Cool Gadget | PDA Phone

If we can think of one reason to take being told “to mind your own business” with a smile it would be the Nokia Eseries. A household name for enterprise users, it’s hardly a surprise that each E-series update is greeted with plenty of excitement. The Nokia E75 is no exception, even if it doesn’t really put anything new on the table.

    
Nokia E75 official photos

The side-sliding QWERTY form factor lands on Symbian turf following a reasonably successful spell on the WinMo side of the yard.

The major novelty of the Nokia E75 is the form factor and we’re about to see if this is enough for it to carve a niche out for itself in a crowded market.

   
Nokia E75 lifestyle photos

There’s no denying that if a side-sliding QWERTY is good enough for a teenage-targeted music phone (the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic), it must be more than at home in a full-featured business phone. Welcome to the Nokia E75.

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, 4GB microSD card prebundled
• 3.2 megapixel auto focus camera with a dedicated shutter key, geotagging and VGA@30fps video recording
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with UPnP technology
• Built-in GPS receiver and Nokia Maps with 3 months of free voice-assisted navigation
• USB and stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) connectivity
• Steel battery cover
• FM radio with RDS
• Remote Wipe functionality
• Carrier-independent VoIP support
• Office document editor
• User-friendly Mode Switch for toggling two homescreen setups
• Smart dialing

Main disadvantages:

• Rather expensive at this point (more than 350 euro)
• Controls around the D-pad are too tiny
• Mediocre camera performance
• Fingerprint-prone cheap-looking front
• Wiggling cheapo camera key
• Limited battery life (in comparison to the E71)

Even if we leave aside the scores of competing business handsets, the Nokia E75 still faces quite stiff competition from within the E-series range itself. It’s unreasonably close to the E90 as far as pricing is concerned and is quite uncomfortably cloning most of Nokia E71 functionality. The side-sliding QWERTY keyboard and FP2 are pretty much all the E75 has over the E71.

    
The Nokia E75 in the comfort of our office

It’s more like an alternative we’re talking here rather than a substantial upgrade. Truth be told, we were pretty impressed with the Nokia E71 and if the E75 matches its performance then there will be no reason to grumble.

    
Nokia E75 side by side to Nokia E63

So, if the Nokia E75 is sitting on a fence, then so are we until we’ve taken it down for a test ride and seen what it can do. Let the unboxing begin after the jump.

Retail package is decently stuffed

The Nokia E75 is pretty decently equipped and that was probably to be expected considering the price tag. The phone comes with a 4GB microSD card, a USB cable and of course a DC charger.

Unfortunately we didn’t find a leather carrying case in the box like the one for the E71. Quite a nice accessory, this is probably the thing we miss most from the retail package.

   
The retail package is moderately well equipped

The supplied handsfree is one piece, which means you cannot use the remote with another headset. Finally, there is a whole load of paperwork including manuals, quick start guides, a few leaflets plus the required sync software on CD.

Design and construction

Design-wise the Nokia E75 is a phone of two faces. Its steel back is a joy to look at, even more so than the E71 because of its slender shape. However the front panel is not nearly as attractive. The number pad is made of cheap looking plastic and doesn’t really ooze the style and solidity that the E-series is famous for.

    
The design has its ups and downs

We certainly don’t want to rekindle the debate that our conclusions on the glossy plastic used on the Nokia N96 provoked, but we are not particularly fond of the fact that an E-series device gets this kind of treatment.

Based on the tacky keypad, we were expecting to be disappointed by the slide-sliding QWERTY – but the quality took a turn for the better with a very solid looking, chrome-framed keyboard. To add to the positive impression, the phone keeps quite a compact shape even with the keyboard out, and the 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 E75, either side of the earpiece. Below them is the 2.4″ display, followed by the D-pad, which is quite 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.

We don’t mean to sound to pretentious, but we would have liked it quite much if the E-series had finally been updated with a larger display – say, something like a 2.8-incher would have been great. Instead, here we see the same diagonal as on Nokia E66.

