Nokia 5530 XpressMusic

This – this is the point at which what Nokia in general (and OPK in particular) have been saying about Symbian OS taking over (from Series 40) in the mid-tier in the phone market comes home to roost. What we have here is a full-touchscreen S60 5th Edition smartphone with Wi-Fi coming in, unlocked, with no phone contract, for £130 including VAT in the UK – quite staggering. To put that into perspective, under the same terms the Nokia N900 is around £500, the N97 is £430, the HTC Touch Pro 2 is £470 and the (unlocked) Apple iPhone 3GS is… well, whatever you’re prepared to pay, up to £700 in many cases. Compare those prices with £130 – you could buy three 5530s for less than a single N97, for example – and then bear the huge differential in mind when reading about some of the compromises and limitations below.

Hardware and styling

And so to the handset. The 5530 XpressMusic is the perfect size for a phone. Not a smartphone necessarily – you’d expect to add some bulk for extra screen real estate or qwerty keyboard – but the perfect size for a phone, something that anybody can incorporate into their lives without having to sacrifice pocket or purse space. And, perhaps, most importantly, something that feels great in the hand. The 5530 even feels quite solid, despite being 100% plastic (as you’d expect), with the only immediate build quality issue being that the device rattles – there’s something inside the camera or main circuitry that’s rattling and I’ve no idea what – which is worrying.

The styling is centred around a ring of chrome-effect plastic and a trendy semi-phosphorescent blue detail that sits just below the fake chrome. The touchscreen area on the 5530’s front is actually around 3.5″, as evidenced by the green/menu/red virtual keys and the XpressMusic hotspot, but the actual display is only 2.9″ (diagonal), obviously something of a cost-cutting decision. The result is that S60 5th Edition’s nHD resolution is somewhat crammed into a space almost identical to that of (for example) the QVGA resolution of the N95 8GB or N96. On the one hand, screen elements are a bit harder to tap on accurately and screen detail is a little harder to see, on the other hand the graphics and text look incredibly crisp and, to be honest, I had few complaints. Contrast outdoors is similar to that on the 5800 – no (relatively) expensive transflective layer here.

The SIM card slot and microSD card slot (4GB is supplied in the box) are covered by the same piece of hinged plastic down the left hand side of the 5530 – it’s not an elegant solution but then, yet again, keeping the cost down was paramount here. There’s a power button on the top, with a row of buttons down the right side: the usual volume up/down (and image zoom in/out where appropriate), keylock toggle (always great to see, I’m totally sold on this quick way of locking/unlocking) and the two-stage camera shutter button.

The only slightly controversial port decision is on the 5530’s bottom edge, where you’ll find both a 2mm charging port and a (covered) microUSB port. Given how new this phone is, I’d really expected to see microUSB charging. There’s also a welcome 3.5mm audio jack and (again controversially) a stylus. Maybe this is relevant to the small size of the 5530’s screen (and thus to the size of interface elements) or maybe this is just to help get the SIM card out – who knows?

The 5530’s back has just the camera aperture, styled as if it had a kickstand – but you just know that it doesn’t. There’s a single (and weak) LED flash and a non-branded 3 megapixel camera, of which more later. The back cover itself is extremely flimsy but in keeping with the build quality throughout the device. The battery is the same as that in the E75, i.e. 1000mAh, which should be more than enough for a phone with this size of screen and target market (i.e. you’re not going to be watching videos or browsing the web for hours).

Inside the 5530 XpressMusic

So several compromises for the sake of price so far – but there are just as many inside the phone as well. The biggest are lack of 3G – so data use is limited to GPRS and EDGE speeds, which will certainly limit Web use for many users – and lack of GPS. This latter is somewhat surprising given Nokia’s Ovi Maps-centric business model these days – you’d have thought that enough people would sign up for navigation to offset the cost of putting in GPS chips in each phone.

In fact, not only is there no GPS, there’s also no copy of Nokia Maps, one of the first smartphones for ages to not feature this. Again, you’d have thought that it was easy enough to include Maps, even if only so that people could use cell tower location and see what was (roughly) around them? I wouldn’t expect Maps to be featured prominently, but figured it should be on the 5530 somewhere.

However, it’s not all bad news: there is Wi-Fi, rather welcome at this price point, and with the absence of 3G, it’s just about the saviour of the device. There are also no significant memory constraints – after the usual startup customisations there’s around 75MB free on disk C: and after booting there’s 57MB of free RAM – which should be enough for anyone.

With the ‘XpressMusic’ part of the name, it’s not surprising that the music side of things is well stocked. There are two loudish speakers, one at either end of the phone (with two narrow grilles each) – we’re not talking Nokia 5800 volume or quality here, but it’s good enough for most people. The supplied stereo headset is a one piece design with in-ear speakers – it’s definitely a budget headset but again good enough considering the handset’s price. There’s Bluetooth A2DP compatibility too, of course.

No surprises on the music software front, though yet again Nokia Internet Radio is conspicuous by its absence (hey, it has only taken Nokia a year to port a simple 3rd Edition app to 5th Edition so far – there’s no hurry….) Still, Podcasting and the Music store are both welcome and complete a competent music phone.

This being 2009, there’s a token attempt at adding social networks to the phone. Hi5, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Amazon and Friendster icons are all prominent, but each only goes to the appropriate mobile web site – no widgets to be seen here, sadly (though the Facebook page at least offers one ‘for the 5800 XpressMusic'(!)) If you want widgets you’ll need to look in the Ovi Store – whose client isn’t built-in – probably because it’s being upgraded often. Instead Ovi Store is the de facto download when you tap on the provided ‘Download!’ icon.

There are no surprises in the main Applications folder either: Boingo will help with Wi-Fi hotspots, Global Race is an average (though sluggish by iPhone standards, of course) racing game and Bounce is the 3D ball rolling game that we’ve seen a hundred times before. Video centre is there ready to play back BBC iPlayer videos – except that the Beeb hasn’t enabled content for the 5530 XpressMusic yet, so there’s little of interest there too.
Interface notes

Straddled in time between the Nokia 5800 and the fully ‘kinetic’ Nokia X6, the 5530 contains some elements from each, confusingly. There’s full kinetic scrolling in lists, e.g. Contacts and Web bookmarks, but the main Applications menu and web pages, for example, are both represented in the ‘old’ way. I’d hope that the last step towards full kinetic/paper-like behaviour would be taken in the first major firmware update, but with Nokia’s track record here it’s hard to be certain. Where kinetic scrolling is implemented, it’s done very well though.

As with almost all S60 phones since the original N95 in early 2007, there’s a built-in accelerometer to provide auto-rotation of the display when needed – as with the 5800 XpressMusic, this rotation works in everything except the homescreen (and games with hard coded bitmap graphics). And yes, auto-rotation can be independently turned off, along with enabling or disabling flipping the phone to silence calls or snooze alarms.

Firmly in the ‘love it or hate it’ camp is the ‘Contacts bar’ homescreen theme. Like the 5800, from a year ago, there’s a strip of your favourite contacts, but here the theme is a lot more refined: the strip is scrollable, so you’re not limited to just four people – and, importantly, the strip coexists with standard notifications and application shortcuts, with your contact details and feeds appearing on a separate (almost full screen) ‘status’ pop-up when tapped on. I like the system and used it a lot on the also new 5730 XpressMusic – it’s just as useable here. Although, in terms of time, scrolling the faces to get to a favourite contact isn’t very efficient, it’s intuitive and fun, reminding yourself of all the people who matter to you – and for that reason it gets my vote.

Camera and video

There’s no Carl Zeiss branding on the 5530’s camera lens, but Nokia tend to pick above average components and I wasn’t surprised to get decent results out of the 5530 in good light conditions. As far as I can tell it’s exactly the same sensor (and aperture) as on the 5800 XpressMusic, but without the Carl Zeiss lens. In otherwise, good photos with decent light, but terrible results after dark, indoors in dim lighting or with flash. Here are some examples, click on each to download or enlarge:

A couple of nice photos on windowsills in good (overcast) light…

Outside on the (aforementioned) overcast day in Autumn in the UK (i.e. not much colour in the garden!); a close up flash photo in near darkness, that single LED flash and the small aperture and sensor make night photos disappointing – but (again) arguably OK for the price point

Video capture is exactly as it was a year ago on the Nokia 5800 – with a default of 640 by 352 pixels at 30 frames per second and the higher VGA resolution if needed. And again, video’s quite decent if the sun’s out and then gets progressively worse as the light dies. For a smartphone of this price, VGA video capture is still welcome though, even at the tail end of 2009.

Source :  http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_5530_XpressMusic.php

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic (3)

The New S60 Homescreen Themes

It’s perhaps a measure of how mature the main one-handed UI is in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, that the principal things to talk about in terms of interface on the 5730 XpressMusic concern just its homescreen. As with a couple of other recent S60 releases (on both S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition), there’s a ‘Contacts bar’ homescreen theme – in the 5730’s case, set as the default. There’s also the curious ‘Talking theme’, though this has more to do with accessibility on the move, giving spoken access to common telephony features, a speaking clock, voice commands and an Inbox message reader. It’s of limited use for most people and we’ll cover this another time.

The idea of the Contacts bar is, as it sounds, to have a (scrolling) bar of your favourite Contacts, giving you easy access to calling or texting them and with a handy summary of your recent communications with them. Plus, most interestingly, the last two status updates for whichever of your Contacts ‘social’ feeds you’ve signed up for. In the screenshot here, I can see the first few words of Rafe’s (i.e. AAS’s) last two Twitter updates. Highlighting a text or feed update takes you to Messaging or your S60/Web feed reader respectively.

In fact, the ‘web feeds’ system built into Web is crucial to setting this information up. I’d have preferred to see some kind of wizard (e.g. “Set up Twitter/Facebook/Myspace feed? What username shall I use?” etc), but instead the existing web feeds are used. This can make including contact status updates rather cumbersome. For example, to add a contact’s Twitter updates, you have to:
Start Web
Type in their Twitter URL (e.g. http://www.twitter.com/stevelitchfield) – the mobile site will be served up
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘View Twitter in Standard’
When the page is loaded, use Options > Subscribe to web feeds > ‘stevelitchfield’s Favorites’
Back on the homescreen, go back into the pane for that contact and click on the spanner icon (Settings)
Scroll down and select ‘Web feed’
Confirm that yes, you do want to add a web feed(!)
Pick the feed you added (about ten minutes ago!) above

That’s quite some app-to-app dancing, all to set up something really rather simple: any updates posted to twitter.com/username – and I absolutely fail to understand why Nokia makes this sort of thing so complicated. Yes, I like the underlying way web feeds are used across multiple applications, but would a simply ‘Set up wizard’ have been so hard to code up?

Once set up, you have to refresh your favourites’ contact feeds manually, but this is fair enough since you may not want to keep going online automatically if roaming or if away from network coverage. I do like having my favourite peoples’ mugshots on the homescreen, it’s a nice personalisation touch. Scrolling between them is fast enough, though it’s best not to have more than 5 or 6, to make them quicker to get to. For most people, this area will be used for partner, kids, mum/dad and a couple of best friends, perhaps.

Below the contact bar, you can choose between a number of plug-ins, including Contacts on Ovi, Calendar, WLAN scanning, and so on – it’s good to see this flexibility not now restricted to just Eseries phones anymore. At the bottom of the Contacts bar homescreen theme are six application shortcuts, set up in the usual S60 way.

Having both shortcuts and contacts on the same homescreen brings a touch of N97 glamour to this rather more lowly S60 phone and I rather enjoyed using it.
Applications

The bulk of the S60 applications included in the Nokia 5730 will be very familiar to you. The main additions and notes are:
Web is the ‘old’ version, i.e. not the new version 7. Still, it’s fast enough for most sites and more than enough for all mobile sites.

Included are a brace of social messaging icons, all links to the mobile sites: Ovi, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Hi5, though in the latter two cases, there’s a mobile app/widget then offered for download.

Gallery | Images just opens up Photos, the carousel-based media browser/editor originally included in Nseries phones. It’s a slick app, is integrated into (for example) the volume keys (for zooming in and out) and is great to see here. Gallery | Videos opens up Video centre, in similar fashion, even though videos also appear in Photos. I really wish Nokia would sort this mess out. See below for more on multimedia on the 5730.

Internet Radio and Podcasting are both present and correct, thankfully, after the scare of their omission in the recent E52 and E55. Even better, the front-mounted media controls work with both apps, albeit not if there’s also Music player also loaded – you have to remember to Exit this first!

Nokia Maps v2 is included in the current firmware, but Ovi Maps 3 is a simple (Windows-based) upgrade away – well worth doing. In either case, I had no issues with the 5730’s built-in Assisted-GPS, which locked on quickly and kept me on track over a lengthy test journey.

Home Media is a wizard-based application that leads you through streaming your phone’s music into (and even syncing with) other home media appliances through UPnP. It’s all a bit fiddly to set up but presumably the results are worth it in the end (I have no compatible equipment to try it with)

The N-Gage games client is built-in, along with a dozen trial versions, tucked away on the supplied 8GB microSD card. Pick any of them and they get installed in the usual way. The graphics performance of the Nokia 5730 isn’t particularly remarkable, but most users will find a game or two to while away spare moments. It’s worth noting that RAM isn’t an issue with this device, either, so game playing isn’t limited by memory shortages.

A couple of interesting extras are we:offset and AccuWeather, both freeware but nice for new users to see straight away.

One notable omission is an Ovi Store client – and there’s not one in Download! and nothing offered from the mobile web version of Ovi Store, which is very disappointing, though doubtless this will be rectified shortly.

As a S60 3rd Edition phone, of course, there’s great compatibility with a mound of third party software. Of special note is that video apps (e.g. YouTube) and games (e.g. Micropool, shown here) both run with acceptable speed. As on the E75, S60 3rd Edition FP2 is now optimised well enough that, for most people and most purposes, a dedicated graphics chip isn’t needed, galling as it is for an über-geek like myself to admit this.

And, like on the E75, the entire interface runs in either portrait or landscape mode, as needed. Landscape mode is, of course, forced by opening the qwerty keyboard, but there’s also an accelerometer-driven ‘auto-rotate’ option under ‘Sensors’.
Camera and multimedia

As mentioned in part 1 of this review, the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic’s camera is identical in specification to that of the E75 and more than its equal in terms of quality. Which is saying something, since the E75 has just about the best 3 megapixel camera I’ve ever seen in a phone, with care and good lighting, it produces better results than my Nokia N93. The 5730 adds a Carl Zeiss-branded lens, bringing slightly sharper detail and slightly better colours. The difference is marginal, to be honest, but it can be seen: have a look at these blow-ups of the same sunny scene: the E75’s photo is on the left, the 5730’s on the right. Note how the red play equipment is redder, the green leaves are greener and the blue sky is bluer. The railings are also slightly sharper, if you look closely enough.

And here’s the full size, 3 megapixel photo, just click to download or enlarge in your browser:

I’ve also included here a number of other sample photos from the 5730 XpressMusic, with notes. Your comments welcome on any of them!

Taken with sunlight through a window (left), a perfect photo in terms of focus, colour and exposure; and with flash on an overcast day on a window sill (right), the macro focussing is on the glasses and depth of field is small, but quite acceptable as a snap

Pushing the boundaries: in very low light (dusk, left), there’s still reasonable detail and colour rendition; and dark, during the last throes of sunset (right), look closely and you can see the sensor noise in the dark areas, plus there’s some blurring from having to take the shot handheld with a lengthy (flash/night) exposure. Overall colouration is good, though

Bright artificial lighting, loads of colours to render (left); Flowers again, in sunlight (right), gorgeous handling of colour

Although not quite capable of semi-pro photos and dubious for printed blowups of more than 7″ x 5″, 3 megapixels, combined with this lens and sensor, is certainly enough for good casual photography in goodish light. As you might expect, the unit struggles a bit in low light, but even here it performs a lot better than, for example, the camera in the Nokia 5800 (and sister devices) and is a lot better than many 3mp camera phones from other manufacturers.

Video recording is, as is usual for all Nokia’s high end phones, VGA at 30 frames per second. Here’s a sample, 5730videosample.mp4, 5.4MB, click the graphic to download or open:

Focus is set to infinity, which is par for the course for something in this price range, the colours wobble around a little and the sound’s good without actually impressing. In short, it’s more than good enough for casual ‘fun’ clips, burned to DVD later or uploaded to YouTube for its HQ mode.

The LED does work for night videos, but it’s very weak compared to the dual LED set up in recent Nseries devices and I wouldn’t recommend shooting video on the 5730 after dusk.

Once shot, both photos and videos (confusingly) appear in ‘Photos’, as mentioned above. I liked the way the volume up/down keys double as zoom in/out when viewing photos, the animation is quite smooth. There are editing options here too, for both photos and videos, to either crop or add effects, or to trim or add music, as appropriate.

Video playback is to the usual Nokia standard, i.e. reasonably sized MP4, 3GP and WMV videos with H.263 or H.264 encoding play fine, though I had trouble with the picture on one of my normally-OK test clips – I’m guessing one of the codecs in the firmware was playing up and would hope Nokia fixed it in the first major 5730 firmware update. Having the hardware media controls to manipulate videos, rewinding, pausing and fast forwarding is nice, with the controls just below the actual picture (in landscape mode, of course). Yes, the d-pad also works, but it’s just nice to have obvious controls in the right place.

Music playback is similarly enhanced, certainly for power users (who will be multitasking), and it’s great to be able to have music or a podcast playing while also checking email or Twitter or browsing the Web, simply hitting a control key to change track or pause playback without having to:
stop what you’re doing
either find Music player/Podcasting again in the S60 menu or pick it from the S60 ‘open applications’ list
change track or pause, as needed
switch back to the application you were originally in

Simply hitting one button is soooo much nicer and more convenient. The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, and this is a point worth emphasising, is the only QWERTY-equipped smartphone in the world that also has multimedia controls. Depending on your use case, it can be a heady, powerful combination. When using the music controls, an informational panel pops up on-screen to let you accurately select tracks or cue the current playback position.

Sound quality over the built-in speaker is OK, but as described in part 1 of the review, the plastic back rather gets in the way – watch this space for a DIY back-mod tutorial. With a grille of holes, the sound is far better and with richer bass and treble. Via the headphones supplied (in-ear, with hands-free pod), music quality is stunningly good, as you might expect for an ‘XpressMusic’ device. There’s also the option (not explored here) to stream music over UPnP to a compatible home music centre.

There are the usual S60 3rd Edition FP2 Visualisations (Spectrum, Oscilloscope, Circles, Album art) and Equaliser settings, to help things along and the only real black mark is S60’s usual quirky handling of album art – for a typical music collection (like mine), with tracks ripped from a multitude of sources and using several different applications, only a fraction of the album art is shown. That there are half a dozen industry ‘standard’ ways for album art to be embedded or included shouldn’t be a problem – Music player should know about them all – and yet it doesn’t.

As with other recent S60 devices, the music offering is rounded out by an FM Radio ( and Internet Radio) and by the Nokia Music Store client, though the 5730 does add a ‘Music search’ utility. In theory, this will take a voice clue (e.g. “Kaiser Chiefs” or “Satisfaction”) and find the appropriate artist or track for you in your music library. There’s even a front keypad shortcut to this – press and hold the ‘*’ key on the homescreen. Sadly, the results are somewhat erratic and in most cases I found it quicker to delve into my music library using the keypad or keyboard.

Verdict

There is absolutely no doubting the functionality quotient of the Nokia 5730 Xpressmusic – there are buttons for everything and more applications that most geeks could comfortably embrace. And, like the E75 before it, it does everything pretty well, whether it’s typing emails or text messages, listening to music, taking photos or even (shock) making phone calls.

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_5730_XpressMusic-part_2-The_Software.php 

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic (2)

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic review: Full musical keyboard

No news is good news and the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is quite keen to go about humming that tune like it didn’t care. Recruiting Symbian for an entertainment job is nothing new really and no, we’re not surprised that yet another handset wants to be the N97 of its neighborhood. The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic doesn’t really shine but it’s fit enough to handle quite a workload. Whether you need a smartphone for the knack or for the fun of it, this all-in-one messenger promises a bit of everything: music, web, gaming and connectivity.

XpressMusic has long crossed the smartphone line but only just starting to take multitasking so seriously. WLAN, GPS and a full QWERTY keyboard go side by side with enhanced music and N-Gage to make the Nokia 5730 so universally appealing. We guess we’ve had enough proof that Symbian can handle it all, so let’s see how the 5730 XpressMusic lives up to its claims.

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic official photos

It’s pretty obvious there will be quite some Nokia 5630 XpressMusic here. It’s virtually the same handset – add or take. So, what’s the deal in the end with adding QWERTY and a bigger screen and taking some processing power?
Key features
2.4″ 16M-color TFT display of QVGA resolution
Four-row side-slide QWERTY keyboard
Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G (with HSDPA) support
Symbian OS with S60 3.2 UI
369 MHz ARM11 CPU
3.5mm standard audio jack
microSD card slot, 8GB microSD card prebundled
3.2 megapixel auto focus camera with a dedicated shutter key, geotagging and VGA video at 30fps
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with UPnP technology
Built-in GPS receiver and preinstalled Nokia Maps
USB and stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) connectivity
FM radio with RDS plus Internet radio
Dedicated music keys
N-Gage support
Dedicated gaming keys
Ovi Contacts integration
Office document viewer
Smart dialing
Contacts bar on the homescreen
N-Series-like gallery
Nokia Say and Play (voice control to music player)
Main disadvantages:
Fingerprint-prone cheap-looking plastic build
No DivX/XviD support out of the box (can be installed, possibly requiring a purchase)
Average camera performance
Poor battery life
No TV-out functionality

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is treating the younger crowd to the all-round skill of dad’s E75. Alright, it may not be as simple as that but the 5730 is only just some corporate email (and plenty of steel) short of Eseries excellence. The XpressMusic QWERTY messenger is heavy on entertainment of course – dedicated music keys and N-Gage-conscious design, along with full pack connectivity. The complete keyboard, elaborate organizer, the office package and GPS are enough to start talking business.

