Unboxed – Nokia E72
A new touchscreen phone is born roughly every three seconds, but fans of physical QWERTY keyboards aren't interested in those show ponies – they've be
A new touchscreen phone is born roughly every three seconds, but fans of physical QWERTY keyboards aren’t interested in those show ponies – they’ve been waiting for this, Nokia’s E72. The successor to our current no.4 smartphone, the E71, it’s arrived just in time for a type-off with the Blackberry Bold 9700.
Nokia has wisely tweaked rather overhauled its flagship E series phone. The E72 is extremely well built, with the same plated rear battery cover and stainless steel trim as its predecessor. It’s also a slender 10mm thick, with the only disappointment being that it’s screen is still 320×240 (the Blackberry Bold 9700’s is 480×360).
One advantage the E72 does have over its Blackberry Bold foe is a new 5MP camera (up from 3.2MP), which has an LED flash and also takes VGA video.
The keyboard, complete with domed buttons, is based on the E63’s rather than the E71 – which is fine with us because it’s a slight improvement, with dedicated buttons for symbols like ‘@’ for extra speedy emailing.
At the top there’s a new 3.5mm headphone jack so you can plug in your own cans, although it doesn’t seem to be fitted particularly well.
With A-GPS on board and Nokia Maps on board, the E72 will happily give the lost directions – though as it only works in portrait on the 2.4in display it’s not really a replacement for your in-car sat-nav.
Overall, we’re mighty impressed. Scroll down for more pics of the E72 and look out for a full review very soon.
Nokia E72 vs Apple iPhone 3GS