  
The ambient light sensor and the video-call camera

There are eight system keys, level with the D-pad, including the usual Nokia foursome – Call and End keys and two soft-keys. The end key doubles as a power switch, unlike the E71, which has a dedicated button for the purpose. Given the garish red power button they inexplicably added to the E71, this key combo might actually be something to be thankful for! On the other hand if you have a habit of hitting the End key repeatedly for going to the homescreen you might end up turning your E75 off by accident now and then.

The other four keys around the D-pad are menu, backspace and the typical E-series one-touch keys for calendar and messaging. However, these last two can be programmed to serve whatever purpose you like, two commands assignable to each of them. The first will respond to a short press, the second to a press-and-hold.

The problem with all those eight keys around the D-pad is that they are rather small and cramped. In addition, each pair of them shares a plastic knob with a rocker-like action, which can occasionally lead to mispresses.

The buttons on the inside (bordering on the D-pad) have a rather flimsy press too. To be honest, it’s nothing critical and you will get used to the control pad but the form factor has inevitably led to some compromises. In short, the layout and handling of the controls on the E75 are inferior to the E71, though that’s before we’ve passed judgment on the QWERTY keyboard.

  
The eight keys around the display are way too tiny

The left side of the Nokia E75 is where the microUSB port and the microSD card slot are. They’re both covered with plastic lids to avoid getting filled with dust and dirt. Those fit firmly in place and can be somewhat tricky to use as they are a little stiff.

    
The Nokia E75 from the left

The bottom is where the standard charger port is. Next to it is the mic right at the very edge.

  
The charging port is at the bottom right next to the microphone pinhole

The right side of the E75 comprises four keys and the lanyard eyelet. The keys include two volume controls, a voice command shortcut and a camera key. While it has full functionality, including autofocus half-press and camera launch, it is quite poorly designed.

The camera key clicks unpleasantly every time you press it and a tangible wobble makes it less than a joy to use. But these are just minor complaints compared to the amount of time it takes for the camera to actually start.

Yes, it’s a good idea they have made it resistant to accidental presses, but needing to press it for good 4-5 seconds before the camera starts is hardly ideal when you want to capture a ‘moment’.

  
No less than four keys are to be found on the right

On the other hand, if you consider the camera handling on the E71, a dedicated shutter key is still a blessing and you might be willing to forgive some of the other issues.

The only functional element at the top is the 3.5mm standard audio jack and that’s another point in favor over the E71. It’s not sealed for protection but it is comfortably placed.

  
The 3.5mm standard audio jack is at the top

As we mentioned, the back of the handset has a soft spot in our hearts. We do appreciate the steel battery cover and the opaque plastic around it. Certainly one of the best looking backs in the industry, it makes the plain plastic front all the more inconsistent.

   
The E75 looks much better from the back

As far as functional elements are concerned, we find the loudspeaker grill and the 3 megapixel cameralens here. Next to the lens are the LED flash and a small self-portrait mirror.

Releasing the battery cover is sweet and easy: it pops up upon sliding the latch at the bottom. Underneath lies a 1000 mAh Li-Ion BL-4U unit.

 
The 1000 mAh battery is a downgrade from the 1500 mAh unit on the E71

We do find that to be one of the handset’s shortcomings as the E71 was equipped with a way more powerful 1500 mAh battery. There was just no stopping the E71, and its battery life extends way beyond its side-sliding sibling.

With the 1000 mAh extensive use of features like Wi-Fi and GPS on top of a few calls a day and you will need to recharge in the evening.

In terms of design, the Nokia E75 is defined by the stark contrast between the fingerprint-prone glossy front and the state of the art rear panel. Still we have to admit that the handset handles pretty nicely, save for the tiny controls clustered around the D-pad. The build is rock solid.

   
The E75 held in hand

Display is pretty good

The Nokia E75 display has the company’s trademark high image quality. The days when Nokia was way ahead of the pack in terms of screen quality are now gone but that’s due to the competition finally turning their attention to the matter, and not because Nokia have started falling behind. Anyways, even if that’s true now, you can always trust a Nokia handset to have a vibrant display and great sunlight legibility.