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic live shots

Well, even if the dedicated gaming buttons and the digital-style alphanumeric font used on the keys leave little doubt about the target audience demographics, the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic looks too big for its niche. The first QWERTY messenger in Nokia’s music lineup is a solid smartphone package that’s definitely worth the test ride.

Be you young in age or spirit, you are welcome to stick around. Back with unboxing right after the jump.

Decent retail box

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is reasonably equipped considering the price tag. The phone comes with a 8GB microSD card, a USB cable and of course a regular 2mm-pin charger.

The retail package

The supplied headset is one-piece, which means you cannot use the music-enhanced remote with another headset. Alternative headphones are of course an option given the 3.5 mm audio jack.

The supplied headset seems better than standard though the white earbuds hardly match their overall style. By the way the same headset is supplied wth Nokia 5530 XpresssMusic as well.

A word of caution to you all though: shipping contents usually DO vary across regional markets. We received our Nokia 5730 straight from the local Nokia center as a press sample in retail boxing. The contents of the retail packages in your region may be different make, model or color.
Nokia 5730 XpressMusic 360-degree spin

The slide-out QWERTY keyboard doesn’t make the 5730 XpressMusic the most compact of phones, but it’s quite compact for a device that has a full QWERTY keyboard. But it’s not a hard to handle chunk either – at 112 x 51 x 15.4 mm, it’s about the size of an N78, which is more than alright.

The weight of 135 grams won’t be a burden either. The 5730 is surprisingly only 4 grams lighter than the steel-covered Nokia E75 but the important thing is the phone handles very nicely. Great balance is vital for slider handsets and the 5730 XpressMusic is especially comfortable with the QWERTY keyboard slid out.

Design and construction

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is a nice looking phone with a very distinct XpressMusic styling. The red frames around the front and the QWERTY keyboard contribute to the familiar feel. Actually, the handset’s front is an almost exact replica of the 5630 XpressMusic. It’s all plastic there, no fancy stuff and that’s no news.

The 5730 XpressMusic build has its issues

The very solid looking, ample QWERTY keyboard is an excellent performer. It has the same font styling as the alphanumeric one and its handling is comfortable and secure.

The ambient light sensor and the video-call camera are at the top of the front panel of the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, either side of the earpiece. The secondary camera is enabled for QVGA still shots and QCIF video at 15 fps. Between the screen and the earpiece is a rocker key – those are the two gaming buttons.

Below them is the 2.4″ display, followed by the D-pad, which is very comfortable to use. It has a programmable LED in the center that can be set to indicate missed events or simply serve as a standby breathing light.

Ambient light sensor, video-call camera, N-Gage button and the earpiece

There are six system keys around the D-pad, including the usual Nokia foursome – Call and End keys and two soft-keys. The End key also doubles as a power switch. The other two knobs are menu and backspace.

The problem of the soft keys and the call controls is – quite surprisingly – the great D-pad. It’s ample and comfortably raised for precise and effortless handling. But it does make the completely flat and deep-set soft keys harder to press right. The buttons bordering on the D-pad must be pushed precisely in the center or otherways they just won’t work. Press feedback is quite poor and every now and then you might need to push again and again to get a response.

The Menu and Clear keys are slightly raised and sufficiently apart from the D-pad, hence a lot more comfortable.

On the left side of the screen are the standard music player controls, typical of the XpressMusic lineup. They are thin, with overall adequate press and friendly white backlighting. The problem is there plastic coating looks and feels quite frail.

The excellent D-pad obscures the soft-keys • the music controls are comfortable but of questionable durability

The left side of the Nokia 5730 is where the microUSB port and the microSD card slot are. They’re both covered with plastic lids to avoid getting filled with dust.

Those fit firmly in place and can be somewhat tricky to use: they are a little stiff and you’ll need to use your nails to open them. Just like on the 5630 XpressMusic, it’s quite hard to pull the microSD card out using your fingers only since the card sinks too deep into the slot and is very difficult to reach. We guess you’d need a pointed tool every time you want to take it out.

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic left: connectivity and storage

The bottom is where the lanyard eyelet and the standard charger port are. Next to the charging port is the mic, right at the very edge.

The charging port is at the bottom right next to the mouthpiece

The right side of the 5730 features two controls – the volume rocker and the shutter key. While it has full functionality, including half-press for autofocus and camera launch, it is small and poorly designed. While half-press is quite distinct and comfortable, full press is not always adequate on the tiny wobbly knob.

The right side packs the volume rocker and the camera key

The only thing to note at the top is the 3.5mm standard audio jack. It’s not sealed for protection but is comfortably placed.

The 3.5mm standard audio jack is at the top

The handset’s rear looks a whole lot better. We do appreciate the completely fingerprint-proof and stylish opaque plastic. There we find the 3 megapixel camera lens and the smallish LED flash.

The back cover and the camera lens

Removing the battery cover is a tough job: you need to poke a nail or a thin pointed object and push up. Underneath lies a 1000 mAh Li-Ion BL-4U unit, the SIM bed and the loudspeaker. We were surprised to find no actual loudspeaker grills on the casing of the 5730 XpressMusic. Actually, the handset doesn’t sound muffled, but we wonder whether it could have been louder.

The 1000 mAh battery, the SIM bed and the loudspeaker

The 1000 mAh battery needed recharging every other day during our tests, extensive use of Wi-Fi and GPS on top of a few calls a day obviously taking its toll.

In terms of design, the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is hardly a revelation. The styling is obviously taking after the 5630 and of course the Nokia music lineup is keen on keeping things simple. The handset handles pretty nicely and the side-sliding QWERTY is very well implemented.

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic in hand

Very good display

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic may lack the thin and compact body of its candybar counterpart but full QWERTY keyboard is not its only edge. Screen estate is another major point in favor. The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic has a nice 2.4” QVGA display of great sunlight legibility. In direct sunlight, even if the colors get washed out, the display remains perfectly readable even on the brightest of days.

The display has very decent picture quality

Brightness levels are good and contrast is pretty decent. In terms of size, the 2.4″ screen of the 5730 is acceptable but it sure feels like – at least for some users – a 2.6-incher could’ve been a better deal than N-Gage buttons.
Excellent QWERTY, middling numpad

The alphanumeric keypad of the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is hardly a stunning looker but does an OK job. Tactility is adequate and for the most part the keys have nice and solid press. Our only grudge is the lowest row of keys is somewhat limited by the ornamental front frame – and obviously less comfortable to handle.

The keypad is decent overall

However, with a QWERTY keyboard as good as this, you are likely to forget the minor drawbacks of the numpad. The keys on the four-row QWERTY are large and provide excellent feedback. The layout is also well thought out, with the stop, the comma and the @ symbol each having a dedicated key. Text selection for cut, copy and paste is extra smooth. You just need to hold down the Shift key and move the cursor with the D-pad.

The QWERTY keyboard is almost as comfortable as it gets

The handset is extremely well balanced for a solid hand feel and the QWERTY keyboard will let you take full advantage of the messaging and office document support on the 5730 XpressMusic. Once you slide the phone open, you are in for very comfortable typing and there are very few handsets to rival it. The 5730 XpressMusic is in pretty much the same league as the Nokia E75 and the HTC Touch Pro.

A nice touch to the 5730 is the vast number of customizable options for the slider action. You can pick an application to launch upon sliding the keyboard out and you can set it to return to homescreen upon closing.
S60 3.2 UI: Homescreen redesigned

The Nokia 5730 runs on the Symbian 9.3 OS with S60 3rd Edition user interface. It has Feature Pack 2 but there have been changes since its previous incarnations.

The biggest (and best) change is the Contacts bar option for the standby screen which we also saw while reviewing the 5630 XpressMusic. It is similar to the typical Active standby screen but things have been reordered and as the name suggests – a bar with contacts has been added at the top.

Each contact is represented by the contact photo and their first name – and it’s possible to have three contacts visible at a time though the list allows for scrolling left or right.

For each contact you can add an RSS feed, so we guess a nice trick is to add a contact that isn’t a person just so that you’ll have quick access to your favorite feeds from the homescreen.

Selecting a contact from the Contact bar brings up a screen with info on the contact (a different one than you get if you select the contact from the Contacts list). It has the contact photo, name and phone number. Under that are four buttons – call, send message, update feed and settings.

Bellow that is an area that shows the communications history for that contact – both calls and messages. And finally, at the bottom there are the top two lines from the RSS feed.

The new Contacts bar • viewing a contact from the Contacts bar

Under the Contacts list, it’s pretty much standard Active Standby. First up is info on the email account showing the number of unread messages and sender and Re: fields of the most recent message. Under it is the status and number of friends online for Ovi Contacts, which gets replaced by song info if the music player is running. At the bottom is the shortcuts tab.

The old Active Standby layouts are still here and include Basic – you can assign shortcuts to the D-pad, Horizontal icons bar – the old Active Standby and, finally, the Vertical icons bar, which has only tabs (shortcuts, calendar, music player and personalization) but doesn’t hide much of the wallpaper. The last theme variety is the Talking theme which cane be quite useful at times. Only if the voice wasn’t sounding that robot-like.

Basic • Horizontal icon bar • Vertical icon bar • Talking theme

Finally, the S60 UI Feature Pack 2 brings some graphical improvements as well, such as animations when browsing the menus.

The task manager has also received a face-lift and now appears on every pop-up menu. It’s actually placed on top of every list, which can be a little irritating at times. Alternatively, you can still use the well-known shortcut of pressing and holding the menu key to bring up the task manager.

The embedded 128MB of RAM are an important factor for OS performance. In Symbian terms 128MB is virtually impossible to deplete even with several applications running in the background. You shouldn’t expect any memory full warnings on your Nokia 5730 XpressMusic.

The 369 MHz ARM 11 CPU is fast enough (although not as snappy as the new 600 MHz first seen in 5630 XpressMusic). Navigating the menus is quick with an instant response to user commands. The blue circle next to the icon of a running application is a well known Symbian indication reminding users to quit unwanted applications that are still running in the background.

As with all Symbian phones, there is a built-in voice recognition system. It does a good job, being fully speaker-independent and recognizing a fairly high percentage of our commands.
Telephony

Signal reception is great on the Nokia 5730. The phone has commendable speaker quality and the sound during calls is clear and free of any interference. Vibration is also strong enough to make sure you never miss an incoming call or message.

Calling Dexter on the Nokia 5730

The results from our loudspeaker test are at your disposal – unfortunately, Nokia 5730 XpressMusic turned out to be an average performer in this respect. You can’t count on getting just everything in noisier environments, and calm and subdued ringtones surely won’t do. Still, though the phone may not be as loud as others, playing music through the loudspeaker sounds quite nice.

Check out the table showing how it stacks up beside some of the handsets we’ve put to the same test. To find more details about our test, as well as the results of all other tested handsets follow that link.Speakerphone test Voice, dB Pink noise/ Music, dB Ringing phone, dB Overall score
Apple iPhone 3G 66.1 62.1 71.7 Below Average
Nokia 5730 XpressMusic 68.7 61.7 75.1 Average
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic 75.7 66.5 68.5 Good
LG KM900 Arena 70.9 68.2 78.3 Good
Nokia 5320 XpressMusic 74.3 66.6 78.3 Very Good
Samsung M7600 Beat DJ 75.7 75.7 77.8 Excellent

Phonebook is commendable

The Symbian handsets have an excellent phonebook with virtually unlimited capabilities and Nokia 5730 doesn’t make any difference to the rule. There is storage space for a practically unlimited number of contacts and fields with all the available memory potentially usable for the purpose. Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any of the names.

Contacts list • searching by gradual typing • viewing contact details

Editing a contact offers a great variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like. You can also create new fields if you happen to be able to think of one. We personally find it quite a challenge to think of something Nokia has missed here – there’s everything from the contact’s nickname to their assistant’s name and phone number.

Personal ringtones and videos can also be assigned to a contact. If you prefer you may group your contacts and give each group a specific ringtone.

An enormous variety of fields is available when editing a contact

Synchronization is also nice and easy although you do need the Nokia PC suite (or Ovi Suite as of lately) for things to go smoothly. Sending and receiving contacts via SMS or Bluetooth is also a piece of cake.

The Call log application is another of Nokia 5730 strengths. It holds up to 20 call records in each of the tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls. These are all accessed by pressing the Call key on the homescreen.

The call log is there to keep track of your communications

If you enter the Log application from the main menu, you’ll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers over the air or even over Wi-Fi.
Messaging and Ovi Contacts

Texting with Nokia 5730 is spot on. With a decent keypad and great software support your correspondence is as good as it gets on this kind of devices. Let’s face it, Nokia are targeting the youth with this handset and solid messaging is key for them.

The Nokia 5730 supports all common message types – SMS, MMS and email. The SMS and MMS share an editor. It is the well known intuitive application from previous Symbian S60 smartphones.

Turning an SMS into MMS is as simple as adding any multimedia content

It goes without saying that you can activate a delivery report for messages. The reports pop up on the standby screen and are subsequently saved in a separate folder in the messaging sub-menu. If you exit the message editor without having sent the message, the editor prompts you to either save it to the Drafts folder or to discard it.

All it takes to convert a common SMS into an MMS is to insert some multimedia content. A nice feature allows the resizing of pictures automatically for sending via MMS.

The Nokia 5730 also features a dedicated audio message editor. Although technically a type of MMS, the audio messages have their own separate editor. You can either record the message on the spot or use a previously recorded sound clip.

The audio message editor has questionable applicability

The email client is also very similar to what previous Symbian powered phones have offered. If you are using any public email service (it has to be among the over 1000 supported providers), all you have to do is enter your email address and password to start sending and receiving emails. The Nokia 5730 takes care of downloading all the relevant settings to get you going in no time.

The client can download headers only or entire messages, and can be set to automatically check mail at a given interval. There is also support for attachments, signatures and basically most of the things you can think of, so the Nokia 5730 can meet almost any requirement regarding the user’s emailing needs. Thanks to QuickOffice, viewing attached Microsoft Office files is a breeze.

The email client

There’s also the option to listen to the email – the Message reader app comes with one language and two voices preinstalled (one male and one female) and the option to download more. The application handles this quite nicely and while the voice didn’t sound too natural, it didn’t trip over difficult words and even managed to read URLs.

Listening to an email • speech settings

Ovi Contacts come preinstalled with Nokia 5730 XpressMusic but you can also install it on most other Nokia smartphones. Ovi contacts integrates tightly with the Contacts list as a new tab and offers an IM client with a twist. You can search for people already registered with Ovi or send an invitation to anybody using Gmail since the Ovi contacts supports G-Talk, Google’s own IM, as well.

Ovi Contacts is a very capable IM client

Thanks to this service you will be able to chat in real time with all your Ovi/Google Talk-connected contacts, change your status messages and mood, and all that kind of social networking stuff.

In addition you can even go as far as sharing your GPS location so your friends can view immediately where you are at that particular moment using the Ovi Maps. Or you can share the name and the artist of the track you are currently listening to.

What can we say – it all works exactly as advertized. Your contacts need not have an Ovi-connected phone, they can chat with you just fine over Google Talk.

XpressMusic player: we’ve seen that before

The XpressMusic branding raises the bar high for the Nokia 5730 music player. While it’s pretty good, it’s by no means exceptional: just on a par with other recent Symbian devices. It has a huge number of supported audio formats, including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA but little to top the business-oriented Nokia E71 for example.

However, the dedicated music keys and the active standby layout, where the music player is one click away, are things that enhance the sonic experience. Quite naturally, the player can also be minimized to play in background. In this case a tab replaces the E-mail tab on the stand-by screen and indicates the currently running track.

The music player “Now playing” interface • song info on the homescreen

Sorting your songs by artist, album, genre and composer is automatic and searching tracks by gradual typing of the desired name is also available.

Searching the music library

Upon completing a USB transfer, or inserting a card, the phone automatically prompts to scan for new music tracks and, if allowed to do so, adds the new ones to the music library.

The player comes with five equalizer presets and, should they seem insufficient, you can edit them or create new ones in a matter of seconds.

Six equalizer presets are available • creating a new one

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic also features an innovative feature called Say and Play. By using the phone’s built-in speaker independent voice recognition, it allows you to play any stored track by simply saying its title or artist.

The Nokia Say and Play feature currently supports English and the pre-installed UI languages. However it should be able to pick up titles in any languages if they are pronounced in an English manner or with UI language pronunciation.

To search the tracks, the Say and Play features uses the metadata embedded into the tracks. If no metadata is stored, the handset will create ones based on the filename.
XpressMusic-worthy audio quality

The audio quality of Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is good enough for a member of the Finnish company music family. The intermodulation distortion is the only reading that goes as low as being average with the rest of them being very good at least.

While the audio output of the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic can easily rival dedicated music players we cannot help but notice that it is a tad worse than that of Nokia 6710 Navigator. The Navigator doesn’t scream about its music capabilities from the top of the hill so we are quite puzzled why Nokia chose to implement the better audio hardware there.

And here go the results so you can see for yourselves.Test Frequency response Noise level Dynamic range THD IMD + Noise Stereo crosstalk
Nokia 5730 XpressMusic +0.10, -0.72 -91.3 91.1 0.0086 0.360 -90.3
Nokia 5630 XpressMusic +0.13, -0.26 -94.0 94.8 0.466 0.876 -97.3
Nokia 5130 XpressMusic +0.04, -0.16 -89.9 89.0 0.0033 0.014 -83.6
Nokia 5310 XpressMusic +0.29, -1.69 -94.4 92.0 0.015 0.491 -73.8
Nokia 5220 XpressMusic +0.29, -1.64 -91.7 90.3 0.012 0.612 -73.1
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic +0.09, -0.77 -92.2 92.1 0.013 0.297 -75.0
Nokia 6710 Navigator +0.05, -0.27 -89.6 89.6 0.0074 0.021 -89.5
Nokia E75 +0.11, -0.91 -91.6 91.4 0.012 0.462 -73.3
Apple iPod Touch 2G +0.04, -0.05 -91.4 91.5 0.0027 0.012 -90.0
Apple iPhone 3GS +0.01, -0.05 -92.1 92.1 0.0035 0.011 -95.0

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic vs Nokia 6710 Navigator frequency response graphs

You can learn more about the whole testing process here.
Video player is OK

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic features Real player for playing your video clips and the video player can be displayed in both normal and fullscreen modes. When in full screen, the softkey functions are hidden so that they don’t spoil the viewing experience and only pop up when a key is pressed.

With its not particularly big screen though, video playback is not this phone’s strongest suit. And to confirm that, if you want DivX/XviD playback you’ll need to install a third-party player.
FM radio with RDS and Internet Radio

The FM radio on Nokia 5730 has a nice simple interface and can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. RDS support is included and the Visual radio is also on-board. If internet connection is available, the Visual radio application can download all the local stations and save them to the handset with their names.

FM radio and internet radio are available

Should you ever get bored of local radio stations and are in range of a Wi-Fi network, Nokia 5730 offers Internet radio with an extensive directory of stations and the option to save the best in Favorites.

You can stream stations over 3G or even GPRS with separate settings for the audio quality, but it’s probably not worth it. Searching for stations can be done by name, genre, language or country or if you can’t find what you’re looking for you can always add a station manually.

Nseries-grade image gallery

The image gallery was a pleasant surprise – it’s the same as the one found in Nokia’s N-Series phones and looks great. The speed of photo browsing increases if you press and hold the direction buttons on the D-pad. This allows quick skipping of tons of files if you’re not in the habit of sorting out your memory card regularly.

Browsing the image gallery

Unlike Nokia 5630 XpressMusic with its zippy 600 MHz processor, where zooming was very speedy, the result here is more comparable to devices like say, Nokia N85, which shares 5730’s CPU.

The gallery has a very good picture tagging system. In addition to geotagging, which is automatically handled by the camera, you can add as many tags as you like to each photo and then use them as filters. There’s also the option to organize photos in Albums.

Zooming in • you can add tags to photos
Camera is good and that’s just about it

The Nokia 5730 is equipped with a 3 megapixel camera with a maximum image resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. It sports an LED flash but no lens protection whatsoever. This means that the glass covering the lens is prone to finger smudges. Unlike the so called enhanced fixed focus of 5630 XpressMusic, 5730 has true autofocus.

The camera user interface is pretty familiar

As far as settings go, the camera on 5730 XpressMusic is limited, although it offers several scene presets, one of which is user defined. It is also possible to change the flash or the sequence mode and set the self-timer. On the right side of the screen, there’s a bar with shortcuts for some settings. You can add and remove shortcuts so you can have quick access to the settings you need.

Among the interesting features is the sequence (read “multi shot”) which captures consecutive images one after another (6 images or – if you hold down the shutter key – until you release the key or the memory runs out). After that you can pick which images to keep.

There’s also an option to capture consecutive images separated by a predefined interval (from 10 seconds to 30 minutes).

Image quality

The image quality is good overall, with decent levels of detail for a 3MP shooter. There’s little noise in well lit areas and the contrast is good. The color rendering is accurate; however the sharpening algorithm gets overzealous, which results in artifacts.

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic camera samples

As for video recording, the Nokia 5730 XM camera shoots in VGA resolution at 30 fps captured in MPEG-4 format. This seems to cause quite a controversy as some Nokia specs pages claim VGA@15fps. But trust us, the 5730 shoots in VGA@30fpas and you can check out a video sample, if you wish.

