Nokia E72 smartphone review - all business

While the Nokia E72 offers a stale operating system that desperately needs to get caught up with the times, its good web browser, fast data speeds, lengthy battery life, and beautiful design are reason enough to give it praise.

Physical Aspects

If there's one thing I love about Nokia's latest E-series handsets, it's the first class industrial design. Like its predecessor, the E71, the E72 offers stunning chrome accents around its black face and includes a beautiful silver colored metal battery cover that stands out against even the classiest looking smartphones. The E72 is so refined, so corporate looking that I almost felt under-dressed while testing it; it belongs in the hands of a businessman in a fine tailored suit, and that's what makes it so attractive.

Measuring 114mm x 58.3mm x 10.1mm (4.48 in x 2.29in x 0.39in), it's one of the thinnest smartphones on the market. The 128g (4.51oz) E72 offers a 2.36-inch inch and 320 x 240 pixel resolution display that's bright enough to read under direct sunlight, but the low resolution can make small text on websites a bit fuzzy. Just below the screen there are two soft buttons, as well as four conveniently placed buttons for accessing your homescreen, calendar, address book, and messages in just one key press. Below those buttons there are send/end keys. Nokia's new optical trackpad sits amidst all of these keys, and allows you to pan around web pages or menus by sliding your finger across it. For selection purposes, you can also depress the optical key, and you can also navigate left, right, up, or down by pressing on the edges of the optical pad, which makes it an all-around improvement over the original pad on the E71. The area around the optical button glows white for message or missed call alerts. The back of the device, primarily metal, is home to the E72's speaker and 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash.

Nokia included a well-thought out QWERTY keyboard, but it's not as snappy as RIM's keyboards on its BlackBerry 9700 or Curve models. I found it satisfactory, if a bit cramped, but did love how Nokia added quick-access shortcuts to the buttons. There's a Bluetooth icon on the "Sym" key, which lets you toggle Bluetooth on and off without having to dig through menus. Likewise, you can toggle the camera flash by holding down the spacebar for about 3 seconds, and it served as a good flashlight while I was digging for hiking boots in my basement.

The top of the phone is home to a new 3.5mm headphone jack (the E71 only had a 2.5mm one), as well as the phone's power button. The volume keys on the top right side of the phone flank a voice dial key. There's a microSD card slot and a micro-USB charging hatch on the top left hand side of the phone, each with annoying plastic covers that take a deliberate fingernail to remove.