Nokia E75: Hands-on with the new Nokia smart phone.
The E75 has crept into the mobile phone market with all the stealth of a particularly sneaky ninja but we have managed to get our hands on one and we were are fairly impressed with how it performs, but it does have some issues that need addressing.
The first thing that strikes you about the E75 how it looks. The E75 is a slider which is pretty rare for a smart phone. The front of the E75 slides to the right to reveal a full QWERTY keypad. The slide mechanism itself is reassuringly steady, unlike some of Nokia's N-series phones, specifically the Nokia N95.
An accelerometer is automatically activated when you slide the front of the E75 so you can only use the QWERTY keyboard when the phone is in landscape mode. One gripe we did have with the QWERTY keypad was that we found the keys to be a bit stiff, so writing was not the most pleasant experience. The d-pad used to navigate your way through the menus is also a bit small and fiddly to use.
The 2.4-inch display on the E75 is clear and sharp and puts out a decent range of colours, which is handy when you are navigating your way around the Symbian S60 user interface. The interface itself will hold no surprises for anyone who has used a Nokia before, but we did find the top row of icons a bit small when the phone is in portrait mode. This is remedied by using the standard phone menu but it would have been nice to perform most tasks comfortably without having to go to a different menu.
Aside from the various business functions, the E75 possesses some multimedia power that makes using the phone a little bit more fun.
There’s an MP3 player and FM radio included so you can listen to music on the go. A 3.2 megapixel camera has also been included but in all honesty we found it very average. The viewfinder seems a bit dark and image quality is substandard so we wouldn't throw away your digital camera just yet.
Overall the E75 left us with some very mixed first impressions. On the one hand, it is a great business handset that will definitely appeal to users who have already owned an E-series model previously and are looking to upgrade. But we seriously doubt that it will tempt some Blackberry users away from their precious Backberries! Stay tuned for a full review soon.