Although this is a decent achievement, the quality is rather poor actually much like it is on the Nokia 5540 XpressMusic, which also turned out equipped with VGA@30fps video recording.
Synthetic resolution

Finally it comes the time for our studio resolution chart. This is a standard ISO12233 chart used for evaluating the synthetic resolution of digital cameras. It is an excellent tool for measuring pure horizontal and vertical resolution and also offers a good reference point for comparison of resolution between cameras. You can check out what that test is all about here.

Here’s a comparison of the camera on the 5730 XpressMusic and the one on the iPhone 3GS. They perform about equally, as might be expected (both are 3MP autofocus snappers). The iPhone 3GS has a really small edge in resolved resolution. The noise suppression algorithm on the Nokia is too aggressive, resulting in perhaps cleaner but more processed-looking photos.

Nokia 5730 resolution chart photo • 100% crops

Apple iPhone 3GS resolution chart photo • 100% crops

All-round connectivity

Data transfer options are numerous on the Nokia 5730. Every common network data transfer medium is supported and so are USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and HSDPA support up to 3.6Mbps. Nokia 5730 also has Wi-Fi capabilities to really sweeten the deal.

There is also a card slot so if you have a card reader lying around you can transfer the data directly to your memory card. The card is accessible from a slot on the right side, but it’s too deep and getting to it can be quite a challenge.
The web browser gets a QWERTY keyboard

Browsing the internet with the Nokia 5730, like with all Nokia smartphones, is a pleasant experience. Even the most elaborate pages are rendered well and finding your way around them is a piece of cake.

The virtual mouse cursor earns the browser another point as it is easy to control and generally works great. A mini-map can be activated to help you find your way around large sites where lots of scrolling is required. The zoom level is also easily adjustable and searching for text on a page is easy.

The large amount of RAM is surely one of the best things that could happen to the browser, as it is clearly one of the most RAM-intensive applications. Now, even if you load very heavy web pages and have a few applications running in the background, you are extremely unlikely to run out of RAM.

The perfect combination: great web browser and a comfy QWERTY keyboard

The web browser also has full support for Flash and Java content so you should have no problem watching content found on the Internet. If you’re watching a video on YouTube for example you can click on the video and view it fullscreen. That doesn’t always work as some sites use clicking on the video for play/pause but the option is accessible from the menu. That option is needed as videos generally are too big to fit in the QVGA display, which a real shame.

YouTube video playing in the browser (50% zoom) • the video playing in fullscreen

The only problem could be the kinda smallish display (compared to the competition). 2.4 inches means the smallest fonts aren’t always readable and you have to go for larger ones. This in turn limits the amount of text that can fit on screen and forces the user to scroll even more.

The QWERTY keyboard, on the other hand, is remarkable.
Organizer and apps

The time-management skills of Nokia 5730, like most other Symbian handsets, are really good. Just name the application and you can bet the handset has it.

We start exploring the rich application package with the calendar. It has three different types of view – monthly, weekly and daily, and four types of events available for setting up – Meeting, Memo, Anniversary and To-do. Every event has its own unique fields, and some of them allow an alarm to be activated at a preset time to act as a reminder.

The calendar month, week and day views • setting up an event

The mobile office is also very well supported with preinstalled applications able to view Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files seamlessly. Editing documents is not supported out of the box, but hey, we’re not talking Eseries here.

If you would like editing enabled you will have to purchase an upgrade to Quickoffice straight from the device.

Nokia 5730 handles .doc .xls .ppt and .pdf files seemlessly

Some of the other included PIM applications are a great unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as the Notes application. We are not going to go into detail with them, as their functionality and performance are familiar enough. The ActiveNotes application is also on board allowing multimedia content to be added to your notes.

Calculator, ActiveNotes and converter

The alarm application allows a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own name, trigger day and repeat pattern.

Setting up an alarm

If the gallery file-management options (which even include sending multiple files at a time) is insufficient you can use the file manager. It allows you to do almost anything you can think of with your files. Copying, moving, creating new folders – you name it and it’s a safe bet that the file manager can do it. And the included ZIP manager allows extracting archived files straight on your phone.

The file manager is our favorite • Zip manager

The Share online application helps you to upload diverse type of files (images, music or flash files, etc.) using Ovi, Fox or another similar service. It works like a charm and since the 5730 supports Wi-Fi you won’t have to worry about the data traffic caps.

The Share online takes full advantage of the inbuilt Wi-Fi support

Also very useful is the AccuWeather app which is popular enough. You can not only check up the weather forecast for the next several hours but also to take a look at a 15-day forecast.

The AccuWeather app

There is also a preloaded app dedicated to the nature lovers. It’s called we:offset and according to Nokia is the first mobile CO2 emission offsetting tool. You can calculate how much CO2 will be emitted if you (and/or your friends) decide to take an airplane from one location to another and to buy carbon offsets to compensate for that.

Your money will reach fund projects which absorb, reduce or avoid an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases being released elsewhere. The we:offset app is based on JP Morgan’s ClimateCare service. If you’re interested in our planet’s future, follow that link for more details.

A trip for two from Rome to Paris

Finally, the Nokia 5730 features a dictionary with a very rich database. English comes pre-installed but you can also download dozens of other languages for free from the Nokia website.

The dictionary

Games are N-Gaging

Nokia 5730 comes with N-Gage support, dedicated N-Gage (A/B) button and several preloaded games. They are trial versions but there’s an activation code provided so you can activate one of those games for free. You can of course download new games but they are trials all the way unless you are willing to pay.

There’s a lot of N-Gage games, but they are trial versions

On top of that, there are plenty of third-party games out there, so Nokia 5730 users can easily download both native and Java titles.
Final words

Whether you call it Eseries in baggy jeans and headphones, or XpressMusic on steroids, the 5730 will raise its QWERTY hand. What are you gonna do? Hit the streets in a cheap sporty roadster (5630) or a budget crossover (5730), which rides like dad’s luxury sedan (E75)? We guess the carmaker (Nokia) will be happy either way.

Nokia E75

Well, for starters it can’t have been too hard to build the 5730 XpressMusic. Just squeeze all the already available technology in an already available design – with a reinforced QWERTY suspension, alright. Well, the QWERTY keyboard makes all the difference between the 5730 and the 5630 XpressMusic. And it may be more than the 5730 is prepared to handle.

The QWERTY enabled XpressMusic handset is a niche version and the niche of all-in-one smart messengers isn’t exactly friendly, to say the least. So, if you go around boasting Eseries and Nseries skill, you’d better be ready to take some Eseries and Nseries beating. It’s true most of the big fish there are touchscreens and the 5730 XpressMusic is even more painfully out of its league. The good thing is its price is extremely competitive.

Nokia N97 • Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO • Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 • HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1

In fact, the brand new Nokia 5730 XpressMusic costs a good 100 euro less than a year-old WinMo messenger that’s even a few things short of a perfect match in terms of specs. Still, it’s almost impossible to imagine direct competition between the conservative and mature HTC S740 and the happy-go-lucky 5730 XpressMusic.

HTC S740

Another important thing to note here is that the XpressMusic lineup feels utterly unchallenged. Even the 5630 XpressMusic was too much already for the competing music-centric phones to beat at such a reasonable price. The 5730 goes even further to add GPS and a full QWERTY keyboard to WLAN.

Nokia 5630 XpressMusic

It feels like the 5730 XpressMusic is trespassing into higher Eseries and Nseries grounds, but perhaps Nokia don’t mind as long as it doesn’t cost a thing to develop. The 5630 XpressMusic is still more important to them we guess in terms of sales. We’re sure QWERTY will make music in the right ears but one 5730 to every ten 5630 units sold sounds like a reasonable target to us.

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5730_xpressmusic-review-385p8.php 

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic

Comparisons with the E75

The very first thing you should know about the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is that 98% of it is identical to the Nokia E75, the side sliding business smartphone that debuted in Spring 2009 and which has been reviewed extensively here on All About Symbian (reviews part one, two and three + long term review) – it’s tempting to simply think of the 5730 as the ‘consumer’ version of the E75 and, indeed, it’s fairly easy to summarise the differences between the two: see the table below listing the ‘advantages’ of each, relative to the other. However, there’s more to it than this, as we shall see.

Nokia E75 advantages Nokia 5730 XpressMusic advantages

Metal, low profile battery cover

Plain white key legends

(Programmable) Shortcut keys to Messaging/Email and Calendar

Loudspeaker grille for better high frequency playback

Full Quickoffice editing version

Eseries PIM application pack

Homescreen contact quick matching

Camera framing mirror
Launched £100 cheaper (though current prices don’t reflect this)

Back/Play/Forward Music and Media control buttons

A ‘Carl Zeiss’ branded camera – it doesn’t make a huge difference, but it’s good to have

Two gaming keys (above the screen)

Digital compass

Flush-fitting card and port covers

Discrete numeric keypad keys

Light action d-pad

Ships with in-ear music-optimised headphones

‘Fashion’ key legends, optimised for use in the dark

The Photos application, complete with image tagging and video editor

Music voice searching

Contact-based, Ovi-chat-enabled homescreen

Comes with £8 gift voucher for the Nokia Music Store

Comes preloaded with trials for a dozen N-Gage games

Nokia Home Media wizard/application

All of which does seem like quite a list, and indeed there’s a lot to discuss below, but don’t let the table above kid you into thinking that these aren’t, at heart, the same phone. If you look at the positioning of all the ports and side keys, if you look at the qwerty keyboard layout and spacing, if you compare audio and multimedia results, if you look at the recesses for ribbons and mechanism on the underside of the main keyboard, you’ll quickly deduce that the E75 and 5730 are twins, separated at birth and led down slightly different life paths.

It’s slightly odd that the 5730 XpressMusic has appeared so much later than the E75, and galling considering that there’s nothing cutting edge in its firmware that might provide a clue for this timing – after all the 5730 still has Nokia Maps v2 and the ‘old’ version of S60 Web. There’s not even an Ovi Store link. Clearly, the 5730 was designed and specified concurrently with the E75, but the timescales for either production or marketing slipped and then the summer break got in the way. Well, that’s my theory anyway. (One compensation for the wait is that a digital compass got added to the GPS chip in the meantime, of which more later.)

But almost all potential buyers won’t have seen an E75 in the flesh, so for the bulk of this review I’m going to treat the 5730 standalone, as a smartphone in its own right. For the guy or gal picking this up on a modest monthly contract in the High Street, what are they going to love and what are they going to hate (if anything)? I will put in some E75 comparison quips where needed, but I’ll try not to let these dominate!

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic

Essentially, the 5730 is a candy bar S60 smartphone with a hidden side-sliding qwerty keyboard. Such side-sliders aren’t totally new to the High Street, with devices like the budget LG KS360 leading the way, bringing full qwerty to the masses. But the 5730’s keyboard is in a different league. It’s got four rows of characters, meaning that most symbols don’t need shifting, and the key spacing is large for a phone. In fact, it’s just about the perfect mobile keyboard for typing while standing up, using both thumbs, and it’s lot faster than that in a typical Blackberry.

And it’s the keyboard (and the main keypad) where the styling of the 5730 starts to hit home, both in a good and a bad way. The key legends are all printed in a 1980’s-esque dot matrix font, adding a unique character to the phone. In bright light, readability’s not too bad, but in murky conditions (say, a badly lit office) it can be hard to see which key is which. Compared to the striking clear white key legends on the E75, it’s tempting to dismiss the 5730 XpressMusic out of hand, but doing that misses half the point of the phone.

E75 and 5730 keyboards merged. In average light, the 5730’s legends definitely suffer…

This is aimed at the 15 to 25s market, targetting those with enough money to afford the 5730 and to also be able to afford the time and money (pre-raising a family) to have a night life. And it’s at night that the 5730 XpressMusic shines. Almost literally. The dot matrix font, when backlit in a dark pub or club, looks extremely cool and is about the right visibility for bashing out texts, instant messages or social network status updates. In addition, the media control keys glow attractively and the translucent red strip around the 5730’s frame catches spot lights and also glows, rather warmly. So, while it’s tempting to lambast the design team for producing something with style over function, you can at least see how it might work in a typical user’s (night) life.

Staying with the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic’s keys, there are several aspects of note (other than the already mentioned opinion-polarising font):
The number pad has discrete keys, which is good (the E75 has plastic strips, each with three ‘keys’). And they’re all domed for easy finger location. But, as with the E75, cramming the keys into such a small area does make for cramped input. Luckily, the presence of the qwerty keyboard means that such a restriction is easily forgiven.

The d-pad has the lightest ‘feel’ of any that I’ve ever used. Which either makes it a delight (I’m in this camp) or a right royal pain (Rita el-Khoury’s in this camp), with some finding that a direction gets pressed when you simply mash down on the centre. It all depends on the size of your fingers and whether you’re using the pad of your thumb or the thumbnail – yet another personal choice for this polarising phone!

The function keys (left and right) are at a level of at least 1mm below the surface of the screen, meaning that each appears somewhat sunken. As a result, you again have to approach them with the thumbnail rather than the pad of the thumb if you don’t want the surrounding keys to get activated.

The music control keys are large enough to hit accurately when you’re looking at the phone, but they take some getting used to for controlling music playback ‘unseen’, e.g. when the phone’s in your pocket. A degree of physical demarcation would have helped here – maybe a slight doming of each key, or perhaps a raised dot in the centre of each?

The gaming keys, on a plastic rocker above the screen, are quite firm to press – for sensitive gaming, they’re a little too ‘hard’ in their feel. The keys (circle=A, square=B) only light up and respond when you’re in an official N-Gage game, but it’s quite cool when they do – with the 5730 held in landscape mode, with the d-pad on the left, the gaming keys are perfectly placed for traditional gaming, e.g. Fire/Jump/Strike.

The main qwerty keys are ever so slightly textured, giving good grip when needed.

The main display is the same as that on the E75 – limited to 2.4″ diagonal by the form factor and the need to fit in a numeric keypad on the front of the phone. Visibility is good though, with the transflective backing making it easy to read even in direct sunlight. The resolution’s the 2007/2008 standard QVGA and, while this looks a little small compared to some of the smartphones being released, it’s fine for a 2.4″ screen and it’ll be fine for the target market here.

On the 5730’s left are flush-covered ports for microUSB (for connection to a desktop, for filling with music, principally) and microSD, an improvement on the weird covers on the E75, which stick out awkwardly. Also good to see is the inclusion of a 8GB card to get new users started. Indeed, for many casual users, 8GB may be enough for all their needs. On the downside, extracting the microSD is quite tricky, harder than on the E75 because of the extra 1mm width of the plastic casing – the card is just that little bit further inside the hatch and is hard to grab hold of.

On the 5730’s top is a 4-way (i.e. smartphone) 3.5mm audio jack. Supplied in the box are a great set of stereo, in-ear (complete with spare rubber seals) headphones with hands-free microphone pod a third of the way down the main cable. Perfect. Sound quality is very good through these headphones (though E75 owners should note that this device sounds identical through the same headset, more evidence that the internal electronics are the same.)

On the device’s right are a volume up/down rocker (which also works in Photos, to zoom in and out) and a functional two-stage camera shutter button.

As with the E75, there’s the (fairly unique) option to charge in two completely different ways. Either via the supplied 2mm mains charger, or via microUSB, from either a data cable or (indeed) a microUSB mains charger. You can even plug in both at the same time, though the 5730 doesn’t actually charge twice as fast! It’s good to have this dual charger compatibility and a very flexible arrangement.

Bringing up the rear – oh dear

With the rear cover off – showing how slim the 5730 could be…

Turning the 5730 XpressMusic over brings several more points of note, most of them bad. Most obvious is the one piece plastic back of the phone, which hooks into the right side of the device and then clicks into place in ‘landscape’ fashion – don’t worry if that sounds tricky, as Nokia helpfully attach a sticker to every new phone, with a diagram! On the plus side, the matt plastic is immune to greasy fingerprints and it’s also very light. On the minus side, presumably in order to keep enough tension in it to keep the cover in place, Nokia has bowed it slightly, meaning that the 5730 is at least 1mm thicker than it needs to be – in fact, there’s enough space inside the bowed cover that the battery physically rattles if you shake the phone. I’ve stuck a folded Post-It note in there to pad out the battery a bit.

The 5730’s back cover, with its natural ‘bow’ (in both dimensions)

Also reeking of ‘designed this on a Friday afternoon’ is the way the 5730’s loudspeaker is muffled by the cover. The device’s speaker has a pretty good raw frequency response, as can be heard in the E75, which positions a nice little metal grille over the right spot, with plenty of tinkly cymbals in music and crisp voice overtones in podcasts. The 5730 XpressMusic’s solid plastic back cover has no such openings, other than a little sound leakage through the extreme top right corner, completely ruining the frequency output from the speaker. There’s a simple fix, of course, more DIY(!), and (risking Rafe’s wrath) I’m going to be taking my drill and making my own ‘grille’ of holes – watch this space for photo proof 😎

The square cutout above the SIM slot shows the recessed speaker grille

And here’s the back cover…. errr…. covering up the loudspeaker. Medium frequencies make it through, higher ones… don’t.

Last, but by no means least, on the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic’s rear is the camera, identical in specification to that of the E75 and more than its equal in terms of quality. Which is saying something, since the E75 has just about the best 3 megapixel camera I’ve ever seen in a phone. The 5730 adds a Carl Zeiss-branded lens, bringing slightly sharper detail and slightly better colours. The difference is marginal, to be honest, but it can be seen. There’ll be more on the 5730 XpressMusic’s camera in part 2 of my review, but in the meantime, have a look at these blow-ups of the same sunny scene: the E75’s photo is on the left, the 5730’s on the right. Note how the red play equipment is redder, the green leaves are greener and the blue sky is bluer. The railings are also slightly sharper, if you look closely enough.

And here’s the full size, 3 megapixel photo, just click to download or enlarge in your browser.

Although not quite capable of semi-pro photos and dubious for printed blowups of more than 7″ x 5″, 3 megapixels, combined with this lens and sensor, is certainly enough for good casual photography. As you might expect, the unit struggles in low light, but even here it performs a lot better than, for example, the camera in the Nokia 5800 (and sister devices) and miles better than the mountain of 3mp camera phones from many other manufacturers.

Again, there will be more on the 5730’s camera in part 2 of this review.

Wireless matters

The number of aerials in each phone that comes out these days just goes up and up. In the 5730 XpressMusic we have GPS (complete with an integrated magnetometer – i.e. a digital compass), an FM radio, Wi-Fi (b and g variants), quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G. Some people have reported network reception problems in the E75, but I’ve seen none in either that device nor this one – signal strength has been excellent.

I also had no problems with GPS lock, when taking Nokia Maps 2 out for a spin. Yes, version 2, a little disappointing, although plugging the 5730 into Nokia Maps Updater on a PC upgraded things to Ovi Maps 3.1 and brought me bang up to date for free. I’m guessing that an official Ovi Maps 3 update will slip into an upcoming firmware.

Sadly there’s no FM Transmitter, something which I’d been starting to take for granted in recent S60 smartphone launches. Still, at the current £250 and at the predicted £200 price point, it’s fair to say that something had to be left out. Having GPS and Wi-Fi and Carl Zeiss optics in the camera are already most welcome!

Swiss Army Knives

I’ve often talked about the Nokia E75 as the Swiss Army Knife of the smartphone world: it does just about everything and in a relatively svelte form factor. Using that analogy, the 5730 XpressMusic is the cheaper-built, unbranded Swiss Army Knife clone that also squeezes in a few more blades and gizmos – it won’t appeal to the Knife purist, but it’ll please the heck out of anybody wanting more gadgets per cubic centimtre.

In part two of my 5730 XpressMusic review, I’ll be looking at the 5730’s software package, including the new contact-based homescreen. A true step forwards or a half-hearted attempt at social integration? I’ll also look at the 5730’s camera and multimedia capabilities in more detail, before delivering my verdict on this new smartphone.

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 1st October 2009

5730 vs the ‘original’ Swiss Army Knife smartphone, the E75

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_5730_XpressMusic-part_1-Fashion_over_Function.php

Nokia E52 (3)

The candybar S60 smartphone, specifically the Eseries candybar S60 smartphone, has taken a while to fully mature, but I think we can safely say that we’re close to the end of the design process. I simply don’t believe it’s possible to fit much more in. From screen to keypad to battery to wireless functions, it’s – quite simply – all here, in a form factor that’s under 10mm thick, only 54cc in volume and 98g in weight. Quite astonishing.

Tri band 3G, quad band GSM, Wi-Fi, A-GPS plus magnetometer, Bluetooth, 3.5mm audio and a cutting edge EDoF camera, are all impressive enough, but consider the fact that about half the E52’s meagre bulk is the juggernaut BP-4L battery that normally powers the likes of the E90, E61i and E71 and the miniaturisation is even more staggering.

The E52’s styling follows that of the E51 before it, though with the lighter aluminium rather than steel for the surrounds and battery cover, and with a slightly wider shell, to accommodate the much larger (2.4″ vs 2.0″) display. The result still feels fairly solid in the hand and you’ll enjoy the feel very much on account of the aforementioned thinness, the ‘interesting’ texture on the battery cover and the uniquely textured d-pad. Attempting to twist the E52 does result in a small amount of movement, but nothing serious. The only build quality issue I had was that, like the E55, the keypad backlight leaks out disconcertingly from beneath the ‘Home’ key – hopefully Nokia can crack this on the head in subsequent production runs.

Unlike the E55 (and unlike the E51), the E52 is somewhat strangely garbed in a gun metal grey. I’m not normally too bothered by colour schemes, but here it directly impacts usability. The key legends are white, as on the E55 and E51, but here the background is grey and this creates problems in both bright conditions (reflections from the grey) and in dim conditions (where it’s not dark enough for the keypad backlight to come on – the white legends simply don’t have enough contrast to stand out from the body of the keys).