  
The display has very decent picture quality

Brightness levels are good and contrast is pretty decent, but admittedly not as good as the iPhone 3G or the recently reviewed BlackBerry handsets. In terms of size, the 2.4″ screen of the E75 is acceptable given the compact dimensions of the handset while QVGA is still the rule outside the touchscreen realm. As we already said however, a larger display (at least a 2.6-incher) would have been much appreciated.

Sunlight legibility is not an issue on the E75. Even if the colors get washed out, the display remains perfectly visible even on the brightest of days.

QWERTY keyboard is splendid, numberpad not so much

The alphanumeric keypad of the Nokia E75 certainly has its issues with the keys being a bit too thin for our liking. What you have on the E75 is actually four thin plastic plates rather than distinct buttons. Tactility is certainly compromised and press feedback is inadequate. The bottom row of keys is particularly adversely affected by these issues and the narrowness means your fingers will often slide off.

   
The keypad has room for improvement

However, with a QWERTY keyboard as good as this, you are unlikely to be using the alphanumeric keypad too often. The keys on the four-row QWERTY are large and provide much better feedback. The layout is also well thought out, with the stop, the comma and the @ symbol each having a dedicated key.

  
The QWERTY keyboard is almost as comfortable as it gets

The important thing is that once you slide the phone open, you are in for a very comfortable texting experience on the QWERTY keyboard and there are very few handsets to rival it. The E75 is in pretty much the same league as the Nokia E90 and the HTC Touch Pro – at least “textually” speaking.

A really nice touch to the E75 is the vast number of customizable options that the handset has for the slider action. You can pick an application to launch upon sliding the keyboard out and you can set it return to homescreen upon closing.

Symbian S60 UI now comes with Feature Pack 2

Nokia E75 runs on Symbian 9.3 OS with the Series60 3rd Edition user interface. It has Feature Pack 2, unlike the Nokia E71 which only had the major features of Feature Pack 2 ported for the FP1. Frankly speaking, in normal use you won’t find much difference between the two.

The Nokia E75 is powered by a 369 MHz CPU. In Symbian smartphone terms this means that navigating the menus is pretty fast with instant response to key presses and no delays whatsoever.

  
Nokia E75 runs on Symbian S60 3.2

The E75 comes with the new S60 icons, similar to the one found on the 5th edition and brings some new accelerometer-based functionality. This includes automatic rotation of the display plus silencing calls and snoozing the alarm by flipping your phone over or tapping the display. The extended number of settings for the slider is also a nice addition but that almost completes the list.

   
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 E75 you cannot opt for having animated icons as with 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 configurable depending on your preferences.

  
The main menu has two view modes

You can also switch between portrait and landscape orientation for every menu by either opening and closing the slider or by using the accelerometer. Please bear in mind that the accelerometer is disabled by default so you will have to turn it on from the setting menu in order to use it.

  
Almost every part of the interface has a landscape mode too

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.

The active stand-by mode goes without saying on the Nokia E75. This is a convenient way to add shortcuts to all your favorite applications on the home screen. 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 starting from email boxes and voice mail through calendar and to-dos to Music player and FM radio currently running track. How many of those 14 get displayed is completely up to you.

   
Basic, active or talking stand-by theme

Both 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 can also vary.

If for some reason the active stand-by mode isn’t your cup of tea you can revert to the basic theme or switch to the new talking theme. The basic theme allows you to assign shortcuts to the directions of the D-pad while the talking theme…well, it 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.

  
The talking theme has its own clock application

This talking theme is pretty comfortable for working with without looking at the phone. It might be a good idea to activate it when using the phone while driving for example and save yourself some needless distraction.

Another cool feature of ther recent E-series handsets allows you to toggle between two different phone setups. Each of them can be customized with its own theme and homescreen applications for maximum usability. In this way you can have both a leisure and a business profile and alternate between them with a single click.

The built-in memory is 85MB, which is a decent amount. The included 4GB microSD memory card comes in very handy for extending it, but even higher capacity cards are supported.

