because its made from 2 parts and when the phone is closed they would click together.  The other was as mentioned before the memory card cover was a pain in the ar$e to open if i wanted to put my own memory card in.  This is ok if you don’t have a card and use what you get in the box but as I have a 8GB card with all my music on it so would be stuck.  The problem is the cover is opened by a very thin bit of plastic that is hard to get hold of, and if that snapped off you would be stuck for good

The battery was  very good giving me between 2-3 days of use even with using the browser a lot, texting a lot and having both my World Of Nokia Email and InstantEmail accounts being checked every 30 minutes for any updates.

Speed of a OS was not an issue either even with the transitions turned on so the menu would not just jump from 1 to another but would animate whilst opening.

The camera was pretty good for a E-Series handset offering 3.2 megapixels and a LED flash on what is going to be looked at as a business style device.

Since the Nokia E66 and E71 my views of the E-Series have changed, I used to not take much of an interest in E-Series as it was always for business people with corporate accounts and large contact lists.  However since running this website i have had to manage my time much more and this is where E-Series excels over N-Series.  I get many emails daily, need to add and use contacts on a daily basis, use web browsing and add dates into my calendar and more so find the E75 a handy phone to have.

The E75 is defiantly worth a look if your in the market for a new businesses phone and even if your looking for a personal phone.  No news yet on which networks will take this device but launch is due for April 2009 so not long to wait now.  Take a look at one for yourself to see how you feel about the keyboard and the screen size because there is so much choice out there now, best be sure before you buy.

Of out 10 i would give the E75 a score of 8 because of the flat keyboard and the rather annoying memory card cover.

If you were to ask was I personally going to buy a E75 that is a very hard question to answer although if I really thought about how I use a phone then the answer would be ‘no’ for the simple reason that I have always been a bigger fan of the N-Series.  In fact the camera is the first thing I look for when buying a new phone and although the E75 ticks all the right boxes for me on a email and calendar side, multimedia is what I look for so will be saving for a N97.

If I was in the market for an E-Series device this would easily be top of the list and even though the E71 won the ‘World Of Nokia Phone of 2008′ award, the E75 overall beats it with it’s slide out keyboard, new features and really good build quality.

Again a big thank you to WOM World for allowing World Of Nokia to trial a pre-release E75 and review for the site.

Filed Under: Reviews

Tags: e75, review