These issues can, obviously, be solved by bringing out a black keypadded-version – though we haven’t heard of any plans at present. Some markets have a version with black key legends on ‘gold’ plastic, but this still doesn’t help much. What’s wrong with white on black, as God intended?

Confirming this key legend issue is a problem, I handed the E52 to my wife (a long time E51 user) and the first thing she said was “But I can’t read any of the keys!”. Lighting conditions at the time were ‘average indoors’. Nokia has a real issue here.

The E51 vs the E52 – note the difference having black for the key bodies – Nokia’s designers should have their wrists slapped for the colour scheme of the E52!

Working around the E52:
There’s a basic camera shutter button on the right hand side, along with volume/zoom/voice command keys

There’s a power button (nice to see this separate and not built-into the ‘hang up’ key) and 3.5mm audio jack on the top

There’s a microUSB port extremely neatly recessed (I missed it at first!) on the left. And yes, as with all Nokia’s latest, charging is also via microUSB, whether from the supplied mains charger or via data lead from a desktop.

There’s a microSD slot too, but this is concealed by the battery cover – not a bad design decision as this keeps the sides of the device cleaner and stops dust or damage to the card.

In terms of software, the E52 is very recognisably S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, the package is very similar to that in the familiar E75, though in the intervening months Nokia has upgraded its Webkit-based browser: v7.1, here is much faster and has a more streamlined interface (though there’s still no way to copy text from a page or open a new window – sigh). The new Eseries PIM apps have been optimised, Nokia Maps has become Ovi Maps 3.0 (complete with lifetime pedestrian navigation – and 10 day ‘drive’ trial) and ‘Home media’ has appeared, to provide UPnP functionality. Oh yes, and Nokia’s Eseries team has licensed a whole bundle of third party software, of which more later.

On the downside, and apparently by design (I checked with the product team at Nokia), both Podcasting and Internet Radio are conspicuous by their absence. I’m told that many people have already clamoured for their reinstatement and that Nokia are considering adding them back in a future firmware. I hope they do, since lack of Podcasting is a deal breaker for yours truly.

As you can see from the photo above, the only non-cosmetic difference between the E55 and E52 is the physical form of the keypad/keyboard, and this is where personal preferences come into play. The E52 is very much the ‘play-it-safe’ variant, with lovely large keys in standard T9 formation – they’re well sculpted and with decent key travel and definite ‘click’ action. As Asri noted a week or so ago, the E52 has to rank as having, cosmetics apart, one of the best S60 keypads ever made (in case you’re interested, I maintain that the Nokia N93 had the best of all!). And, with the familiar layout, this will sell well to standard businesses and mobile professionals, whereas the sales of the E55 will doubtless veer more towards the geek sector.

Now, along with the E55, one of the biggest Unique Selling Points of the E52 (other than its sheer size/form factor) is the EDoF (Extended Depth of Field) camera. This is a new idea, borne of the digital age. Rather than having a bulky and expensive auto-focus mechanism, the idea is that a cheaper fixed focus camera can be dramatically improved by using a custom lens which has been designed to focus the RGB components of light differently. When an image is captured (effectively three ‘photos’, one for each of the RGB components), every part of the photo’s viewing area is analysed, with the sharpest of the RGB images determining the detail used for that part, with the other image supplying appropriate coloration. In this way, the normal depth of field for a fixed focus camera is extended and objects a metre or so away can be captured fairly sharply, something which wouldn’t be possible with a vanilla fixed focus camera.

In reasonably good lighting, the results can be tremendous for such a small camera/sensor unit. Here are some samples, click each to download or view full-size:

Note the depth of field, the EDoF works well in good light conditions!

More EDoF examples from the E52/E55… Objects both close and far away are all in ‘focus’

And here’s where things break down: firstly, it’s still a small camera with small sensor and in dim/indoor
conditions you’ll be struggling as with any other similar unit – the E52 is not an N95…; secondly, there’s a limit
to how far EDoF increases the depth of field – get within about half a metre of an object and it will start to get blurry…

Ah yes, my new car [you wish – now get back to work! /Crack – Rafe]; and a snap of a sign, taken from about
a metre away – note how this is within the EDoF (range) and how the text is pretty crisp as a result,
despite there being no actual focussing involved

Some motions shots – the EDoF camera seems to take photos with quite fast shutter times. The first photo was with both my
boat and the object boat moving, while the second is of a train going through the station at high speed
(estimated 80 to 100mph) – the shutter speed was so fast that the train almost looks stationary. Impressive.

Notably, the E52/E55’s camera also includes a panorama mode, in the same manner as in the new N86 –
except here you get to stitch five photos – here’s an attempt of mine, taken in cloudy conditions.
The actual stitching together takes around a minute, so don’t expect to shoot panoramas quickly, back to back!

The extra image processing can’t work miracles however, and once the light levels go down you get the same reduction in depth of field, the same sensor noise and the same blurred subjects as with any other small-lensed fixed focus camera. It’s also worth noting that because the lens is fixed focus, there also can’t be a ‘Close up’ (or ‘macro’) mode, so anything closer to the E52 than about half a metre is destined to stay blurry and out of focus.

That said, I was impressed by the EDoF camera and would be happy using it as an ad-hoc snapper on the family day out – the results are usually quite good enough for even a discerning family album.

Video capture is at VGA resolution (the new standard, it seems in phone cameras) and at 15 frames per second. I was impressed by the colour handling here, by the pre-focus in video mode (to a couple of metres, something which the N97 still can’t do, to name but one device) and by the quality of the captured audio. Again, for personal use, I don’t think any user could complain about performance in this area.

Here’s a sample video (4MB, click the photo to play or download) – one of
the E52/E55’s strongpoints, I think, despite the 15fps frame rate

And so to other aspects of the E52. The front panel keys are elegantly sculpted and a pleasure to use, while the 2.4″ display is the same as the six month old E75’s – small for a 2009 smartphone, but well formed in the context of such a small device and, most importantly, transflective, meaning that it’s beautifully clear in sunlight – as with the E75’s and E71’s (etc.) displays, there are no lighting no-go areas for this screen (unlike those on the 5800, N97 and many competitors).

The (mono) loudspeaker on the E52’s rear is thankfully crystal clear and loud – great for listening to podcasts around the house. Music sounded clear but without much quality or bass over the supplied 3.5mm ‘4-way’ stereo headset/mike, though plugging in a ‘pro’ set of headphones showed that the tinny sound wasn’t the phone’s fault. Nokia do sell high quality in-ear headsets with a microphone breakout box, if you really want to pursue hi-fi-like music on the move on the E52.

Nokia’s Eseries application set seems to have stabilised (albeit with the aforementioned unfortunate omissions) – it’s worth noting that, at long last, elements of the Nseries photo gallery have made their way into an Eseries phone, with the slick, tag-based carousel now popping up when you click on ‘Gallery | Images’. Unfortunately, the list of items then presented includes videos as well. Along with Gallery | Videos and Video centre, there are now three near identical ways into your videos. Nokia, the way you present media is just appallingly messy these days – please sort it out!

Gallery leads to Photos, which leads to – ahem – your photos AND videos

As mentioned elsewhere, video playback in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 is pretty mature now and virtually every MP4, 3GP and FLV video I threw at the E52 was handled without issue. WMV proved slightly more erratic, but as ever, digital video codecs are an utter black art and Microsoft is the dark wizard, WMV is never trivial to handle.

In terms of business software (this is an Eseries, after all), there’s the new Nokia Messaging email system, incorporating pseudo-push email from POP3 or IMAP accounts. As I’ve remarked before, this is something of a love it or hate it solution, but it’s certainly an easy way into mobile email for most, if not all, people. The full, editing version of Quickoffice v5 is supplied in the firmware, though the usual upgrading option to v6.2 wasn’t present, curiously – maybe this will come as well in an imminent firmware upgrade or in a catalogue update from Quickoffice themselves?

The two one-touch application shortcut keys work well, despite their diminutive size, I love the way assignments can be made to a ‘long press’, effectively giving you four hardware application buttons and speeding up common access significantly.

The ‘new’ S60 tweaks introduced for the E71 are here on the E52 as well, of course:
the Business/Personal home screen ‘modes’ (most useful, IMHO, for quick theme switching!)
the quick matching of contacts when typing in a name on the home screen – very useful day to day as a quick way to call or message someone
word auto-completion when entering text – the suggested word is shown completed in pale blue and a tap on the space bar accepts the suggestion. This is a little gimmicky – in almost every case where a long word is being spelt out, a shorter long word is popped up first and you end up tripping over yourself to make it right. For example, “communications”. “communication” is suggested only, leaving you to either spell the word out in full, or accept the singular and then backspace to fiddle around and battle the software to add an extra letter. Similarly with “difficulty” and many, many other long English words.

Of special interest is that a number of third party applications have been fully licensed by Nokia for the E52 and E55 (though their default position in the applications menus differs slightly, rather curiously).

WiPresenter (from Psiloc) lets you use both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to control a Powerpoint presentation on a PC, while Font Magnifier (also from Psiloc) does exactly what it says, allowing system-wide font substitutions (between 50% and 140% of the original font size) to make text easier to read (or to fit in more text on-screen) in any application. Psiloc World Traveler (sic) is actually freeware anyway but it nice to see included here, providing Worldmate-like weather, currency and time information. Top Hits Solitaires (from Epocware) is a first class set of hundreds of card solitaire variations and one of my favourite commercial S60 games. Advanced Communication manager (from WebGate) is a call filtering application and Block Cascade is a Flash-based ‘Columns’ clone from Gamelion. Overall, a worthwhile set of extras, even if it does mean more icons for the new E52/E55 owner to assimilate!

Also hinting that the current v21 firmware is incomplete is that the Ovi Store client is missing at first. Instead, it’s listed in the front screen ‘Download!’ utility, so I suppose most users will get there in the end. Doubtless it’ll be in the firmware for real for v22. The N-Gage client is present, but it’s also curiously implemented in that its not actually in the firmware – it has been installed as an add-on at the factory. Bizarre.

There’s accelerometer-driven display rotation in almost all applications (including the home screen and menus) but, somewhat strangely, I couldn’t find an explicit way to turn this behaviour off – turning ALL sensor operations off does the trick, thankfully. Although clever, I end up disabling this on any phone I use, and I can only think that adding a dialog line to control this is another small omission. As it is, I lose the ‘flip to silent/snoozing alarms’ function if I don’t want display auto-rotation, which is annoying.

And so we come to the moment of truth. Just how good is the Nokia E52? On the one hand, it’s just a humble T9-keypadded, small-screened (relative to the N97 and iPhone and other ‘champions’ of 2009), S60 candybar, but the E52 is (potentially) as good as it’s possible to get within that form factor. And, if you need a business-focussed smartphone that’s tiny and unobtrusive, something that will slip in any pocket and not spoil the line of your suit, this form factor makes an awful lot of sense. Within something that’s almost as small as phones can go, you’ve got full email, full Office editing, full Web access, and much more, all in a device that will happily go for several days on one charge or stand up to a day of voice calls without flinching.

However – and I absolutely hate the fact that every review of a Nokia smartphone I do has to have a ‘however’ section near the end – please, Nokia, just for once, make a smartphone that doesn’t manage to shoot itself in the foot at some point – there are two problems, as described above: by going with white key legends on grey plastic (on our review device), the usability of the E52 is seriously hampered in some light conditions – the black keypad on the sister E55 is worlds better. And to omit Podcasting and Internet Radio on purpose, presumably because they’re not ‘business’ apps, but then include N-Gage, is just silly. And, to be generous, I’m not going to mention the user interface fiasco that’s video handling…

The pairing of the E52 and E55, with near identical hardware, does make a lot of sense from Nokia’s point of view, in terms of economies of manufacturing. It also makes sense from a customer’s point of view, giving everyone the chance to choose their text input system.

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_E52.php 

Nokia E55 (3)

In a nutshell, the E55 is the thinnest, lightest S60 smartphone in Nokia’s current lineup and manages to acquit itself well in almost all areas. At under 10mm thick, 54cc and 98g, the specifications are astonishing.

The E55 shown on top of the E75 (a QWERTY slider)

Tri band 3G, quad band GSM, Wi-Fi, A-GPS plus magnetometer, Bluetooth, 3.5mm audio and a cutting edge EDoF camera, are all impressive enough, but consider the fact that about half the E55’s meagre bulk is the juggernaut BP-4L battery that normally powers the likes of the E90, E61i and E71 and the miniaturisation is even more staggering. Then notice that the main keypad is qwerty, not numeric. Gulp.

Putting all this into perspective, you’ve got something with most of the power and functions of the huge E90 in a tiny form factor that’s just over a third the volume. As you might have noticed from the superlatives, it’s hard not to be blown away the first time you pick up the Nokia E55, but there are also quite a few downsides and there’s also plenty worth discussing and testing, not least the keyboard and one of the first EDoF cameras in Nokia’s smartphone range.

The E55’s styling follows that of the E51 and E71 before it, though with slightly less metal in the construction: you do get a metal battery cover and brushed aluminium fascia around the control keys, but much of the rest is plastic. The result still feels solid in the hand and you’ll enjoy the feel very much on account of the aforementioned thinness, the ‘interesting’ texture on the battery cover and the uniquely textured d-pad.

Working around the E55:
There’s a basic camera shutter button on the right hand side, along with volume/zoom/voice command keys

There’s a power button (nice to see this separate and not built-into the ‘hang up’ key) and 3.5mm audio jack on the top

There’s a microUSB port extremely neatly recessed (I missed it at first!) on the left. And yes, as with all Nokia’s latest, charging is also via microUSB, whether from the supplied mains charger or via data lead from a desktop.

There’s a microSD slot too, but this is concealed by the battery cover – not a bad design decision as this keeps the sides of the device cleaner and stops dust or damage to the card.

In terms of software, the E55 is very recognisably S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, the package is very similar to that in the familiar E75, though in the intervening months Nokia has upgraded its Webkit-based browser: v7.1, here is much faster and has a more streamlined interface (though still no way to copy text from a page or open a new window – sigh). The new Eseries PIM apps have been optimised, Nokia Maps has become Ovi Maps 3.0 (complete with lifetime pedestrian navigation – and 10 day ‘drive’ trial) and ‘Home media’ has appeared, to provide UPnP functionality. Oh yes, and Nokia’s Eseries team has licensed a whole bundle of third party software, of which more later.

On the downside, and quite inexplicably, both Podcasting and Internet Radio are conspicuous by their absence – I can only think that they were left out of the initial firmware because of a last minute show-stopping bug and that they’ll appear again soon. I hope so, since Podcasting is a deal breaker for yours truly. Interestingly, the review E55 arrived in a state in which Over The Air firmware updates weren’t working, but a PC Suite update later (to v21.013) got update checking working properly and we all now await the missing applications and (doubtless) the odd bug fix or two.

The biggest Unique Selling Point (USP) of the E55 is, of course, its keyboard. Squeezed into the same space as the E52 gets for its standard 12-key keypad, the keys aren’t huge. And each has to do double-duty in terms of letter assignments, in a system that Nokia calls ‘half QWERTY’ (and which RIM/Blackberry call ‘SureType’).

The idea is that you type away as normal and the predictive software in the E55 then works out what word you wanted to type based on the dual-letter keys kit. Compared to predictive text on a numeric keypad (which have 3 letters per key, of course), there are far less ‘wrong’ words suggested, which is an excellent start. Tempting though it is while typing to peer around for the next letter you want, I found it much faster to trust (iPhone-style) the software to get it right, to tune out of exactly what you’re hitting and simply type as you would on a normal QWERTY thumb keyboard. For normal prose the system works fairly well, although it’s easy to get your fingers in a muddle trying to enter words like ‘here’, which involve hitting the same key three times in a row!

However, things start to really slow down when you need names and non-English words, for which you have to toggle out of predictive mode and go into a multi-tap mode. This works as on a numeric keypad, except that here there are only two possibilities per key. Things also slow down a lot (in predictive mode) when you need to enter punctuated words like “it’s” – you enter “it” and then hit the apostrophe (a shifted character), followed by hitting the ‘AS’ key. The screen shows “it’a” (what kind of predicted word is that?) so you press the ‘AS’ key again, figuring that the word should be completed in multi-tap mode. You then have “it’as”. Frustrating. [update: after a few iterations, the system is now showing “it’s” as the first suggestion. Sanity has prevailed – thankfully]

Similarly, entering a simple comma requires grinding out five keystrokes – entering a period and then picking the alternative predictions for this one-character ‘word’ from a list – a comma is not even the first or second alternative offered! Or you can append a comma to a word, but the first suggestion is then a period and you have to do the same picking-the-comma-from-the-list thing – surely this system can be tightened up somehow?

The Help system continues to get more and more polished in S60, complete with a tutorial to guide users round the new keyboard – though it still couldn’t help me find a quick way to enter a comma in predictive mode!

In short, the predictive QWERTY system works about as well as predictive numeric keypad input overall – it’s inherently more accurate but isn’t optimised as finely yet for common input patterns (as above). As you might perhaps expect, text input speeds aren’t anywhere near those of full QWERTY keyboards (of any size) – after some practice on the E55 I managed to get to 24 words per minute on my test sentence pair. This is up to 20% faster than predictive input on a numeric keypad, but it’s not perhaps enough of an improvement to warrant the retraining necessary to move from the likes of the E51, especially when the standard keypad-equipped E52 has everything else the E55 has, but with the added advantage of familiarity.

As Rafe pointed out in his preview (link), the danger here is that the E55’s layout is just a little too different and the device may find itself being squeezed between some of its sister phones: the E52, and the E63/E71/E75, not to mention the upcoming E72. This would be something of a shame, but would be a scenario I can quite understand.

Now, onto the second USP, the EDoF (Extended Depth of Field) camera. This is a new idea, borne of the digital age. Rather than having a bulky and expensive auto-focus mechanism, the idea is that a cheaper fixed focus camera can be dramatically improved by using a custom lens which has been designed to focus the RGB components of light differently. When an image is captured (effectively three ‘photos’, one for each of the RGB components), every part of the photo’s viewing area is analysed, with the sharpest of the RGB images determining the detail used for that part, with the other image supplying appropriate coloration. In this way, the normal depth of field for a fixed focus camera is extended and objects a metre or so away can be captured fairly sharply, something which wouldn’t be possible with a vanilla fixed focus camera.

In reasonably good lighting, the results can be tremendous for such a small camera/sensor unit. Here are some samples, click each to download or view full-size:

Note the depth of field, the EDoF works well in good light conditions!

More EDoF examples… Objects both close and far away are all in ‘focus’

And here’s where things break down: firstly, it’s still a small camera with small sensor and in dim/indoor
conditions you’ll be struggling as with any other similar unit – the E55 is not an N95…; secondly, there’s a limit
to how far EDoF increases the depth of field – get within about half a metre of an object and it will start to get blurry…

Ah yes, my new car [you wish – now get back to work! /Crack – Rafe]; and a snap of a sign, taken from about
a metre away – note how this is within the EDoF (range) and how the text is pretty crisp as a result,
despite there being no actual focussing involved

Some motions shots – the EDoF camera seems to take photos with quite fast shutter times. The first photo was with both my
boat and the object boat moving, while the second is of a train going through the station at high speed
(estimated 80 to 100mph) – the shutter speed was so fast that the train almost looks stationary. Impressive.

Notably, the E55’s camera also includes a panorama mode, in the same manner as in the new N86 –
except here you get to stitch five photos – here’s an attempt of mine, taken in cloudy conditions.
The actual stitching together takes around a minute, so don’t expect to shoot panoramas quickly, back to back!

The extra image processing can’t work miracles however, and once the light levels go down you get the same reduction in depth of field, the same sensor noise and the same blurred subjects as with any other small-lensed fixed focus camera. It’s also worth noting that because the lens is fixed focus, there also can’t be a ‘Close up’ (or ‘macro’) mode, so anything closer to the E55 than about half a metre is destined to stay blurry and out of focus.

That said, I was impressed by the EDoF camera and would be happy using it as an ad-hoc snapper on the family day out – the results are usually quite good enough for even a discerning family album.

Video capture is at VGA resolution (the new standard, it seems in phone cameras) and at 15 frames per second. I was impressed by the colour handling here, by the pre-focus in video mode (to a couple of metres, something which the N97 still can’t do, to name but one device) and by the quality of the captured audio. Again, for personal use, I don’t think any user could complain about performance in this area.

Here’s a sample video (4MB, click the photo to play or download) – one of
the E55’s strongpoints, I think, despite the 15fps frame rate

And so to other aspects of the E55. The front panel keys are elegantly sculpted and a pleasure to use, while the 2.4″ display is the same as the E75’s – small for a 2009 smartphone, but well formed in the context of such a small device and, most importantly, transflective, meaning that it’s beautifully clear in sunlight – as with the E75’s and E71’s (etc.) displays, there are no lighting no-go areas for this screen (unlike those on the 5800, N97 and many competitors).

The (mono) loudspeaker on the E55’s rear is thankfully crystal clear and loud – great for listening to podcasts around the house. Music sounded clear but without much quality or bass over the supplied 3.5mm ‘4-way’ stereo headset/mike, though plugging in a ‘pro’ set of headphones showed that the tinny sound wasn’t the phone’s fault. Nokia do sell high quality in-ear headsets with microphone breakout box, if you really want to pursue hi-fi-like music on the move on the E55.

Nokia’s Eseries application set seems to have stabilised (with the aforementioned temporary omissions) – it’s worth noting that at long last elements of the Nseries photo gallery have made their way into an Eseries phone, with the slick, tag-based carousel now popping up when you click on ‘Gallery | Images’. Unfortunately, the list of items then presented includes videos as well. Along with Gallery | Videos and Video centre, there’s now three near identical ways into your videos. Nokia, the way you present media is just appallingly messy these days – please sort it out!

