Nokia E72- A User's Experience !

This is not just 'another review', there are quite some outstanding reviews out there on CNET, Techradar ; the manufacturers themselves Nokia and i cant quite match up to that kind of ' techie' details out there.But if you are a normal user just looking for a good phone that can serve some of your everyday business and personal needs then i hope you find my review or rather my personal log/journal of user experience of the Nokia E-72 smart phone useful.Much thanks to the guys at Nokia Kenya and its local PR firm for allowing me to experience this.

Day 1.

 Typically the excitement stage.I get my feel of the features i find impressive and a sale point for the Kenyan market is ;

• a full Qwerty Keyboard and QVGA(320 x480) is a plus for this phone making it great for messaging and internet use.
• the not so usual call and receive button symbol,seems the designers at Nokia wanted to be a cut above the rest from the usual Red/Green call button.
• the scrolling touch pad makes it easier to navigate and zoom in and out on web pages.
• An FM radio with a customized automatic internet FM station search Directory.I know this is a favourite feature mostly for the lady users.
• the Directory button , makes it easy to personalize your diary with a one button access,this is a plus for the Business user.
• For those Kenyans who love phones with torches, the flashlight doubles up for a torch with a dedicated key button
• The Five Megapixel auto focus Camera with flashlight, proves impressive i can take quite some amazing photos indoor,outdoors and in low light situations.For illustrative purposes you can see my son's photos below.

DAY 2.

I test drive its Wi-Fi capabilities and internet access features which are fairly easy to use.The phone boasts of a new 3.5G HSDPA modem that can push up to 10.2Mbps that can prove quite useful if you are heavy on online activities..Although the E-72 is based on the new Nokia Symbian OS 9.3 platform , i found it slightly disappointing that the phone crushed twice while downloading some of my favourites apps(my favourite being Foursquare)  on OVI store.But i bet that was just a hiccup as thereafter i have  not experienced the problem again.

A plus sign for the Wi-Fi is its automatic search facility accessible on the main screen, Once it notifies you of available WLAN's you can use the Connection Manager or the WLAN wizard to access the available connections.

To optimize use of the internet i downloaded the Opera Mini 10, but somehow my Nokia 6300 does access the internet faster.I tried to mobile blog within the Opera Mini browser but the posts were coming out blank without the body an indication of a fault with the App as apparently suing the inbuilt browser i was able to blog successfully.In my opinion , if you buy the phone ( which retails locally at a cost of around Kshs 28,000 at PhoneExpress) with intent to live blog, use the inbuilt browser.

DAY 3

By day 3 i was quite adept with the phone, at least at this point i could customize the mobile webmail application. I synchronized it with my gmail and yahoo account.Had a problem synchronizing it with office Email account but perhaps it due to my lack of sufficient knowledge on the Outlook 2010.If you ahve a Nokia /Ovi account you have the additional option of synchronizing you contacts, notes,calendar ,messages ..etc online. 

At this point and Jucture using the Nokia OVI suite i backed up the phone and contacts.Was also pleasantly surprised at the 16 GB maximum Memory Card capacity of the phone(It comes with a 4GB micro SD card) than can prove quite useful for storing data such as music, photos, videos .It actually comes

DAY 4

 Played around with its entertainment suite. The inbuilt speakers performed well but the manufactures can improve on the headset especially its stereo quality .The phone does not come cluttered with Games but one has the option of downloading the games they prefer online especially from the OVI stores.Unlike the Nokia 6300 media player i was unable to play songs via bluetooth to my Samsung Home theatre. Its funny sometimes how Nokia improve on a product yet leave out some functions in later models that one found useful.I could live with that .The Entertainment suite features a Realplayer , Ovi Music, a Voice Recorder and other interesting items.

Day 5

At this stage , i could no longer consider myself as a novice, the phone felt light on my hands and i could easily access most of the basic functions.The Office feature includes a Calculator, an Intranet, an inbuilt Dictionary, a Compressed files ZIP manager,a Converter and a host of other features that prove useful for a business phone.

VERDICT:

From the usage of the phone i highly recommend it for the smart business professional who knows what he wants in a phone.Having mastered the basics within a week , the phone remains still stylish enough(by the way i prefer the golden look case) and user friendly for the normal everyday user but at the price tag that accompanies it-its more recommendable that if you buy the phone then you should make most use of its capabilities and functions.

Now cant wait to experience the Nokia N8 expected to hit the local market soon!