As we managed to confirm, Nokia E75 has no problem handling a 16GB microSD card, which is the largest currently available on the market. Accessing applications or any other files on the memory card is quick and you probably won’t notice any difference compared to accessing ones 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 side of the E75 and it does a good job, being fully speaker-independent and recognizing a very high percentage of the user commands.

And finally, there’s a nice security feature from the E71 and E66 known as Remote Lock. It’s not a new feature per se, but up until now it was usually reserved for corporate scenarios. Now it’s available to everyone.

If your Nokia E75 gets stolen or lost, you simply send a coded SMS message to remotely lock the phone. After three unsuccessful attempts of to unlock it, it wipes itself clean of all personal or sensitive info. You might not get your Nokia E75 back, but at least nobody will get your personal data either.

The customization options for the user interface of the Nokia E75 are mainly restricted to its functionality out of the box. In stark contrast to the huge amount of customizable notifications, there are only two different visual themes preinstalled on the handset. So if you are into changing those icons andcolors you will have to download new ones from the internet….but don’t worry, there’s plenty to choose from out there.

No changes in the phonebook

The phonebook of the Nokia E75 hasn’t evolved too much from the E71. 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 when editing a contact

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 E75 you are extremely unlikely to experience any reception issues. Sound during calls is very clear and free of any interferences.

Nokia E75 features the really nice Smart dialing feature, which helps you quickly find a contact straight from the standby screen. All you need to do is type a few letters and all contacts with names (first or last) containing them get displayed. Working with both the keypad and the keyboard it is certainly the best way to access your contacts without even opening the phonebook.

  
The smart dial works with both the numberpad and the keyboard

Nokia E75 doesn’t feature the advanced Communication Manager out of the box like E71 but you can download it for free from the Nokia download center. 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.

In addition you can set up different ringing profiles that can be scheduled to activate at a certain time (hour and day). Finally, you can also set the behavior of the phone when rejecting a call – busy tone, reject with SMS or answering machine on are some of the options.

    
The advanced communication manager isn’t preinstalled but you can download it for free

The Nokia E71 also has support for VoIP calls - you just enter your account details and you are all set.

Messaging got even better

The E-series devices are mostly about messaging and connectivity so we are not surprised that they got this part right. What actually did surprise us is that they somehow managed to outdo the already excellent E71 email client. The full-fledged keyboard and the software support make for a great messenger. From a nice and intuitive editor to advanced predictive input and error correction – it’s all there.

There are three message editors aboard: SMS and MMS share the first one, audio and e-mail. The SMS editor is the familiar application for all Symbian S60 smartphones. It has a counter of the characters left from the limit of 160. There is also an indicator in brackets showing the number of separate parts the message will be divided into for sending.

  
An SMS automatically turns into an MMS when you add 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.

 
Recording an audio message for sending

Email is the highlight in the Nokia E75 and at the MWC 2009 Nokia showcased their updated email client for the first time. It’s a downloadable application so you can probably upgrade your Nokia E71 as well.

The new email client has better looks and better messaging organization. Each of the folders of your mailbox can now be ordered by whatever criteria you might like and can then be searched if necessary.

  
Composing an email on the E75 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 and whether the 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 on board, as well as mobile VPN support for connecting to secure corporate Intranets.

It seems Nokia has got everything covered except for Blackberry Connect support. The company has announced that since they are offering a push email service similar to that of Blackberry Connect, they are now direct competitors and as such, they do not offer Blackberry Connect support since the Nokia E71 and E66.

It’s a really odd decision and it clearly shows that selling their email service to end customers is more important to Nokia than selling their handsets. While this may sound perfectly reasonable to Nokia’s marketing department, it might turn out to be a deal breaker for some potential E75 buyers.

Quite naturally the Nokia E75 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 E75 takes care of downloading all the relevant settings to get you going in no time.

On the whole, much like Nokia E75, the Nokia E75 is a dream texting device and certainly ranks among the best messengers we have ever seen. Nothing beats the large keys and screen of the Nokia E90 for example, but the E75 has some other tricks up its sleeve. And besides, the E90 pays the price for all that real estate with its huge size and weight.