Gallery leads to Photos, which leads to – ahem – your photos AND videos

As mentioned elsewhere, video playback in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 is pretty mature now and virtually every MP4, 3GP and FLV video I threw at the E55 was handled without issue. WMV proved slightly more erratic, but as ever, digital video codecs are an utter black art and Microsoft is the dark wizard, WMV is never trivial to handle.

In terms of business software (this is an Eseries, after all), there’s the new Nokia Messaging email system, incorporating pseudo-push email from POP3 or IMAP accounts. As I’ve remarked before, this is something of a love it or hate it solution, but it’s certainly an easy way into mobile email for most, if not all, people. The full, editing version of Quickoffice v5 is supplied in the firmware, though the usual upgrading option to v6.2 wasn’t present, curiously – maybe this will come as well in an imminent firmware upgrade?

The two one-touch application shortcut keys work well, I love the way assignments can be made to a ‘long press’, effectively giving you four hardware application buttons and speeding up common access significantly. One thing that doesn’t work so well is the removal of the application grid shortcuts – on every previous S60 phone, you can press the appropriate number key to access the corresponding application in the menu grid on-screen. Admittedly the number grid is complicated here by the surrounding columns of QWERTY edge keys, but I still missed being able to hit ‘5’ for the centre shortcut, etc.

The ‘new’ S60 tweaks introduced for the E71 are here on the E55 as well, of course:

the Business/Personal home screen ‘modes’ (most useful, IMHO, for quick theme switching!)
the quick matching of contacts when typing in a name on the home screen – quite useful day to day
word auto-completion when entering text – the suggested word is shown completed in pale blue and a tap on the space bar accepts the suggestion. This is a little gimmicky – in almost every case where a long word is being spelt out, a shorter long word is popped up first and you end up tripping over yourself to make it right. For example, “communications”. “communication” is suggested only, leaving you to either spell the word out in full, or accept the singular and then backspace to fiddle around adding an extra letter. Similarly with “difficulty” and many, many other long English words.

Of special interest is that a number of third party applications have been fully licensed by Nokia for the E55. WiPresenter (from Psiloc) lets you use both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to control a Powerpoint presentation on a PC, while Font Magnifier (also from Psiloc) does exactly what it says, allowing system-wide font substitutions (between 50% and 140% of the original font size) to make text easier to read (or to fit in more text on-screen) in any application. Psiloc World Traveler (sic) is actually freeware anyway but it nice to see included here, providing Worldmate-like weather, currency and time information. Top Hits Solitaires (from Epocware) is a first class set of hundreds of card solitaire variations and one of my favourite commercial S60 games. Advanced Communication manager (from WebGate) is a call filtering application and Block Cascade is a Flash-based ‘Columns’ clone from Gamelion. Overall, a worthwhile set of extras, even if it does mean more icons for the new E55 owner to assimilate!

Also hinting that the current v21 firmware is incomplete is that the Ovi Store client and the N-Gage client were also missing from the E55. Both can be easily retrofitted if needed though – indeed, N-Gage had been added to the device, outside of the firmware, at the factory (and then got lost when Rafe wiped the device prior to sending it to me for review!). I’d expect both Ovi Store and N-Gage to be in the very next firmware image. Interestingly, the old Download! application is still present and on the front menu, although it does now seem to be free again from the scam that was the old Jamster (‘one of your three apps for the week’, etc.) system. Oh, and there’s no Ovi Store download link yet within Download!

There’s accelerometer-driven display rotation in almost all applications (including the home screen and menus) but, somewhat strangely, I couldn’t find an explicit way to turn this behaviour off – turning ALL sensor operations off does the trick, thankfully. Although clever, I end up disabling this on any phone I use, and I can only think that adding a dialog line to control this is another small omission. As it is, I lose the ‘flip to silent/snoozing alarms’ function if I don’t want display auto-rotation, which is annoying.

And so, for what seems like the umpteenth smartphone in a row, I’m tempted to issue a ‘this will be really good when the manufacturer fixes it up in firmware’ disclaimer. Don’t be too put off though, 99% of the E55’s functionality works as advertised, but the omission of Podcasting (to which I’m utterly addicted) and Internet Radio have meant that I, for one, couldn’t use this as my primary phone – yet.

The pairing of the E52 and E55, with near identical hardware, does make a lot of sense from Nokia’s point of view, in terms of economies of manufacturing. It also makes sense from a customer’s point of view, giving everyone the chance to choose their text input system. Like Rafe, I wish ‘Half QWERTY’ well but have a sneaking suspicion that the majority of buyers will veer towards the more conventional E52.

Like the upcoming E72, the E52 promises to be something of a landmark device, something so perfect that you couldn’t really envisage it being implemented any better, within the form factor.

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_E551.php

Nokia E55 (2)

Nokia E55 review: Five by five

Introduction

Sometimes, a phone is nearly perfect, except for that one small thing you want to change. If you felt that way about Nokia E52, the E55 claims to have the answer. Don’t get us wrong – the E52 has killer looks and specs. And the E55… well, like we told you, it’s the same phone save for that one little thing.

Nokia E55 official photos

If QWERTY keyboards are for heavy texters where does half-QWERTY fit? Some would say it’s the same target but different goal. You know, like heavy texting is a bad habit and half-QWERTY is the therapy. Now, now, no need to be too smart. But does it really make typing faster or slower, and how hard it is to learn the new layout? We ran a test to find out.

But more on that later. Thanks to the excellent connectivity options and Office editing out of the box, the E55 keeps your office at arm’s length – whether you’re out to lunch or out of town. Emails, presentations, spreadsheets, memos – you can bring all that everywhere you go. But hey, we’re not saying you should. Thanks to Modes, switching between Business and Personal homescreens makes sure you don’t have to bring work home.

Texting and email go without saying, but the Nokia E55 is one of the best-equipped Symbian devices around. Here’s the rundown:
Key features
Compact metallic body and extra slim girth (9.9mm)
Quad-band GSM support
3G with HSDPA 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2 Mbps
half-QWERTY keyboard
2.4″ 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
Symbian OS, S60 UI with FP2
600 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB RAM
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology, DLNA support
Built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS support, digital compass
Accelerometer for screen auto-rotation and turn-to-mute
One-touch shortcut keys mean “business”
3 megapixel enhanced fixed focus camera with LED flash
Secondary videocall camera
60 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion, ships with a 2GB card
microUSB v2.0
Standard 3.5mm audio jack
Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
FM radio with RDS
Class-leading audio output quality
N-Gage gaming support
Ovi Maps preinstalled with trial turn-by-turn navigation license (10 x 1 days, to be used within 3 months) and lifetime City Explorer license
User-friendly Mode Switch for swapping two homescreen setups
Office document editor (with free MS Office 2007 update)
Remote lock/wipe over-the-air
Comfortable keypad
Smart dialing
Great battery life
Main disadvantages
Disappointing camera features and performance
Video recording maxes out at VGA@15fps
No DivX or XviD support (can be installed, possibly requiring a purchase)
No TV-out functionality
Keyboard takes some time getting used to (not too long though)

Nokia E55 live shots

The Nokia E55 has something of a split personality. The business features are complete but wait till you see what it offers for recreation. N-Gage support gives you access to a host of games, the audio quality is up there with dedicated music players and the huge battery won’t run out of juice until after hours of games and music.

The weekend getaway is also covered – just punch in your destination into Nokia Maps, and the E55 will take you there. It’ll even suggest a list of local attractions.

Head to the next page where we open the box and share our experience with the Nokia E55 and its keyboard.

Unboxing: a little more than E52

Instead of the 1GB card you get with the E52, the E55 comes with a 2GB one of external storage. Everything else in the box is exactly the same. The big bonus over the E52 isn’t in the box really, it’s the lifetime Nokia Maps City Explorer license, complete with 3D landmarks, detailed descriptions, weather forecasts and pedestrian navigation.

We’ve seen better retail packages in the Eseries

The microUSB cable is of the long ones and there’s a one-piece handsfree. There’s of course the mandatory charger, along with an adapter to use with old chargers. There’s also a user manual and this time the computer sync software is supplied on the memory card (you can download it off the company website too).
Nokia E55 360-degree spin

Nokia E52 stands at 116 x 49 x 9.9 mm and has a volume of 54 cc – the exact measurements of the E52. It is extremely pocketable and remarkably comfortable to handle. Gone are the glory days of the Nokia E71, now it’s neck and neck for the title of slimmest smartphone on the market – Nokia E52 / E55 and Toshiba TG01 are the current competitors but more are coming.

Even with such a slim body, the Nokia E55 is just 2 grams under a hundred, which gives it a really pleasant solid feel. The extensive use of metal is the main cause for that and we are pretty happy Nokia chose to continue this trend with yet another Eseries handset.

Design and construction: same phone, different keypad

We’re glad we got the black variety of the E55, otherwise it would’ve been a bit too much of a déjà vu. Yes, the phones are identical. And no, the half-QWERTY keyboard doesn’t make the E55 any less attractive than the E52. We guess enough users will find the keyboard a big improvement over the E52. It doesn’t make it any less obvious though which one is the niche and which one is the mass device. Either way, we’re talking two absolutely stunning lookers.

The metal accents on the handset’s body are a nice thing too see, and they boost both looks and durability. This time even the keys below the display are metal for an extra nice feel to navigating the handset.

The E55 is available in three different colors – Black Aluminium, White Aluminium and Red. Again, our unit in Black Aluminium looks great, the rear being especially classy.

The grooved surface of the rear cover has quite a raw and industrial feel which gives the otherwise slim and refined handset a bit of extra solidity. The front is keen to reply with a glossy silvery frame enclosing the black navigation deck and numpad.

The earpiece of Nokia E55 is placed at the top of the front panel, flanked by the ambient light sensor and the video-call camera.

The etched earpiece has a stylish metallic frame • The metal accents look great

Below is the 2.4″ 16M-color QVGA display. Its quality is quite pleasing with great contrast and brightness for a really vibrant image. In QVGA terms that is – the E55 is hardly up to scratch with high-res displays that are becoming more and more common. Yet, it’s quite hard to find a bigger, higher-res display in a bar-shaped handset in this segment.

The Nokia E55 screen offers uncompromised sunlight legibility, which is a company trademark. No matter how bright the sun outside, you can always read the display comfortably.

Continuing our journey down the front of the handset we come upon the metallic D-pad. It’s large and comfortable enough to use, just like the 8 keys surrounding it. They all offer nice tactile feedback and the metallic finish on most of them is an added bonus.

Essentially, the D-pad and two rocker-styled controls nicely project over a brushed metallic deck that accommodates the two soft keys and the Call and End buttons. The rockers host the menu key and backspace, along with the two typical Eseries one-touch shortcut keys. The latter can be used as shortcuts to four applications of your choice – two handled by short presses, the other two by a press and hold. Their default function is visualized by an icon.

Even some of the keys are metallic this time

Next is the half-QWERTY keyboard. Initially we had some concerns about it – it certainly isn’t the most common type. If you’re not familiar with this type of arrangement, here’s the gist – imagine a regular QWERTY keyboard but group the keys by two, so they form pairs like QW, ER, TY and so on. The numbers are arranged in the typical way on the middle three columns, making dialing a number a familiar experience.

Despite having 8 more keys than the E52, the keyboard is very comfortable and the keys are reasonably big. The rows are tangibly terraced for very good touch orientation. Still, there are some key combinations, which are awkward, like Shift + M for example. It takes some time before you stop bumping your thumbs.

The keypad is very comfortable and the buttons are big enough

For typing, you have two options – predictive input on and off. With text prediction turned off, one tap of a key enters the first character, while subsequent taps alternate between the characters assigned to that key. There’s a shift key which works in two ways – a tap switches between modes (lower case, all caps, prediction on and off) or you can press and hold it, which works exactly like on a computer keyboard.

There’s also a function key, which is used to access the alternative symbols (punctuation and digits), a double tap on it locks this behavior until you press it a third time. A symbol key is also here to let you pick less common symbols from a pop-up chart.

Prediction works a bit like T9, it’s just that you have two letters per key rather than three or four, which makes the guessing the correct word more likely. The symbol key can be used to alternate between the listed suggestions. There’s also word completion, which can greatly speed up typing.

Going through the drill

We did a little typing test to compare the speed of the E55 keyboard against a regular 12-key keypad. Initially, we had to look for each letter, but in no time we were beating our previous times. Here are the results:Training E55 keyboard Standard 12-key keypad % faster, E55 over standard keypad
First time use 2:53 min. 1:34 min. – 84%
15 minutes of use 1:17 min. 1:27 min. 12%
1 day, moderate use 0:55 min. 1:05 min. 15%

As you can guess, we used one and the same text sample for each of the tests. Here’s the sample we chose:

I bought a new phone – it’s great. My new number is 12345678. I’ll be late for the meeting on Monday, so start without me.

It’s a message that covers some of the basic typing hurdles – punctuation, switching between letter and number mode, repeated letters, capital letters, and letters that share keys on both the Nokia E55 keyboard as well as on the standard 12-key one.

We used a person with rusty texting skills for the test, so the first result is very near a “no training” result. Sure, they won’t qualify for an SMS typing competition but what’s important here is the learning curve – it’s not that steep as expected at all.

Design and construction (continued)

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. The white backlighting is strong and pleasing to make the E55 perfect to handle in the dark.

The backlighting is nice and even

The 3.5mm standard audio jack and the power button are at the top of the Nokia E55. This time we are talking a normal button (it’s a bit small though), rather than the unfortunate red knob on the Nokia E71 and E66.

The 3.5mm standard audio jack and the power key on top

On the right side of the Nokia E55 we come upon the two volume keys, the voice command key and the dedicated shutter key. They are all a bit small for our taste but with a nice press. The voice command key is sunk a bit too low though. Back in Nokia E51 there was no dedicated camera key at all, so we welcome its addition here.

The Eseries trademark three key combo and the shutter key are on the right side

The microUSB port is on the left side of the handset. It has no protective cover (unlike the E71) to prevent it from getting dust in. By the way the audio jack is exposed too.

There’s no protection for the microUSB slot • There’s hardly anything going on at the bottom

The steel back cover of Nokia E55 is a certainly one of its best parts. It is perfectly immune to fingerprints and we have to say it looks great in black.

Rearside we find the 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera lens, along with a LED flash. The specs alone hint that imaging is yet again bottom of the Eseries priority list but we will get back to that in more detail later on.

The E55 looks a treat from the back • The 3MP shooter and loudspeaker grill

A nice little latch at the base of the battery cover allows you to release it quickly and easily. The all-metal part pops out gently and is locked back into position without any hassle. Under the cover we find the microSD card slot and the massive 1500 mAh Li-Po BP-4L battery. With a power plant like this one, the Nokia E55 is said to last 672 hours of stand-by or 8 hours of talk time and that’s more than impressive.

Pressing this button releases the battery cover • An impressive battery by all means

Forgive us for stating the obvious – the Nokia E55 is flawlessly built just like the E52. The phone looks great and working with it is a pleasure. Typing sure takes a bit of time to get to speed but the wonderfully ergonomic keys are duly appreciated. The best thing about the handset is the rare choice of keypad doesn’t compromise the looks and ergonomics, which did impress us big time on the E52. All in all, we’ve got an almost complete replica here and if you’re to consider any of the two handsets your choice will boil down to the type of keypad. The commendable ergonomics, durability and impressive styling are always part of the deal.

The Nokia E55 is sure to impress and deliver

User interface: S60 3rd is the Eseries game

So, as it turns out the only hardware difference between Nokia E52 and Nokia E55 is the half-QWERTY keyboard. So, we guess we can safely go on with the software. Which means we can sit back and relax – we’ve done our homework already with the E52. And there are no differences at all.

Nokia E55 runs on Symbian 9.3 OS with the Series60 3rd Edition user interface. It has Feature Pack 2 like the E52 and the E75 side-slider or the upcoming E72.

More importantly though, the Nokia E55 is powered by the same 600 MHz CPU as the E52. In Symbian terms, that’s a lot, not even Nokia’s current flagship – the N97 – can match it.

Nokia E55 and its sibling the E52 run on Symbian S60 3.2 much like Nokia E75

The E55 comes with the new S60 icons for a pinch of 5th edition (touch) styling. The interface can freely rotate to landscape mode thanks to the accelerometer, which also offers silencing calls and snoozing the alarm by flipping your phone over.

The accelerometer sensor has a number of settings

The phone’s main menu has two view modes: a 4 x 3 grid of icons and a list. However, with the E55 you cannot opt for having animated icons like on some other Nokia phones. This is probably just another way of reiterating the business focus of the phone. At least the font size is widely configurable depending on your preferences.

The main menu has two view modes

Inside the main menu, the circle next to the icon of a running application is a well known Symbian indication reminding users to quit unwanted applications that are still running in the background.

Almost every bit of the interface has a landscape mode too

The active stand-by mode goes without saying on the Nokia E55. This is a convenient way to add shortcuts to all your favorite applications on the homescreen. You can even assign shortcuts to websites of your choice for quicker access.

In addition you can bring up to 14 different kinds of notifications on the homescreen: email boxes and voice mail, through calendar and to-dos, to the currently running track in the Music player and FM radio. How many of those 14 get displayed is completely up to you.

Basic homescreen, active stand-by or talking theme

Each of the one-touch keys (messaging and calendar) can be customized to access any feature (actually two per key) of choice. The two soft keys functions are user-configurable too.

If for some reason the active stand-by mode isn’t your cup of tea you can use the basic theme or switch to the talking theme instead. The basic theme leaves the screen pretty bare and lets you assign shortcuts to the D-pad while the talking theme…well, talks. It brings four shortcuts to your homescreen and tells you what the currently selected one is.

Once you enter any of the menus, it tells you which menu you have opened and sometimes gives you some extra useful information about it. For example, when you enter the clock application, it tells you the current time. It would even read out the names of the contacts.

The talking theme has its own clock application

This talking theme is pretty handy to use when you can’t look at the phone. It might be a good idea to activate it while driving for example so you don’t need to actually look at the phone should you need it for something.

Another handy feature of recent Eseries handsets allows you to toggle between two different phone setups – the so-called Mode Switcher. Each of them can be customized with its own theme and homescreen applications for maximum usability. This way you can have both a leisure and a business profile and switch between them with a single click.

The built-in memory is 60MB, which is a decent amount. The included 2GB microSD memory card comes in very handy for extending it, but higher capacity cards up to 16GB are supported.

As we managed to confirm, Nokia E55 has no problem handling a 16GB microSD card. Accessing applications or any other files on the memory card is quick and you probably won’t notice any difference compared to accessing data in the phone memory.

As with any Symbian phone, there is a built-in voice recognition system. It is launched by the dedicated key on the right side of the E55 and does a good job. It’s fully speaker-independent and recognizes a very high percentage of the user commands.

And finally, there’s a nice security feature known as Remote Lock. If your Nokia E55 gets stolen or lost, you simply send a coded SMS message to remotely lock the phone. After three unsuccessful attempts to unlock it, it wipes itself clean of all personal or sensitive info. You might not get your Nokia E55 back, but at least nobody will get your personal data either.

The out-of-the box customization options for the user interface of the Nokia E55 are a modest count, to suit the handset’s business slant. There are three themes preinstalled on the handset, each in two flavors – business and personal. You can assign a different theme to each of the modes – the preinstalled ones have subtle differences, just enough to indicate which mode you’re in.

So if you are into changing those icons and colors you will have to download new ones online….but don’t worry, there’s plenty to choose from out there.

Great Symbian phonebook

The phonebook of the Nokia E55 does a tremendous job, offering storage space for a virtually unlimited number of contacts and fields with all the available memory potentially usable for that purpose. We can’t imagine anyone managing to fill that up. You are also treated to as many fields for each contact as you like and some other nice extras, so there’s very little reason to complain.

Welcome to the phonebook

Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name, and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any name. You can pick whether you want the SIM contacts, the service numbers or the phone memory contacts to be displayed or alternatively show them all at the same time.

Some of the available settings

Predictive search, contact list back-up as well as grouping are also available. The final nice extra is the setting to search for contacts on a remote server (Mail for Exchange or Intellisync).

Editing a contact offers an enormous variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like. You can also create new fields if you are able to think of any. Personal ringtones and video can also be assigned. If you prefer, you may group your contacts and give a specific ringtone to each group.

Good luck trying to find a field that Nokia missed * you can even rename a label

The Call log application can hold up to 20 call records in each of the tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls. These are all accessed by pressing the Call key in standby.

Detailed info of your past communications is to be found in the call log

If you access the Log application from the main menu, you’ll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers. You can even filter the entries (by contact or by type), a useful feature if you’re looking for a specific call.
Telephony: no worries

With Nokia E55 you are extremely unlikely to experience any reception issues. Sound during calls is very clear and free of any interferences. It’s not too loud at the loudest setting but it will do great unless you’re in a very noise environment. Like quite a number of Nokia handsets, the E55 features advanced noise cancelling, which usually works quite nice to filter background noise.

Nokia E55 also has a Smart dialing feature, which helps you quickly find a contact straight on the standby screen.

Smart dial

Nokia E55 features the advanced Communication Manager out of the box. With this quite useful application you can opt for various settings – accepting only calls from your contacts, from all non-private numbers or from anyone. You can create your own filters with quite extensive settings – including rejecting a call with SMS.

In addition you can set up different ringing profiles that can be scheduled to activate at a given time (hour and day). You can even enable an option to have the E55 say the name of the caller.

The advanced communication manager

The Nokia E55 also has support for VoIP calls – you just enter your account details and you are all set.

