At A Glance:

In the box
- Nokia E75
- Manuals
- Nokia Plug
- Nokia USB cable

The new E75 just came in the office, and is Nokia’s latest business phone with a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard. It carries over the E71’s functionality with physical improvements, so let’s see if this upgrade is worth your while.

Design
The E75 has a slim candybar style, with a metal casing and glass plates, which are all fingerprint attractor. Wiping it often is a must to keep the phone looking presentable. The design is looks businesslike, and should be no problem for most executives. The phone sports a 2.4 inch16M-colour TFT display of QVGA resolution, and the display quality is certainly good.

The phone has a clear plastic sunken keypad, which is a frustrating add-on to the E75, due to the lack of tactile feedback. The D-pad is lit-up and easy to use, even with the slide-out keyboard. As with the E-series phone, the ‘business’ shortcut keys complement the d-pad, with a home button, organiser and email key. In addition the phone’s access keys and the call/end button are attached as a single piece with the shortcut keys mentioned above, so a bit of finger dexterity is needed.

The ambient light sensor is above the screen and so is the vanity camera. On the left spine you have the microSD and microUSB slot, the phone comes with a 4GB microSD card and supports up to 16GB. The right spine has the volume rocker with the voice commander quick button, and the quick camera button. On that note, the quick camera button requires holding the quick camera key until the camera kicks in, so don’t expect to take quick photos.

Slide out the QWERTY keyboard and you’ll find the true money’s worth right here, the keys are well spread out and big enough to please even the biggest thumbs. The layout is also well thought out, with the stop, the comma and the @ symbol each having a dedicated key. Text messaging, emails are all easy and enjoyable tasks.

The back of the phone has a nice silver finish, with the camera and the dual speaker lined up here. Crack open the cover and you’ll see the SIM card and the battery pack. The top of the phone has a 3.5mm

The E75 has a pretty decent battery life, considering the quick charge of the battery. Expect four to five days on standby. The phone forks out 2 days on normal usage, with data, SMS’ and calling.

Features
The Symbian OS, S60 release 3.2 powers the E75, and it’s relatively unchanged from earlier versions. The UI retains similar functions with the E63, customisable shortcut keys on the main menu, set up your emails and search for content in your phone. Nokia’s Wi-Fi tab is located here too.

The 3.2 release had Nokia tried and true grid icons, which users can customise. Expect the usual fare of accessing your contacts, messaging, emails and music. The office function will feature, Adobe PDF reader, Zip, Calculator and Quickoffice with word processing software.

As with the 3.2 release, the device has a switch mode which allows you to balance work and play. The Switch Mode allows you to set and switch between 2 different home screens, for example User can set a “Work” home screen work weekdays and switch to “Personal” home screen on weekends, so you do not have to look at all your email notification or meeting alerts on your screen when you are spending leisure time with family.

Symbian’s Internet browser is a proven platform for Nokia devices, the mouse and mini map combination is all good and reliable. Zoom options for smaller text, and Flash compatibility is great for YouTube and video streaming.

Nokia E75 features Real player for playing your video clips. The video player can be displayed in both normal and fullscreen modes. The S60 music player platform performs quite well, users can expect the usual fares from Nokia’s music player-sorting, adding and creating new playlist are all a breeze to do. Audio quality is good for the E73, though we have heard louder speakers from Nokia.

The FM radio on Nokia E75 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.

Onboard GPS is available in the E75, with A-GPS and Nokia Maps navigation preinstalled. A lot of features from traffic information, city guides and so on – require sub!ions. We felt the map load time were slow, as the GPS were able to locate the phone but the without the map we don’t know where we were.

Connectivity
The E75 sports a large variety of connectivity options, with quad-band functionality (850 /900 /1800 /1900 MHz) with 3.6Mbps HSDPA, EDGE, GPRS, and Bluetooth 2.0. Naturally there is Wi-Fi for E75.

Camera
The E75 has a 3.2 megapixel camera that comes with a LED flash, auto-focus, and no lens protection. The few E-series we’ve encountered had slightly dubious camera functions and the E75 is no different.

To sum up the E75’s picture quality- it’s bad, the capture quality looks grainy, lighting contrast is also off, and colours are drained from the pictures as well. The LED flash doesn’t really help all that much, and the lack of lens protection will means careful handling. However, coupled with aforementioned slow launch of the quick camera button, the camera truly takes the cake.

Verdict
The E75 comes off as a physical variation to the extensive E series line, while there aren’t any groundbreaking, special features- the phone receives a physical upgrade to most of the E series line.

At RM 1,950, it stands as a mid-range handset, the price point justify the features. The camera stands at 3.2 megapixel, but it’s underwhelming to say the least. The QWERTY keyboard addition is the phone’s strongest point, and adds a business quality to the E75.

All in all, even if the E75 has nothing groundbreaking to offer it still can't be ignored as a viable E-series option.

• Tags : Nokia E75