All quiet on the music front

Full-featured music ability is not supposed to make or break a business device but the music player of the Nokia E75 is still pretty decent. That’s hardly surprising considering how mature the Symbian S60 music player is, and it didn’t cost Nokia anything to just put it in the E75.

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. Tracks are uploaded to Nokia E75 via Bluetooth, USB or by simple download. You can also use a card reader for that purpose and transfer them directly to your memory card. Upon completing a USB transfer, the phone automatically prompts scanning 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, bass booster and stereo widening effect. You can also create new equalizer presets if the preloaded ones won’t do.

 
The available equalizer presets

Finally, being one of Nokia’s best equipped phones, the Nokia E75 naturally also includes support for the A2DP Bluetooth profile, which allows listening to music on a Bluetooth stereo headset.

Video player

The Nokia E75 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.

   
Watching a video on the E75

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 E75 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.

FM radio is also available

The Nokia E75 sports stereo FM radio with RDS. Controlled with the same application as in other FP2 phones, it has several new settings over the E71 but, as you might have guessed, hardly anything revolutionary.

Upon starting, the app asks you where you are located 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.

    
The FM radio app

If internet connection is available you can also enjoy internet radio through the shortcut available in the radio application home screen.

Audio quality

The Nokia E75 has much better audio quality than the E71. It has improved in almost every aspect with the noise level and dynamic range particularly impressive.

Image gallery – nice and simple

The gallery of the Nokia E75 doesn’t have the rotating 3D view we are used to seeing in the Nseries but it’s still fairly decent.

   
The image gallery on Nokia E75

There are no changes between the gallery here and the one on the E71 – you can easily browse images and zoom in up to 8x. Overall, picture browsing and zooming is fast and even comparably large files are unlikely to bother you too much.

  
Looking at a single picture

We have seen a couple of Nokia handsets do even better but the E75 does just fine, and it’s important to remember that it’s not really meant to be a multimedia powerhouse.

The gallery file-management features are pretty extensive too, and even includes sending multiple files at a time.

Scandalously poor camera

Having seen how bad the Nokia E71 camera was, we were hoping the E75 might have been in line for some kind of upgrade. However we were in for a major disappointment as the performance of the device was nothing short of disastrous (and this is a retail unit we’re talking about).

It may sound decent on paper – 3 megapixel sensor with auto focus and LED flash – but the reality is completely different. In fact the LED flash is not much of an addition, as its effective reach is quite limited…yet that’s the least of the issues with the camera.

First off, the lack of lens protection means that the glass above the camera lens will get scratched in no time. And, as we mentioned before, while the dedicated camera key seems like a welcome addition, its poor ergonomics and slow launch leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

The camera user interface is probably the only good part about the E75 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.

The main issue of the Nokia E75 camera is its extremely poor picture quality. Pictures have remarkably low levels of resolved detail, poor contrast and inadequate dynamic range. The colors are also far from being precise (although they might be the thing that’s least off target) and as a whole there is hardly anything good we can say about image quality.

Well, you’ve been warned. You can now check out the sample photos taken with the E75 camera.

    
Nokia E75 camera sample photos

The video recording is certainly one of the better things about the E75 camera. The business-minded handset manages VGA videos at 30 fps, which sounds quite nice actually but in reality is not something to write a blog about.

While the quality of the still photos is yelling “I’m a business phone, don’t blame me”, the videos are pretty decent. The framerate is okay and the contrast seems a lot better than on the regular photos. There is also a decent amount of detail captured so on most occasions videos turn out to be usable.

Connectivity is the E75 element

Putting the abysmal camera performance behind us, it’s time to check out the connectivity options. This is a great chance for the messenger to repair its damaged reputation and it was certainly up to the challenge.

It is truly on fire where data transfer is in question, having it all: from the outdated Infrared through Bluetooth v2.0 and USB v2.0 to Wi-Fi and 3G. Furthermore, the 3G comes with HSDPA support for the fastest network data transfers.

A hot-swappable card slot is also on board. It might just be the quickest and most convenient way of transferring data.

We give an excellent mark to Nokia E75 on connectivity, just because we know no better.