We conducted our traditional speakerphone test with Nokia E55 and it achieved an average result. Here is how it compares to same of the other handsets we have tested. You can find information on the actual testing process, along with the full list of tested devices here.
Speakerphone test Voice, dB Pink noise/ Music, dB Ringing phone, dB Overal score
Nokia E75 64.8 60.7 65.9 Below Average
Nokia E63 64.6 62.1 69.0 Below Average
Nokia E51 67.0 65.7 71.2 Average
Nokia E55 66.5 62.1 74.6 Average
Nokia E52 66.6 64.6 75.7 Average
Nokia E71 68.0 66.5 76.2 Good
Nokia 5320 XpressMusic 74.3 66.6 78.3 Very Good
Nokia 6500 classic 74.7 75.7 83.8 Excellent

The business of messaging

E-series devices are mostly about messaging and connectivity so we are not surprised that they got this part right. The E55 is a wiz at all sorts of messages and won’t shy away from viewing and even editing attached office documents.

On the whole, E55’s great email client and the ability to view and edit office documents will really help keep you up to date while you’re away from the office. Just like E75 and E52, E55 also comes with the Nokia Messaging software preloaded along with a lifetime service subscription.

There are three message editors aboard: SMS and MMS share the first one, audio and e-mail have their own. The SMS editor is the familiar application for all Symbian S60 smartphones.

An SMS automatically turns into an MMS when you insert some multimedia content

It goes without saying that a delivery report can be activated. The reports pop up on screen, once the message reaches the addressee and are subsequently saved in a separate folder in the messaging sub-menu.

When you are exiting the message editor without having sent the message, the editor prompts you to either save it to the Drafts folder or discard it.

The audio message, albeit technically a type of MMS, was obviously deemed worthy of a dedicated editor. It allows you to either record the message on the spot or use a previously recorded sound clip.

The three types of messages

The new email client (first featured on E75) has better looks and better messaging organization than the ones in the past. Each of the folders of your mailbox can now be sorted by whatever filters you might like and can then be searched if necessary.

Composing an email on the E55 is as easy as it gets

You can also set what the folders preview should look like, i.e. how many lines should be given to each entry, whether title dividers should be applied etc.

You can sort your email much like on a desktop computer email client

The email client supports a wide range of personal and corporate email standards such as IBM Lotus Notes Traveller, Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail etc.

Encryption is also enabled, as well as mobile VPN support for connecting to secure corporate Intranets.

The Message reader can read your messages while you’re driving

Quite naturally, the Nokia E55 supports the ultra easy email setup we’ve been treated to recently. If you are using any public email service (it has to be among the over 1000 supported providers), all you have to do is enter your email address and password to start enjoying email-on-the-go. The Nokia E55 takes care of downloading all the relevant settings to get you going in no time.
Image gallery: Nseries feel, Eseries method

The image gallery was a pleasant surprise – it’s the same as the one found in Nseries phones and looks great. The speed of photo browsing increases if you press and hold the direction buttons on the D-pad. This allows quick skipping of tons of files if you’re not in the habit of sorting out your memory card regularly.

Browsing the image gallery

Unlike, say, the Nokia N85, zooming here is very speedy, thanks to the zippy 600MHz processor. It does slow down a bit when you get over 100% but it will go up to 400% zoom. Zooming is done in small increments (about 10%) and panning is quite fast too.

The gallery offers a nice slide show with customizable effects and delay between slides. You can also choose the direction of the slideshow – forward or backward from the currently selected photo and the track to go with it. Music can also be switched off if you prefer.

The gallery also has a very good picture tagging system. In addition to geotagging, which is automatically handled by the camera, you can add as many tags as you like to each photo and then use them as filters. There’s also the option to organize photos in Albums.

Zooming in • you can add tags to photos

Music player: Symbian regular

Full-featured music ability is not supposed to make or break a business device but the music player of the Nokia E55 is still pretty decent and we set our hopes for good audio quality high when we saw that standard 3.5mm audio jack.

The lack of dedicated music keys is easily overcome by the smooth D-pad control. There is a huge number of audio formats supported including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. M3U playlists are also managed seamlessly and transferred files are added to the music library trouble-free by choosing the refresh option.

The music player is pretty straightforward

Filtering tracks by artist, album, genre and composer is automatic and searching tracks by gradual typing is also available.

The player comes with five equalizer presets, bass booster and stereo widening effect. You can also create new equalizer presets if the preloaded ones won’t do.

The available equalizer presets * creating a new one

Finally, being one of Nokia’s best equipped phones, the Nokia E55 naturally also includes support for the A2DP Bluetooth profile, which allows listening to music on a Bluetooth stereo headset.
Decent video player

The Nokia E55 features Real player for playing your video clips. The video player works in portrait or fullscreen landscape mode. The softkey functions are hidden in full screen so they don’t get in the way, and they only pop up when a key is pressed.

The E55 Video center * the video player has very few controls

The relatively big screen and the MP4 video clips support add up to a passable video watching experience but you will probably resort to another player anyway. The reason for this is quite simple – the E55 lacks DivX and XviD support out of the box. Luckily, finding applications for the S60 3.2 that support those codecs is a fairly easy task (though they can be paid).
FM radio with RDS

The Nokia E55 sports stereo FM radio with RDS, controlled by the well known radio app. Upon starting, the app asks about your location in order to set up the proper frequencies for your area.

The FM radio can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. Scanning for alternative frequencies when traveling can also be set to automatic. You can save up to 50 radio stations and the option to play through the loudspeaker is available.

The FM radio app
Impressive audio quality

Unsurprisingly, the audio quality of the Nokia E55 is an a perfect match to that of the E52. The Finnish company has once again demonstrated that there is no reason why the users should be made to choose between business functionality or good audio .

We can safely say that the two most recent bar phones – E52 and E55 are the best performer in terms of audio quality that the Eseries have ever seen, overtaking even the E75. They have better frequency response, stereo crosstalk and distortion levels than their side-sliding sibling and that seems enough to us to announce it as the new Eseries lead-singer.

Cutting to the point – here go the results so you can see for yourselves.Test Frequency response Noise level Dynamic range THD IMD + Noise Stereo crosstalk
Nokia E55 +0.05, -0.23 -83.6 83.3 0.013 0.033 -84.3
Nokia E52 +0.05, -0.22 -85.3 85.0 0.014 0.034 -85.4
Nokia E75 +0.11, -0.91 -91.6 91.4 0.012 0.462 -73.3
Nokia E63 +2.63, -2.38 -75.0 75.3 0.018 0.102 -74.9
Nokia E71 +0.74, -1.26 -74.5 74.7 0.016 0.097 -75.8
Nokia E66 +0.74, -0.84 -72.3 72.5 0.021 0.102 -72.9
Nokia N78 +0.30, -1.59 -76.1 76.1 0.014 0.548 -72.7
Nokia N81 +0.39, -1.13 -86.6 95.8 0.041 0.040 -69.9
Samsung i550 +0.74, -0.76 -90.8 86.9 0.0024 0.033 -89.1
Sony Ericsson W980 +0.31, -1.25 -86.0 89.4 0.037 0.828 -86.3
Apple iPhone 3GS +0.01, -0.05 -92.1 92.1 0.0035 0.011 -95.0

Nokia E55 vs Apple iPhone 3GS frequency response graphs

Camera: not a priority

The Nokia E55 means business but imaging is not part of its job description. The 3 megapixel camera has only a LED flash and sadly, no autofocus. “Enhanced fixed focus” is here to cater for close-ups but as our tests have confirmed in the past, the new Nokia “catch-phrase” doesn’t really mean you’re getting more sharpness in close-ups or shorter minimal shooting distance.

Actually, the camera user interface is the only good part of the E55 snapper. Using our favorite tabbed interface, the camera offers extensive settings: from manual white balance and ISO sensitivity to exposure compensation, sharpness and contrast settings, as well as various effects which are labeled color tones.

The camera user interface is pretty familiar

A gridline can also be applied to the viewfinder to assist you in framing you photos using the photographic rule-of-thirds. Using it to align your subjects and place points of interest on or near the lines and their intersecting points makes your photos more professional and aesthetic.

The sequence mode and self-timer are nothing new. The flash can be set to four positions: automatic, always on, red-eye reduction and always off.

Small font tooltips are displayed to help you understand what the phone is doing at each specific moment (processing image, for example).

You can also customize the toolbar deciding on shortcuts to display for which settings and in what order.

Image quality

The image quality of E55 is decent, albeit hardly spectacular. Contrast is good, but the dynamic range is not on par and colors are somewhat dull. Noise levels are low, but that is achieved through noise-reduction that smears away fine details and textures. The sharpening algorithm on the other hand is way too harsh and produces visible artifacts in the photo.

Nokia E55 camera sample photos
Synthetic resolution

We also snapped our resolution chart with the Nokia E55. You can check out what that test is all about here.

Here’s a comparison of the camera on the E55 and the one on the E52. The E55 has an edge in resolved detail. Its processing seems better even though this time the images are slightly oversharpened, instead of slightly too soft. Maybe the next time they will get it perfect?

Nokia E55 resolution chart photo * 100% crops

Nokia E52 resolution chart photo * 100% crops
Video recording

Video recording doesn’t improve our impressions of the E55. The business-minded handset manages VGA videos at 15 fps, which is far from stellar but is certainly better than what E71 and E66 offered.

The quality of the recorded video is not very good and even if 15 fps is acceptable to you, the E55 is not a camcorder. There’s a fair bit of detail captured until of course it is periodically smeared by heavy compression.

Here is a sample video for you to check out.
Connectivity: back to the A-list

It’s time to check out the connectivity options. This is a morale booster indeed for the E55 and it sure takes advantage.

The E55 is truly on fire where data transfer is in question – it just has it all: from Bluetooth v2.0 and USB v2.0 to Wi-Fi and 3G. Furthermore, the 3G comes with HSPA support for the fastest network data transfers – up to 10.2Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink.

A microSD card slot is also on board, under the battery cover. It might just be the quickest and most convenient way of transferring data.

The standard 3.5mm audio jack is also there and the only thing missing that we can think of is TV-out functionality.

Web browser agrees with YouTube

Browsing the internet on a Nokia smartphone is definitely a positive experience. The E55 is no exception with its excellent page rendering – most web pages look like they do on a desktop computer.

The virtual mouse cursor is easy to control and generally works great. The D-pad control is not as comfortable as Samsung’s optical joystick (think Samsung i7110, for instance) or BlackBerry’s trackball but still does the job.

Browsing GSMArena.com on the E55

A mini-map can be activated and it even appears by itself when you scroll longer, which helps you navigate complex websites without excessive scrolling. The zoom level is also easily adjustable at the expense of only a few key presses. The web browser also offers fullscreen view mode.

Along with the usual key shortcuts, the browser in E55 offers a toolbar, which can be launched by pressing 1 or long pressing on the center key on an empty area of the page. You can customize which shortcuts are on the toolbar – up to seven shortcuts like “Subscribe to feeds” or “Bookmark manager”.

The new toolbar

The Nokia E55 browser features built-in full Flash support. It handled many of the Flash sites we threw at it, but chocked on others (games most often). Flash content for version 9 and up seem to be the culprit.

Flash video handled seamlessly

Flash video is mostly not a problem for the E55 web browser – you can watch video on the full-featured versions of YouTube, DailyMotion and the like. Not all however, Vimeo didn’t work, for instance.
Top-notch PIM and Office 2007 support

Time-management is another business phone virtue. There’s no wonder then that the Nokia E55 has one of the most elaborate organizer packages we’ve seen. There are a lot of nice applications, all very user-friendly and functional.

The trip starts with the calendar. It has four different types of view – to-do, weekly, daily and agenda as well as five types of events available for setting up – Meeting, Meeting request, Memo, Anniversary and To-do.

Setting up an event

The agenda view mode is relatively new to Nokia handsets and is really nice – it allows the dates of the month and the events for the selected day to appear simultaneously on the screen.

Day, week and agenda views

Mobile office is also duly covered, with seamless handling of Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. Furthermore, unlike most other Nokia handsets out there, editing documents is supported right out of the box.

With the Nokia E55 you won’t need to pay extra for editing your office documents. And there’s another thing you get for free – support for Office 2007 documents (.docx, etc.)

The E55 also supports document editing out of the box

A PDF reader is also part of the Nokia E55 preinstalled content and a ZIP manager allows extracting archived files straight from your phone.

A PDF reader is also available • ZIP manager

The other pre-bundled organizing and time-management applications are: a great unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as the Notes application. We are not going to get into detail with them, as their functionality and performance are familiar enough.

The ActiveNotes application is also on board allowing multimedia content to be added to your notes.

Some of the other organizer apps: unit converter, calculator and ActiveNotes

The Nokia E55 alarm clock application allows a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own name and start time. You can also customize the snooze time from the settings menu.

The E55 allows dozens of alarms to be set simultanelously

The useful “Search” application is also present on the Nokia E55. Its reserved space in the active stand-by menu no longer comes as a surprise. After all, an application this useful really deserves to be conveniently placed.

The application itself finds almost every item in your Nokia based on a given keyword. From messages to settings, every bit of data is checked and results are then listed.

If it’s on the phone the Search app will find it

Finally, the Nokia E55 features a dictionary with a really rich database. English comes pre-installed but you can also download dozens of other languages for free from the Nokia website.

The dictionary has a rich database

The World Traveler app helps you when visiting a new city – it’ll display weather forecast, it also offers a world clock, info on foreign currency, flights and even a 3D globe that marks your home and current location.

The traveler app can be quite helpful when travelling abroad

Thanks to the wireless presenter you can handle presentations straight from your phone.

WiPresenter is also here

GPS does well

The Nokia E55 comes complete with a built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS and Ovi Maps preinstalled. Voice-guided navigation comes at a price, however, you get 10 1-day drive licenses that come with the phone (must be used within 3 months after purchasing the handset) and walk navigation is completely free for the owners of E55.

The preinstalled version of the Ovi Maps is 3.0 and as usual it’s pretty nice to work with. It has really detailed map coverage of a huge number of countries and a lot of extras such as traffic information, city guides and so on. Sadly, the extra features need to be purchased separately, as must the voice-guidance after the trial period has expired.

Nokia maps has four different view modes

The app also has very decent looks and easily customizable route planning algorithms. Our favorite feature is the 3D view mode, which unfortunately has to be turned on every time you restart Maps – that’s an odd one, no doubt about that.

Ovi Maps is also usable for pedestrian navigation or you can switch the GPS receiver off and simply use the phone as an electronic map. The nice thing about it is that you can actually preload the map content, so you don’t need to access the wireless network to download that on the go.

Nokia E55 also features a digital compass. In order for it to work, you need the map zoomed on your current GPS position. The compass (a magnetometer sensor) is turned on by default, but it doesn’t work while turn-by-turn navigation is engaged. It’s quite useful while making your way around on foot though, as it rotates the map to match even your slightest change of direction.

If you don’t fancy using Nokia Maps, you can opt for any of the numerous third-party applications available on the market, there’s no shortage of those.

The overall impression of the Nokia E55 GPS functionality is positive, with the GPS sensitivity pretty acceptable. It is good enough for most users’ needs and won’t make too many people look for alternatives.
Classic and N-Gage gaming

The Nokia E55 comes with two games preinstalled, both of which are pastime classics.

The first one, called Block Cascade Fusion is a variety of Tetris, in which color also comes into play – instead of just making lines, you have to line up 5 or more blocks of the same color horizontally or vertically. The changes in the rules take some time getting used to – the lines of 5 or more same-color blocks disappear only during the fusion… blocks are dropping frantically, while you’re trying to figure out what the point is. It is part of the fun, so we won’t spoil it.

Block Cascade Fusion

The other option is Top Hit Solitaires bringing 15 types of solitaire, with classics such as Klondike and Freecell (if you ever owned a PC you’ve played them).

Top Hits Solitaires

While it doesn’t come preinstalled, you can install N-Gage on the Nokia E55, just head to http://www.ngage.com and follow the instructions. Strangely for a business-minded phone, there’s full N-gage support. No need to tell you, there was no free activation code in our retail box.
Final words

The Nokia E55 is a limited edition E52. The good thing is the half-QWERTY handset is not limited in any way compared to its mainstream sibling. OK, save perhaps in terms of demand. But Nokia must be aware of that and know their market well enough. We guess it makes sense to duplicate a great package that’s likely to sell very well just to test a concept, which the company is trying for the first time. Who knows, they may’ve struck gold with the half QWERTY keyboard. And if they didn’t, it’s no big deal. The extra R&D costs are perhaps close to zero and they still have two great phones, at least one of which will sell.

Nokia E52

Not the least, the Eseries fleet is growing stronger. The E55 is closing the gap between Eseries candybars and devices like E71, E72 and E75, so there is a smartphone for each and every user. Eseries have always aspired to be the ultimate in business phones and now they’re also trying to be the most flexible. There are handsets for heavy texters (E71, E72, E75, etc.) and heavy talkers (E51, E52). The E55 is headed to the stores and trying to bridge both worlds.

So, the E55 has a very special place in the Eseries lineup and in a way its fate is less in the hands of the competition, and more in the hands of its own kind. We don’t think a half-QWERTY keyboard is a liability in a phone of great build quality, excellent features and outstanding exterior. But some users may be asking themselves why they should choose the E55 over an E71 or an E72.

Nokia E71 • Nokia E72

As to competition, the E55 seems to outclass the likely rivals, especially when it comes to looks. The Eseries pedigree guarantees top class business performance too, but there are still a number of handsets that can hope to steal some of the E55 market. Those who don’t like Symbian will perhaps want to check out the WinMo based Samsung B7320 OmniaPRO and the newly announced B7330 OmniaPRO, which we just previewed. RIM’s BlackBerry Curve 8520 is another viable option and recent enough to get the attention of users. Neither of those messengers has the Eseries charisma but decent spec sheets, alternative OS and – not the least – full QWERTY keyboards give them a bit of a weight.

Samsung B7320 OmniaPRO • Samsung B7330 OmniaPRO • BlackBerry Curve 8520

To wrap it up, the Nokia E55 and E52 are the same handset, so E for excellence goes both ways. E for massive earnings we’re not so sure about. But that doesn’t mean a half-QWERTY keyboard has let down an excellent device. The E55 is as capable, user friendly, solidly built and absolutely gorgeous as the E52. Which one is yours?

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_e55-review-396p10.php 

Nokia E55

The E55 is the latest addition to the business-focussed Nokia Eseries line up, with a twin sister in the form of the Nokia E52. The only significant difference between them is the keyboard – the E52 has a standard 12 key numeric keypad, but the E55 offers a ‘half-QWERTY’ keyboard.

The E55 and E52 are now starting to become available in select markets – the E52 is now available in the UK at a price of £230 and the E55 will become available later this month at a cost of around £250. As usual, availability and pricing will vary from market to market. In general though, the E5x devices are competitive entries into the mid tier business market.

Both the E55 and E52 run on Nokia’s latest Symbian hardware platform. This includes a combined GPS and compass (magnetometer) sensor, and updated cellular radios (quad band GSM and triband WCDMA). There’s 128MB of RAM on board, with about 56MB free after boot up, which should be sufficient even for demanding users. The single CPU is clocked at a rate of 600MHz, but as we’ve mentioned before, looking at pure processor speed is something of a distraction. Nonetheless, in common with other recent Symbian devices, there are no speed concerns. Performance moving around the UI, opening applications and in general operation is very impressive.

Similarly, the software platform is a cutting edge release. The new 7.1 version of the S60 browser is present (previously seen on the N86), as are the usual Eseries tweaks (smart dialling, a business software bundle and updated Contact and Calendar applications) and the phone ships with the latest version of Nokia’s Ovi services including Maps 3.0, N-Gage, and the latest version of Nokia’s email software. There’s some firsts for Eseries too, including Home media, Nokia’s UPnP client/server software.

The Nokia E55 with its twin sister, the E52. Keyboard aside, both devices are virtually identical.

A first glance at the E55 draws the eye immediately to the keypad. This is the first Nokia device with a ‘half-QWERTY’ keyboard, which has 20 individual keys, with most letters sharing a key with another letter. This type of keyboard is not new, the ‘SureType’ keyboards of the Blackberry are the most obvious existing examples, but it is something of a departure for Nokia.

The advantage, over a full sized QWERTY keyboard, is of course that you can fit the keyboard into a smaller space. It is also much easier to use one handed; it is equally comfortable to use in thumb-keyboard or one-handed mode. In a design sense, it is a halfway house between a 12 key numeric keypad and a full QWERTY keyboard, but the overall performance, especially the speed of entry, is much closer to a full QWERTY keyboard than it is to a numeric keypad.

The keyboard can be used in either multi-tap mode or in predictive mode. In predictive mode you hit each key once and the prediction software works out which was the most likely intended letter. It works best if you type a full word as the software uses context (just like T9) to increase the accuracy of the ‘guess’. I found that the vast majority of the time the prediction software was accurate, and, even when it’s not, a correction is a single D-pad press away.

The keyboard itself has been very well designed. The individual keys are angled downwards from the bottom to the top (as on the E75’s cover keypad). This means that the bottom of a key is always slightly higher then the top of the key below it. This helps prevent mis-hits and improves the overall accuracy.

Some will pick up the new style keypad quicker than others and there’s obviously going to be a learning curve. Ultimately, whether you’re comfortable with a half-QWERTY keyboard is a personal decision.

The first thing you notice about the E55 is its half-QWERTY keyboard

As a QWERTY device, messaging is a clearly a key focus of the E55. Nokia have, rightly, been criticised in the past for a poor email software experience on their Eseries devices. The main fault lay in the Messaging application UI, but there was also some missing functionality. However, in recent software releases, as first seen on the E75, Nokia have made very significant improvements. There’s a whole new email client UI, an improved Microsoft Exchange client (includes sub-folder and HTML email support), and, through Nokia Messaging, the ability to get a virtual push-email service for any existing POP3 or IMAP account. The purchase prices of the E55 and E52 include a lifetime (of the device) subscription to Nokia Messaging.

Mail for Exchange and Nokia Messaging, together with the excellent email set up wizard, combine together to create a very powerful email solution for the E55. Just as the launch of the E71 saw Nokia improve the Contacts and Calendar software, so the launch of the next generation of Eseries devices – the E52, E55, E72 and E75 – sees a massive improvement in email capabilities.

The E55’s ‘new’ email client (first seen in the E75)

The E55 is a svelte phone; the specifications will tell you that it is 54cc in volume and has dimensions of 116 x 49 x 9.9mm. This compares to the the E51’s volume of 61cc and dimensions of 115 x 47 x 12mm (and bear in mind the E55 has a 0.2 inch bigger screen) and the E75’s volume of 69cc and dimensions of 112 x 50 x 14.4mm. However, without seeing it in person, it’s hard to really appreciate the size.

What’s even more impressive is that Nokia have managed to fit in a 1500mAh battery into the E55. Once you take t he battery out, it is hard to see where Nokia have put all the hardware that’s packed into this phone – it almost seems to defy the laws of physics. Clearly the secret is in the compromises – single speaker, EDOF-based camera, combined radio chipsets and so on, but nonetheless it is a truly impressive achievement.

E55’s BP-4L battery… hard to see where the phone hardware is!
Concluding thoughts

As I mentioned in our N86 review, the current hype around touch tends to obscure some great non-touch devices. The E55 (and its sister the E52) are good examples of this. A combination of skillful industrial design, comprehensive functionality and a price point that is half that of typical high end devices combine to offer a package that is excellent value for money. In the full review, we’ll look at the device’s capabilities in more detail, but in general the only real sacrifice, compared to high end devices, is around the camera and video capabilities, and even these are still reasonable.

Those looking at upgrading from an E51 or similar device will find much to like in the E55. The extra screen size (now 2.4″), smaller volume, thinner design, improved performance, upgraded software and additional multimedia functionality, offer plenty of reasons to upgrade. The choice between traditional keypad (E52) and half QWERTY (E55) is a welcome bonus.

The maturity and functionality of the software is worth highlighting. Symbian and S60 has come in for a lot of criticism recently, primarily as a result of S60 5th Edition. But such criticism tends to ignore S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, which together with Nokia’s service software, offers a best in class experience on non-touch phones. Non-touch phones may not have the same buzz around them as touch phones, but they do remain the dominant interaction mode for mobile phones.

The E5x family of Eseries devices

While the Eseries do have a business focus, the lines between enterprise handsets and consumers handset are not as they once were. The addition of consumer orientated features across the Eseries range, most notably in the area of multimedia support, has helped to blur the lines. With a ‘good enough’ camera, basic video support, a 3.5mm AV jack and a comprehensive range of multimedia software, the E55 has much greater consumer appeal than the earlier Eseries devices. There has also been an increasing realisation that personal and business lives intermingle. Indicative of this is the ‘switch mode’ feature that was introduced in the E71 and is present in the E55.

The multiple colours and half-QWERTY keyboard of the E55 bring to mind the Blackberry Pearl, which was among the first enterprise phones to enjoy crossover success. In the last few years, QWERTY-equipped phones have become more popular amongst consumers, who appreciate their messaging abilities, not for corporate email, but for text messaging, instant messaging, social networking updates and the odd personal email. While the E55’s software bundle remains business-dominated (Quickoffice editing version, Intranet, Advanced Connection Manager, Traveller, WiPresenter), it is notable that Nokia has also included both its own Ovi Contacts IM solution and a version of Microsoft’s Messenger with the E55. Indeed, with the inclusion of software and services like N-Gage, Home media, Photos, Video center and Music store, it’s almost as if the current Eseries approach to differentiation is to give its user everything that the consumers get, and then add in a couple of specifics. The effect of this is to re-inforce the impression of value for money, which we highlighted above.

In positioning terms, the Nokia E55 may find itself squeezed between its Eseries companions. For those looking for the entry level Eseries device, the E52, with its standard keypad, may be a better choice. Those looking for a cheap QWERTY might be tempted by the E63 or the E71 (especially after its price falls after the introduction of the E72).

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_E55-first_look_review.php 

Nokia E52 (2)

Introduction

Eseries seem to have been around forever: grown-up, confident and reliable. It’s a small but solid lineup that’s gone a long way from a fairly late start. Perhaps they’ve got a point: the business Finns are not running against the clock to discover, but look always on the spot to deliver. Eseries are less likely to obsess fans really – they’re more into serving customers. And here they go again: the Nokia E52 looks well set to reward that once an Eseries, always an Eseries user attitude.

Nokia E52 official photos

We’ve come to take the lethal dress code for granted, and the E52 brings a welcome speed and stamina boost to the family. The 600 MHz CPU couldn’t have been more at home in that razor sharp stainless steel outfit.

Compelling exterior and strong performance are the textbook definition of the business range of handsets where Nokia are clearly the standard-setters. The E52 in turn, appears to be the standard measure for business value – you pay for an entry level Eseries and get top-of-the-line smartphone treatment. Did anybody say bestseller?
Key features
Compact metallic body and extra slim girth (9.90mm)
Quad-band GSM support
3G with HSDPA 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2 Mbps
2.4″ 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
Symbian OS, S60 UI with FP2
600 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB RAM
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology, DLNA support
Built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS support, digital compass
Accelerometer for screen auto-rotation and turn-to-mute
One-touch shortcut keys mean “business”
3 megapixel enhanced fixed focus camera with LED flash
Secondary videocall camera
60 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion, ships with a 1GB card
microUSB v2.0
Standard 3.5mm audio jack
Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
FM radio with RDS
Class-leading audio output quality
N-Gage gaming support
Ovi Maps preinstalled with trial turn-by-turn navigation license (10 days)
User-friendly Mode Switch for swapping two homescreen setups
Office document editor (with free MS Office 2007 update)
Remote lock/wipe over-the-air
Comfortable keypad
Smart dialing
Great battery life
Main disadvantages
Disappointing camera features and performance
Video recording maxes out at VGA@15fps
No DivX or XviD support (can be installed, possibly requiring a purchase)
No TV-out functionality

We guess you know what to expect from the Eseries and, in a way, the Nokia E52 is the most predictable of them business smartphones. It is a 3rd generation handset so to speak, and the straightforward linear progression from E50 and E51 should tell the whole story. Screen size, FP 2, GPS and system speed make the E52 a done deal for upgraders. But even users who consider it overqualified will find it hard to ignore.

The Nokia E52 live shots

Think big, act fast and look sharp is what Eseries have always stood for but there’s something about the E52 that seemed to make our knees weak. It’s the traditional Eseries styling – bold, confident but conservative enough to safely rule out uncontrollable displays of emotion. Still, the E52 must’ve hit the right spot and its commanding appeal is hard to define but hard to deny. So we’d better move on before we got too soft, and see if the ergonomics are on par or if they have been sacrificed for looks.

Unboxing fails to impress

The retail package of Nokia E52 is quite to the point really but there are a few of things missing compared to the Nokia E66 for example.

For one, the 2GB microSD card is replaced with 1 GB, while the stylish leather carrying case is omitted. The leather carrying strap is also gone missing but we won’t hold that against the E52.

We’ve seen better retail packages in the Eseries

At least there is a microUSB cable (unlike the package of E63) and a one-piece handsfree on top of the mandatory charger. There’s also a user manual and this time the computer sync software is supplied on the memory card – nice! It’s just as easy to download it off the company website anyway.
Nokia E52 360-degree spin

Nokia E52 stands at 116 x 49 x 9.9 mm and has a volume of 54 cc, which makes it extremely pocketable and remarkably comfortable to handle. Back in its day, the Nokia E71 was the slimmest smartphone on the market but now the E52 claims the top spot, which it shares with the Toshiba TG01 touchscreen monster. The Nokia E55 is also about to hit the sweet 9.9mm any time now.

Even with such a slim body, the Nokia E52 is only 2 grams short of 100 which gives it a really pleasant solid feel. The extensive use of metal is certainly responsible for that and we are pretty happy Nokia chose to continue this trend with yet another Eseries handset.

Design and construction

Eseries seem to always have the first pick from the Nokia selection of outfits. The Arte lineup is of course excluded but we guess Nseries users have every right to envy the special treatment the business smartphones are getting. The Nokia E52 adopts the unmistakable Eseries design language but speaks it with a voice of its own. The purist styling and durable materials on a remarkably slim and solid piece of gear do make the E52 our favorite in the family so far.

The metal accents on the handset’s body are a nice thing too see, and they boost both looks and durability. This time even the keys below the display are metal for an extra nice feel to navigating the handset.

The grooved surface of the rear cover has quite a raw and industrial feel which makes the otherwise slim and refined handset even more poised and convincing. The front is keen to reply with a glossy silvery frame enclosing the dark graphite navigation deck and numpad.

The E52 is available in three different colors – Metal Grey Aluminium, Golden Aluminium, Graphite Grey. No doubt the Golden one will have its fans as well, but the Graphite unit we reviewed had us greatly impressed.

The earpiece of Nokia E52 is placed at the top of the front panel, flanked by the ambient light sensor and the video-call camera.

The etched earpiece has a stylish metallic frame

Below is the 2.4″ 16M-color QVGA display. Its quality is quite pleasing with great contrast and brightness for a really vibrant image. In QVGA terms that is – the E52 is hardly up to scratch with high-res displays that are becoming more and more common. Yet it’s quite hard to find a modern phone bigger, higher-res display in a bar-shaped handset in this segment.

On a positive note, the Nokia E52 screen offers the uncompromised sunlight legibility, which is a company trademark. No matter how bright the sun outside, you can always read the display comfortably.

Continuing our journey down the front of the handset we come upon the metallic D-pad. It’s large and comfortable enough to use, just like the 8 keys surrounding it. They all offer nice tactile feedback and the metallic finish on most of them is an added bonus.

Essentially, the D-pad and two rocker-styled controls nicely project over a brushed metallic deck that accommodates the two soft keys and the Call and End buttons. The rockers host the menu key and backspace, along with the two typical Eseries one-touch shortcut keys. The latter can be used as shortcuts to four applications of your choice – two handled by short presses, the other two by a press and hold. Their default function is visualized by an icon.

Even some of the keys are metallic this time

Next comes the Nokia E52 alphanumeric keypad which easily ranks among the best standard numpads we’ve used. The keys are large, with distinct borders and great touch orientation. Press feedback levels are also commendable and, while the terraced layout of the E66 still beats it by a small margin, it is an excellent keypad too.

The keypad is very comfortable

The white backlighting is strong and pleasing to make the E52 perfect to handle in the dark.

The backlighting is nice and even

The 3.5mm standard audio jack and the power button are at the top of the Nokia E52. This time we are talking a normal button (maybe a bit small but with a distinct press), rather than the unfortunate red knob on the Nokia E71 and E66.

The 3.5mm standard audio jack and the power key on top

The microUSB port is on the left side of the handset. It has no protective cover (unlike the E71) to prevent it from getting dust in. By the way the audio jack is exposed too.

There’s no protection for the microUSB slot • There’s hardly anything going on at the bottom

On the right side of the Nokia E52 we come upon the two volume keys, the voice command key and the dedicated shutter key. They are all a bit small for our taste but the nice press makes up for that. Back in Nokia E51 there was no dedicated camera key at all, so we welcome its addition here.

The Eseries trademark three key combo and the shutter key are on the right side

Design and construction (continued)

The steel back cover of Nokia E52 is a certainly one of its best parts. Furthermore, unlike previous generation Eseries handsets it is perfectly immune to fingerprints. There’s no way to get it greasy like the E71 or E66.

The E52 looks a treat from the back

Reraside we find the 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera lens (presumably of the enhanced sort), along with a LED flash. The specs alone hint that imaging is yet again bottom of the priority list but we will get back to that in more detail later on.

The 3MP shooter has no autofocus • the loudspeaker grill is right next to the camera lens.

A nice little latch at the base of the battery cover allows you to release it quickly and easily. The all-metal part pops out, earning another point for the device in the process. Under the cover we find the microSD card slot and the massive 1500 mAh Li-Po BP-4L battery.

Pressing this button releases the battery cover

With a power plant like this one, the Nokia E52 is said to last 672 hours of stand-by or 8 hours of talk time and that’s more than impressive. We can confirm more than three days of some really heavy usage and there’s hardly a contemporary smartphone outside the Eseries that can pull that of.

An impressive battery by all means

In case you haven’t guessed it yourselves already, let’s point something out – the Nokia E52 is flawlessly built just like the Nokia 6700 classic. The phone looks great all over and is one of those few that really manage to impress our team so much. A joy to have around, the handset is equally comfortable to use. Splendid ergonomics, durability and hot looks make a perfect mix.

The Nokia E52 is sure to impress and deliver

User interface: classic Symbian with FP 2

Nokia E52 runs on Symbian 9.3 OS with the Series60 3rd Edition user interface. It has Feature Pack 2 like the E75side-slider and upcoming devices like the E55 and E72.

More importantly though, the Nokia E52 is powered by a 600 MHz CPU. In Symbian terms, that’s a lot, not even Nokia’s current flagship – the N97 – can match it.

Nokia E52 runs on Symbian S60 3.2 much like Nokia E75

The E52 comes with the new S60 icons for a pinch of 5th edition (touch) styling. The interface can freely rotate to landscape mode thanks to the accelerometer, which also offers silencing calls and snoozing the alarm by flipping your phone over.

The accelerometer sensor has a number of settings

The phone’s main menu has two view modes: a 4 x 3 grid of icons and a list. However, with the E52 you cannot opt for having animated icons like on some other Nokia phones. This is probably just another way of reiterating the specific business focus of the phone. At least the font size is widely configurable depending on your preferences and thanks to the Font.

The main menu has two view modes

Inside the main menu, the circle next to the icon of a running application is a well known Symbian indication reminding users to quit unwanted applications that are still running in the background.

Almost every bit of the interface has a landscape mode too

The active stand-by mode goes without saying on the Nokia E52. This is a convenient way to add shortcuts to all your favorite applications on the homescreen. You can even assign shortcuts to websites of your choice for quicker access.

In addition you can bring up to 14 different kinds of notifications no the homescreen: email boxes and voice mail, through calendar and to-dos, to the currently running track in the Music player and FM radio. How many of those 14 get displayed is completely up to you.

Basic, active or talking stand-by theme

Each of the one-touch keys (messaging and calendar) can be customized to access any feature (actually two per key) of choice. The two soft keys functions are user-configurable too.

If for some reason the active stand-by mode isn’t your cup of tea you can use the basic theme or switch to the talking theme instead. The basic theme leaves the screen pretty bare and lets you assign shortcuts to the D-pad while the talking theme…well, talks. It brings four shortcuts to your homescreen and tells you what the currently selected one is.

Once you enter any of the menus, it tells you which menu you have opened and sometimes gives you some extra useful information about it. For example, when you enter the clock application, it tells you the current time. It would even read out the names of the contacts.

The talking theme has its own clock application

This talking theme is pretty handy to use when you can’t look at the phone. It might be a good idea to activate it while driving for example so you don’t need to actually look at the phone should you need it for something (not that we encourage cellphone use while driving).

Another cool feature of recent Eseries handsets allows you to toggle between two different phone setups – the so-called Mode Switcher. Each of them can be customized with its own theme and homescreen applications for maximum usability. This way you can have both a leisure and a business profile and switch between them with a single click.

The built-in memory is 60MB, which is a decent amount. The included 1GB microSD memory card comes in very handy for extending it, but higher capacity cards up to 16GB are supported.

As we managed to confirm, Nokia E52 has no problem handling a 16GB microSD card. Accessing applications or any other files on the memory card is quick and you probably won’t notice any difference compared to accessing data in the phone memory.

As with any Symbian phone, there is a built-in voice recognition system. It is launched by the dedicated key on the right side of the E52 and does a good job. It’s fully speaker-independent and recognizes a very high percentage of the user commands.

And finally, there’s a nice security feature known as Remote Lock. If your Nokia E52 gets stolen or lost, you simply send a coded SMS message to remotely lock the phone. After three unsuccessful attempts to unlock it, it wipes itself clean of all personal or sensitive info. You might not get your Nokia E52 back, but at least nobody will get your personal data either.

The customization options for the user interface of the Nokia E52 are mainly restricted to its functionality out of the box. There are three themes preinstalled on the handset, each in two flavors – business and personal. You can assign a different theme to each of the modes – the preinstalled ones have subtle differences, just enough to indicate which mode you’re in.

So if you are into changing those icons and colors you will have to download new ones online….but don’t worry, there’s plenty to choose from out there.

Phonebook is unchanged, no need to

The phonebook of the Nokia E52 hasn’t evolved too much from the E75. It still does a tremendous job though, offering storage space for a virtually unlimited number of contacts and fields and all the available memory potentially usable for that purpose. We can’t imagine anyone managing to fill that up. You are also treated to as many fields for each contact as you like and some other nice extras, so there’s very little reason to complain.

Welcome to the phonebook

Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name, and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any name. You can pick whether you want the SIM contacts, the service numbers or the phone memory contacts to be displayed or alternatively show them all at the same time.

Some of the available settings

Predictive search, contact database back-up as well as grouping are also available. The final nice extra is the setting to search for contacts on a remote server (Mail for Exchange or Intellisync).

Editing a contact offers an enormous variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like. You can also create new fields if you are able to think of any. Personal ringtones and video can also be assigned. If you prefer, you may group your contacts and give a specific ringtone to each group.

Good luck trying to find a field that Nokia missed • you can even rename a label

The Call log application can hold up to 20 call records in each of the tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls. These are all accessed by pressing the Call key in standby.

Detailed info of your past communications is to be found in the call log

If you access the Log application from the main menu, you’ll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers. You can even filter the entries (by contact or by type), a useful feature if you’re looking for a specific call.
Telephony has to be good

With Nokia E52 you are extremely unlikely to experience any reception issues. Sound during calls is very clear and free of any interferences. It’s not too loud at the loudest setting but it will do great unless you’re in a very noise environment. Like quite a number of Nokia handsets, the E52 features advanced noise cancelling, which usually works quite nice elimination background noise around you.

Nokia E52 also has a Smart dialing feature, which helps you quickly find a contact straight on the standby screen.

Smart dial

Nokia E52 features the advanced Communication Manager out of the box, which the E75 lacked. With this quite useful application you can opt for various settings – accepting only calls from your contacts, from all non-private numbers or from anyone. You can create your own filters with quite extensive settings – including rejecting a call with SMS.

In addition you can set up different ringing profiles that can be scheduled to activate at a given time (hour and day). You can even enable an option to have the E52 say the name of the caller.

The advanced communication manager

The Nokia E52 also has support for VoIP calls – you just enter your account details and you are all set.

We conducted our traditional speakerphone test with Nokia E52 and it achieved an average result. Here is how it compares to same of the other handsets we have tested. You can find information on the actual testing process, along with the full list of tested devices here.
Speakerphone test Voice, dB Pink noise/ Music, dB Ringing phone, dB Overal score
Nokia E75 64.8 60.7 65.9 Below Average
Nokia E63 64.6 62.1 69.0 Below Average
Nokia E51 67.0 65.7 71.2 Average
Nokia E52 66.6 64.6 75.7 Average
Nokia E71 68.0 66.5 76.2 Good
Nokia 5320 XpressMusic 74.3 66.6 78.3 Very Good
Nokia 6500 classic 74.7 75.7 83.8 Excellent

Great messaging

The E-series devices are mostly about messaging and connectivity so we are not surprised that they got this part right. The Nokia E52 offers only a standard phone keypad but the keys are big and comfortable to type on. The E52 is a wiz at all sorts of messages and won’t shy away from viewing and even editing attached office documents.

There are three message editors aboard: SMS and MMS share the first one, audio and e-mail have their own. The SMS editor is the familiar application for all Symbian S60 smartphones.

An SMS automatically turns into an MMS when you insert some multimedia content

It goes without saying that a delivery report can be activated. The reports pop up on screen, once the message reaches the addressee and are subsequently saved in a separate folder in the messaging sub-menu.

When you are exiting the message editor without having sent the message, the editor prompts you to either save it to the Drafts folder or discard it.

The audio message, albeit technically a type of MMS, was obviously deemed worthy of a dedicated editor. It allows you to either record the message on the spot or use a previously recorded sound clip.

The three types of messages

The new email client (first featured on E75) has better looks and better messaging organization than the ones in the past. Each of the folders of your mailbox can now be sorted by whatever filters you might like and can then be searched if necessary.

Composing an email on the E52 is as easy as it gets

You can also select what the folders preview should look like, i.e. how many lines should be given to each entry, whether title dividers should be applied etc.

You can sort your email much like on a desktop computer email client

The email client supports a wide range of personal and corporate email standards such as IBM Lotus Notes Traveller, Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail etc.

Encryption is also enabled, as well as mobile VPN support for connecting to secure corporate Intranets.

It seems Nokia has got everything covered except for Blackberry Connect support, which might turn out to be a deal breaker for some potential E52 buyers.

The Message reader can read your messages while you’re driving

Quite naturally, the Nokia E52 supports the ultra easy email setup we’ve been treated to recently. If you are using any public email service (it has to be among the over 1000 supported providers), all you have to do is enter your email address and password to start enjoying email-on-the-go. The Nokia E52 takes care of downloading all the relevant settings to get you going in no time.

On the whole, the E52 is great at keeping you up to date, but if you email more often than you call then you perhaps should look towards the E55, or E72. Either way though, a great email client and the ability to view and edit office documents will really help keep you up to date while you’re away from the office.

Image gallery is zippy, organized and Nseries-inspired

The image gallery was a pleasant surprise – it’s the same as the one found in Nseries phones and looks great. The speed of photo browsing increases if you press and hold the direction buttons on the D-pad. This allows quick skipping of tons of files if you’re not in the habit of sorting out your memory card regularly.