Web browser is fine

Browsing the internet on a Nokia smartphone is definitely a positive experience. The E75 is no exception with its excellent page rendering making most web pages look like they do on a desktop computer. We have to admit that a higher resolution would have allowed more content to fit on the screen, but maybe next time.

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 or BlackBerry’s trackball but still does the job.

   
Browsing GSMArena.com on the E75

A mini-map can be activated to help you navigate your way around large sites where lots of scrolling is required. The zoom level is also easily adjustable at the expense of only a few key presses. The web browser also offers fullscreen view mode.

The final touches to the Nokia E75 browser are the built-in full Java and Flash support . We didn’t manage to stumble upon any flash content the E75 was unable to handle.

  
Flash video handled seamlessly

Flash video is also not a problem for the E75 web browser – you can watch video on the full-featured versions of YouTube and the like. This certainly is one of the strongest selling points of the Nokia browser when compared to BlackBerry and the other Flash-free alternatives. After all, if you cannot see the content it’s not much consolation that the interface and controls are perfect.

Excellent time-management

Time-management is another business phone virtue. Little wonder then that the Nokia E75 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. The agenda view modes is 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.

    
Setting up an event

Every event has its own unique fields, some of which allow an alarm to be activated at a preset time to act as a reminder. You can also set the synchronization type as private or public.

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 E75 you won’t need to pay extra for editing your office documents.

    
The E75 also supports document editing and creating out of the box

There are still a number of updates for QuickOffice that come at additional cost but most users can do just fine without them. The ones that use MS Office 2007 documents however won’t be so lucky as the support for those doesn’t come included and they will have to purchase the latest version of the application.

A PDF reader is also part of the Nokia E75 preinstalled content and a ZIP manager allows extracting archived files straight from your phone.

  
A PDF reader is also available

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 E75 alarm clock application allows a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own name, start time. You can also customize the snooze period from the settings menu.

   
The E75 allows dozens of alarms to be set simultanelously

The useful “Search” application is also present on the Nokia E75. 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 E75 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

GPS navigation is pretty good

The Nokia E75 comes complete with a built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS and Nokia Maps navigation preinstalled. You also get 3 months of free voice-guided navigation with the phone.

The preinstalled version of the Nokia Maps is 2.0 which seems 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. Toll roads and motorways can be avoided and so can tunnels and ferries. Route selection can be set to either fastest or shortest. Nokia Maps is also usable for pedestrian navigation or you can switch the GPS receiver off and simply use the phone as an electronic map.

 
Some of the settings available for the route-planning algorithm

If you don’t want to use Nokia Maps, you can opt for any of the numerous third-party applications available on the market.

The overall impression of the Nokia E75 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.

Final Words

Adding value to an already impressive fleet of business handsets is by no means an easy task. And since there’s no doubt that the E75 is up to the E-series standard – there’s nothing too big to complain about. Though, well, there’s nothing too big altogether. Nokia E75 is just an alternative: it’s the usual Eseries skill with a different approach to QWERTY and compact design.

But before we dig deeper in the E-series ecosystem, let’s look for a meaningful competition to help us better define the Nokia E75. The form factor and the smart platform pretty much narrow the list down to a single nominee outside the touchscreen world. HTC S740 sports an almost identical spec sheet and it costs the same, so it’s purely a matter of OS preference here, isn’t it?

 
HTC S740

The side-slide QWERTY form factor is a Symbian debut and the fact that it packs in a pleasantly compact and nice handling piece of gear is only in favor of the E75. Its only problem is it’s launched after the stunning E71 and thus risks being burdened with the wrong expectations.

 
Nokia E71

Form factor aside, the only things Nokia E75 has over the E71 are the FP2 and the VGA@30fps video recording but that doesn’t give it much of a multimedia edge. Nor does the 3.5 mm jack (that’s another novelty) make such a big difference to us.

But anyway, even if the E75 has nothing groundbreaking to offer it still can’t be ignored as a viable Eseries option. After all, a handset that sits between E90 and E71 just can’t go wrong. There maybe nothing to write home about but write you sure will.

[by gsm arena]