Browsing the image gallery

Unlike, say, the Nokia N85, zooming here is very speedy, thanks to the zippy 600MHz processor. It does slow down a bit when you get over 100% but it will go up to 400% zoom. Zooming is done in small increments (about 10%) and panning is quite fast too.

The gallery offers a nice slide show with customizable effects and delay between slides. You can also choose the direction of the slideshow – forward or backward from the currently selected photo and the track to go with it. Music can also be switched off if you prefer.

The gallery also has a very good picture tagging system. In addition to geotagging, which is automatically handled by the camera, you can add as many tags as you like to each photo and then use them as filters. There’s also the option to organize photos in Albums.

Zooming in • you can add tags to photos
Splendid audio quality

Normally we’d be surprised by the excellent results achieved by a business-minded handset in the audio quality test. Yet knowing how things are going recently with audio output of the Nokia handsets, the E52 splendid performance comes as more of a confirmation of rule, than an exception.

We can safely say that the E52 is the best performer in terms of audio quality that the Eseries have ever seen, overtaking even the E75. The bar-shaped E52 has better frequency response, stereo crosstalk and distortion levels than its side-sliding sibling and that seems enough to us to announce it as the new Eseries lead-singer.

Cutting to the chase – here go the results so you can see for yourselves.Test Frequency response Noise level Dynamic range THD IMD + Noise Stereo crosstalk
Nokia E52 +0.05, -0.22 -85.3 85.0 0.014 0.034 -85.4
Nokia E75 +0.11, -0.91 -91.6 91.4 0.012 0.462 -73.3
Nokia E63 +2.63, -2.38 -75.0 75.3 0.018 0.102 -74.9
Nokia E71 +0.74, -1.26 -74.5 74.7 0.016 0.097 -75.8
Nokia E66 +0.74, -0.84 -72.3 72.5 0.021 0.102 -72.9
Nokia N78 +0.30, -1.59 -76.1 76.1 0.014 0.548 -72.7
Nokia N81 +0.39, -1.13 -86.6 95.8 0.041 0.040 -69.9
Samsung i550 +0.74, -0.76 -90.8 86.9 0.0024 0.033 -89.1
Sony Ericsson W980 +0.31, -1.25 -86.0 89.4 0.037 0.828 -86.3

Nokia E52 frequency response graph

You can find more info about the testing process here.
Music player is business as usual

Full-featured music ability is not supposed to make or break a business device but the music player of the Nokia E52 is still pretty decent and we set our hopes for good audio quality high when we saw that standard 3.5mm audio jack.

The lack of dedicated music keys is easily overcome by the smooth D-pad control. There is a huge number of audio formats supported including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. M3U playlists are also managed seamlessly and transferred files are added to the music library trouble-free by choosing the refresh option.

The music player is pretty straightforward

Filtering tracks by artist, album, genre and composer is automatic and searching tracks by gradual typing is also available.

The player comes with five equalizer presets, bass booster and stereo widening effect. You can also create new equalizer presets if the preloaded ones won’t do.

The available equalizer presets • creating a new one

Finally, being one of Nokia’s best equipped phones, the Nokia E52 naturally also includes support for the A2DP Bluetooth profile, which allows listening to music on a Bluetooth stereo headset.
Video player is decent

The Nokia E52 features Real player for playing your video clips. The video player works in portrait or fullscreen landscape mode. The softkey functions are hidden in full screen so they don’t get in the way, and they only pop up when a key is pressed.

The E52 Video center • the video player has very few controls

The relatively big screen and the MP4 video clips support add up to a passable video watching experience but you will probably resort to another player anyway. The reason for this is quite simple – the E52 lacks DivX and XviD support out of the box. Luckily, finding applications for the S60 3.2 that support those codecs is a fairly easy task (though they can be paid).
FM radio has RDS

The Nokia E52 sports stereo FM radio with RDS, controlled by the well known radio app. Upon starting, the app asks about your location in order to set up the proper frequencies for your area.

The FM radio can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. Scanning for alternative frequencies when traveling can also be set to automatic. You can save up to 50 radio stations and the option to play through the loudspeaker is available.

The FM radio app

Camera is a letdown

The Nokia E52 means business but imaging is not part of its job description. The 3 megapixel camera has only a LED flash and sadly, no autofocus. “Enhanced fixed focus” is here to cater for close-ups but as our tests have confirmed in the past, the new Nokia “catch-phrase” doesn’t really mean you’re getting more sharpness in close-ups or shorter minimal shooting distance.

Actually, the camera user interface is the only good part of the E52 snapper. Using our favorite tabbed interface, the camera offers extensive settings: from manual white balance and ISO sensitivity to exposure compensation, sharpness and contrast settings, as well as various effects which are labeled color tones.

The camera user interface is pretty familiar

A gridline can also be applied to the viewfinder to assist you in framing you photos using the photographic rule-of-thirds. Using it to align your subjects and place points of interest on or near the lines and their intersecting points makes your photos more professional and aesthetic.

The sequence mode and self-timer are nothing new. The flash can be set to four positions: automatic, always on, red-eye reduction and always off.

Small font tooltips are displayed to help you understand what the phone is doing at each specific moment (processing image, for example).

You can also customize the toolbar deciding on shortcuts to display for which settings and in what order.

Image quality

The image quality is decent for a 3-megapixel shooter. Color rendering and contrast are good, but the dynamic range is not on par. Noise levels are low, but that is achieved through noise-reduction that smears away fine details and textures. The sharpening algorithm on the other hand is way too harsh and produces visible artifacts in the photo.

Nokia E52 camera sample photos

The video recording doesn’t improve our impressions of the E52. The business-minded handset manages VGA videos at 15 fps, which is far from stellar but is certainly better than what E71 and E66 offered.

The quality of the recorded video is not very good and even if 15 fps is acceptable to you, the E52 is not a camcorder. There’s a fair bit of detail captured until of course it is periodically smeared by heavy compression when the bandwidth isn’t enough.

Here is a sample video for you to check out.
Synthetic resolution

We also snapped our resolution chart with the Nokia E52. You can check out what that test is all about here.

Here’s a comparison of the camera on the E52 and the one on the 5630 XpressMusic. The 5630 has a definite edge in resolved resolution. However, the processing in the E52 is better and doesn’t introduce as many additional imperfections.

Nokia E52 resolution chart photo • 100% crops

Nokia 5630 resolution chart photo • 100% crops
Connectivity all-rounder

It’s time to check out the connectivity options. This is a morale booster indeed for the E52 and it sure takes advantage.

The E52 is truly on fire where data transfer is in question – it just has it all: from Bluetooth v2.0 and USB v2.0 to Wi-Fi and 3G. Furthermore, the 3G comes with HSPA support for the fastest network data transfers – up to 10.2Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink.

A microSD card slot is also on board, under the battery cover. It might just be the quickest and most convenient way of transferring data.

The standard 3.5mm audio jack is also there and the only thing missing that we can think of is TV-out functionality.
Web browser does YouTube video

Browsing the internet on a Nokia smartphone is definitely a positive experience. The E52 is no exception with its excellent page rendering – most web pages look like they do on a desktop computer.

The virtual mouse cursor is easy to control and generally works great. The D-pad control is not as comfortable as Samsung’s optical joystick (think Samsung i7110, for instance) or BlackBerry’s trackball but still does the job.

Browsing GSMArena.com on the E52

A mini-map can be activated and it even appears by itself when you scroll longer, which helps you navigate complex websites without excessive scrolling. The zoom level is also easily adjustable at the expense of only a few key presses. The web browser also offers fullscreen view mode.

Along with the usual key shortcuts, the browser in E52 offers a toolbar, which can be launched by pressing 1 or long pressing on the center key on an empty area of the page. You can customize which shortcuts are on the toolbar – up to seven shortcuts like “Subscribe to feeds” or “Bookmark manager”.

The new toolbar

The Nokia E52 browser features built-in full Flash support. It handled many of the Flash sites we threw at it, but chocked on others (games most often). Flash content for version 9 and up seem to be the culprit.

Flash video handled seamlessly

Flash video is mostly not a problem for the E52 web browser – you can watch video on the full-featured versions of YouTube and the like. Not all however, DailyMotion and Vimeo didn’t work, for instance.

Excellent time-management, Office 2007 support

Time-management is another business phone virtue. There’s no wonder then that the Nokia E52 has one of the most elaborate organizer packages we’ve seen. There are a lot of nice applications, all very user-friendly and functional.

The trip starts with the calendar. It has four different types of view – to-do, weekly, daily and agenda as well as five types of events available for setting up – Meeting, Meeting request, Memo, Anniversary and To-do.

Setting up an event

The agenda view mode is relatively new to Nokia handsets and is really nice – it allows the dates of the month and the events for the selected day to appear simultaneously on the screen.

Day, week and agenda views

Mobile office is also duly covered, with seamless handling of Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. Furthermore, unlike most other Nokia handsets out there, editing documents is supported right out of the box.

With the Nokia E52 you won’t need to pay extra for editing your office documents. And there’s another thing you get for free – support for Office 2007 documents (.docx, etc.)

The E52 also supports document editing out of the box

A PDF reader is also part of the Nokia E52 preinstalled content and a ZIP manager allows extracting archived files straight from your phone.

A PDF reader is also available • ZIP manager

The other pre-bundled organizing and time-management applications are: a great unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as the Notes application. We are not going to get into detail with them, as their functionality and performance are familiar enough.

The ActiveNotes application is also on board allowing multimedia content to be added to your notes.

Some of the other organizer apps: unit converter, calculator and ActiveNotes

The Nokia E52 alarm clock application allows a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own name and start time. You can also customize the snooze time from the settings menu.

The E52 allows dozens of alarms to be set simultanelously

The useful “Search” application is also present on the Nokia E52. Its reserved space in the active stand-by menu no longer comes as a surprise. After all, an application this useful really deserves to be conveniently placed.

The application itself finds almost every item in your Nokia based on a given keyword. From messages to settings, every bit of data is checked and results are then listed.

If it’s on the phone the Search app will find it

Finally, the Nokia E52 features a dictionary with a really rich database. English comes pre-installed but you can also download dozens of other languages for free from the Nokia website.

The dictionary has a rich database

The World Traveler app helps you when visiting a new city – it’ll display weather forecast, it also offers a world clock, info on foreign currency, flights and even a 3D globe that marks your home and current location.

The traveler app can be quite helpful when travelling abroad

Thanks to the wireless presenter you can handle presentations straight from your phone.

WiPresenter is also here

GPS navigation is pretty good actually

The Nokia E52 comes complete with a built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS and Ovi Maps preinstalled. Voice-guided navigation comes at a price, and the only free trial period you get is the 7-day one you can get at Nokia’s website.

The preinstalled version of the Ovi Maps is 3.0 and as usual it’s pretty nice to work with. It has really detailed map coverage of a huge number of countries and a lot of extras such as traffic information, city guides and so on. Sadly, the extra features need to be purchased separately, as must the voice-guidance after the trial period has expired.

Nokia maps has four different view modes

The app also has very decent looks and easily customizable route planning algorithms. Our favorite feature is the 3D view mode, which unfortunately has to be turned on every time you restart Maps – that’s an odd one, no doubt about that.

Ovi Maps is also usable for pedestrian navigation or you can switch the GPS receiver off and simply use the phone as an electronic map. The nice thing about it is that you can actually preload the map content, so you don’t need to access the wireless network to download that on the go.

Nokia E52 also features a digital compass. In order for it to work, you need the map zoomed on your current GPS position. The compass (a magnetometer sensor) is turned on by default, but it doesn’t work while turn-by-turn navigation is engaged. It’s quite useful while making your way around on foot though as it rotates the map top match even your slightest change in orientation.

If you don’t fancy using Nokia Maps, you can opt for any of the numerous third-party applications available on the market, there’s no shortage of those.

The overall impression of the Nokia E52 GPS functionality is positive, with the GPS sensitivity pretty acceptable. It is good enough for most users’ needs and won’t make too many people look for alternatives.
Classic games and N-Gage

The Nokia E52 comes with two games preinstalled, both of which are pastime classics.

The first one, called Block Cascade Fusion is a variety of Tetris, in which color also comes into play – instead of just making lines, you have to line up 5 or more blocks of the same color horizontally or vertically. The changes in the rules take some time getting used to – the lines of 5 or more same-color blocks disappear only during the fusion… blocks are dropping frantically, while you’re trying to figure out what the point is. It is part of the fun, so we won’t spoil it.

Block Cascade Fusion

The other option is Top Hit Solitaires bringing 15 types of solitaire, with classics such as Klondike and Freecell (if you ever owned a PC you’ve played them).

Top Hits Solitaires

While it doesn’t come preinstalled, you can install N-Gage on the Nokia E52, just head to http://www.ngage.com and follow the instructions. Strangely for a business-minded phone, there’s full support for the recent Nokia gaming application. No need to tell you, there was no free activation code in our retail box.
Final words

The Eseries have certainly gone a long way, it’s Nokia for business and they mean it. The Nokia E52 is a no-compromise tool and you can tell at a glimpse. The extensive use of metal doesn’t go unnoticed by either eye or hand. Speaking of hand feel – the excellent build quality is perfectly matched by great ergonomics.

The hardware is top notch as you have every right to expect in the Nokia Eseries, except for the camera of course, but don’t pretend you’re surprised now. Well, the QVGA screen could be questioned too, but non-touch Symbians just seem stuck at that resolution and that’s that.

With great email and office support, excellent browser and speedy CPU to run things fast and smooth, only one question remains. Is there really much left for the E55? It’s practically the same phone with a half-QWERTY keyboard.

So we guess, the Nokia E55 kinda boils down to a limited edition E52. After all, most people will perhaps prefer the traditional phone keypad. The unusual half-QWERTY is not so much of an advantage after all when you factor in predictive typing on E52 and the steep learning curve when tackling typing on the E55 new type of keyboard.

Anyway, we’re trying to put the E52 in context here and we can’t do without its half-QWERTY sibling, the Nokia E55.

Nokia E55

As to real competitors, the E52 is not really challenged beyond limits – Wi-Fi and GPS in a compact package seems to be largely reserved for touchscreen handsets or for full QWERTY phones like the E72.

There is one exception that delivers an even larger display in the same metallic design and the same Symbian S60 smartphone OS – the Samsung i7110. It somehow evaded the popularity it deserved, but that may be attributed to its quite high price. It is bigger than the E52, but’s also got the imaging all covered with its 5 megapixel camera.

Samsung i7110

On the other hand, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 may be thicker and 11 mm wider and 4 mm thicker than the Nokia E52 it’s just 12 grams heavier – not so much bigger overall considering the full QWERTY. If BlackBerry Connect is something you need the extra heft is something you’ll just have to get used to.

Speaking of QWERTY-enabled handsets, we shouldn’t also miss the best-selling Nokia E71 and its successor E72. The Nokia E72 follows the metallic styling of E52 almost to the letter.

BlackBerry Curve 8520 • Nokia E71 • Nokia E72

The software packed into the E52 covers everything – from WiPresenter to Nseries-like gallery and N-Gage support. Neither the gallery, nor the games are that important in a strictly business device, but they would surely help push out the envelope of business-only manners to a wider public. And it sure helps to know that the E52 can kick back and relax too. Business sure comes first but those hot looks will as well connect with a different crowd too, to whom file attachments and mobile VPN are just a part of the nine-to-five rat race. And there’s more to life than just work, right?

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_e52-review-384p9.php

Nokia E52

Hardware – built like a tank

E52’s design and hardware materials continue the Eseries’ legacy of class and luxury. Here are my notes:
The screen is 240 x 320, standard QVGA with physical dimensions of 2.4″ – an improvement over its predecessor E51’s 2.0″.
Voice call quality is excellent!
The keypad is the best alphanumeric keypad in recent Nokia S60 smartphones history. The tactile feedback is great, the finger moving range is perfect and the physical buttons themselves are huge by today’s standard. The combination of big keypad buttons with the control keys made E52 perfect for one-hand usage.
The Calendar and Messaging one-touch buttons can be configured to launch different applications for short and long presses. So you have 2 extra buttons!
The 3.2 megapixel EDoF camera doesn’t have a lens cover. LED flash is used. The camera portion is humped, meaning the E52 can’t lay (perfectly) flat on a surface.
The BP-4L 1500 mAh high-capacity battery is used even in such a micro package. For my usage, with heavy web browsing and texting, Gravity, push email 24/7 and some music, it still lasts 5 days. That’s very impressive! You have to be very careful in removing the battery because you need to use a sharp object to lift the battery from its recess.
The microSD slot is located at the back and you have to remove the battery cover first. In my opinion, it isn’t user friendly to have to lift the battery cover everytime you want to access the memory card.
The E52 uses a microUSB port for data transfer and charging. Nokia has included a converter that can be used for an old charger to refill E52’s juice. However, the port is not covered by a plastic flap like the other recent Eseries.
The placement of the camera button is in the middle, a little bit awkward, but it’s a very high quality button and integrates well with the E52 design.
I welcome the 3.5mm jack because I can plug in my Sony headphones easily. The sound quality is not bad.

The first time I held the E52 in my hands, I was impressed by how good it feels. It’s not too small, like the 6120 Classic, and it’s not as bulky as the E90. It feels very nice and comfortable to hold. The overall quality was superb, with no squeaky parts, and the metallic finish made it look luxurious. There is no wasted space. Like Rafe said in his E55 first hands on impression, I can’t help but ask myself “where did the hardware go?”… The only complaint from me is the hidden microSD card slot.

Software tweaks

Like the E75, the E52 and E55 (read Steve’s excellent review) use S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2. Since the beginning, Eseries has been well known for software tweaks to address the target market it is aimed at – business people. For E52, the most significant improvements include :
Home screen enhancement. There are 14 plug-ins to choose in Control Panel – Modes – Home screen applications.

The home screen plugin customisation
Professional and Personal mode. I wish this feature would be made available to all Nokia S60 smartphones. Changing mode (or indeed mood!) is so easy.
Contacts enhancement. You can search the contacts database from the Home screen by typing the first few letters of a name. It answers the question “why is Contacts missing from the quick-access keys?” I wish the search could include application launching as well, though.

The enhanced Contacts, an Eseries exclusive since the E71
Calendar tweaks. The most obvious calendar tweak for the E52 is the transition effect, which adds a little bit of eye candy but also slows down the navigation experience – and there is no way to turn it off.

Unified messaging. Nokia Messaging version 2.0 is included by default. First seen in the E75, it supports pseudo push email and a 2 year (“device lifetime”) subscription is included. It includes Mail For Exchange and supports many webmail systems, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Ovi Mail.

Nokia Messaging version 2 is integrated
Full Quickoffice with editing and Office 2007 format support. It’s only version 5.3, but you can upgrade to version 6 for free using Quickmanager.

Quickoffice, full editing and Office 2007 format support

The New S60 Web browser

The newest S60 Browser, aka Web v7.1 is included. This is a huge improvement for non-touch S60 smartphones. Among the new features are configurable keypad shortcuts and a customisable toolbar. It performs 2 to 3 times faster than the older Web (depends on the connection, of course). Upon further inspection at http://www.useragent.org, Webkit engine version 525 is used, which is also the same engine used in Safari mobile, found on the iPhone 3G.

The user agent of the new S60 Web

Many aspects of web site rendering are improved. For example, in the older S60 Web, Facebook’s web site can be opened in 2 modes, the RAM-hungry Desktop version at http://www.facebook.com and the Mobile version at m.facebook.com.

Full Facebook on the left and Mobile Facebook on the right, in landscape mode

The new S60 Web is also capable of rendering the two Facebook web sites mentioned, PLUS another one, at x.facebook.com – which is the richer mobile version. Previously, the old Web wouldn’t display it properly. The ability to render complex web sites is a huge bonus.

The richer version of Facebook mobile, also in landscape mode

For usability, the keypad shortcuts take Web browsing on non-touch S60 smartphone to a new level. It is now more convenient to access Web’s most used functions. The default setting is good enough for casual usage. However, the keypad shortcuts setting doesn’t include Page Up and Page Down being mapped to keys 2 and 8 – something which I love to use on Opera Mini.

There’s also a new popup toolbar, which can be accessed by pressing number 1 on the keypad, by default. On the old Web, the toolbar is not configurable. This one allows you to access bookmarks and history as well as other functions without digging deep into Options.

The popup toolbar and its Settings dialog

Speed and RAM improvement

One of the first things I did after getting the E52 was to disable the transitions effect from the Themes utility. It makes navigation faster and, in my opinion, the E52 is a speed demon when it comes to navigation and launching applications.

RAM never seems to be a problem – many applications can be opened at the same time without a performance problem, thanks to enhancements in S60 3rd Edition FP2 and the new hardware platform powered by a 600MHz processor. I have not experienced the notorious “Not Enough Memory” error yet.

Background applications, using Jbak Taskman

Other goodies
Ovi Maps version 3.1 is included, giving a more polished and enjoyable GPS navigation experience. I have not tested it in full yet but so far, I have no problem finding locations and navigating to my desired destination. There’s also a built-in Compass (magnetometer) but it can be used only inside Ovi Maps. I wish someone could develop a standalone Compass application like the one for N97.

Ovimaps version 3.01 with compass
Another small enhancement I noticed is the clock display in all screens, where possible. On the top right of the scree, next to the battery level icon, the time is displayed. Very convenient. This is a small tweak but nevertheless very useful.

Clock display in Menu and inside an application window (HanDBase is one of my all time favourite S60 apps!)
The new predictive text input is good and can be configured to use 2 languages at once.

Text input configuration

Conclusion

The marriage of modern industrial design to the powerful and mature S60 3rd Edition FP2 has resulted in a package that is very compact yet very capable. The E52 is the best smartphone in the world at the moment, giving its sister, the E55, some serious competition.

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_E52_Review_Part_1-Hardware_built_like_a_tank.php