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UPDATED III: Nokia E72 vs E71 Comparison Photos and Review

UPDATE II: A ton more photo comparisons here as I was able to borrow an E72 over lunch from the comms people of Nokia SG. The E72 will retail in the Philippines for about P22,000.00

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Lo and behold, the brand new Nokia E72 was accidentally unveiled yesterday via a leaked video over the Internet. No scandals here of that sort: according to some Nokia execs who were at Nokia Connections ’09, one of the tech guys accidentally classified one top secret video as “public” instead of “private” thus leaking one of four videos for the new phone launches today. Oh well, it’s probably a good thing anyway — think of the Internet coverage on the leak!

Soooo … yay! It is thus of no surprise to have the Nokia E72 launched today at Nokia Connections, alongside the ultra affordable 5530 XpressMusic and mid range 3710 Fold. This post is dedicated to the latest enterprise device, the E72. Hands down, the E72 is an amazing phone that borrows from everything that made the E71 great and the hardworking engineers over at Nokia were quick to add a few interesting touches.

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The E71 was announced today as Nokia’s best selling E series device as it combined elegance, form factor and function into a really great business phone. I had my E71 with me at the time so here is a side by side comparison of the two units.

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On the left is the Nokia E72 and on the right is my Nokia E71. In jest, I was telling the guys from Nokia how disappointed I was after realizing that my E71 is now “obsolete.” The E71 was launched last year during Nokia Connection 2008. The main differences between the E71 and the E72 are:

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The E72 has slightly bigger keys and a smaller space bar within the QWERTY keypad. It actually resembles the Nokia E63, the E71’s more affordable younger brother, albeit with a more classy finish. Holding both the E71 and E72 in my hands, I would say that the latter is slightly bigger and of greater weight, but not by much. This is mainly due to the very nice metal finish, thus making it slightly heavier. If you look closely onto the keypad, the texture of the menu buttons are rougher, almost like a decadent wood varnish in terms of style. This is a nice accent.

There are several UI differences with the E72, but the overall theme, if I were to summarize, is that of speed and eye candy. The interface is faster and pops in more interesting transition effects when navigating through the phone. There are also subtle differences with certain details: the old E71 labeled email according to the name you gave it (i.e “personal mail” or “work email”). The E72 contextualizes your mail server by adding icons as to which service you’re actually using. Notice the GMail symbol for the IMAP client. I would assume the corresponding corporate logos would be applied were it Yahoo! or MSN.

On to the navigation key. The middle button of the E72 is the special Navi key that was introduced before in previous Nokia devices (the N79 if I am not mistaken). The middle button is touch sensitive, allowing you to slide your thumb through it to browse your content and make selections. The multimedia menu has been revamped into an “iPhone like” UI where you can also browse your content using the special Navi key.

The biggest and most notable difference which I personally enjoy is the addition for HTML enabled email into your mail folders, thus allowing the E72 to display text wrapped images, colors and fonts when you download your mail to your device. The E71 did not allow this (downloaded mail was basically just text) and no firmware upgrade will allow you to do this in the future. I guess this is their way of differentiating the next generation E series email features from their new product — Mail on Ovi which is targeted more for S40 based phones, and hence, “more low end” in appearance. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that Mail on Ovi doesn’t deliver. It’s just that with the rise of the S40 based email features on Mail on Ovi, you’d need to upgrade the email services for the E series to make it more desirable and competent.

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Lastly, the E72 has a battery with 20% more efficiency although the Nokia E71 and E72 share the same battery type, but not the same back panel casing. Overall, the E72 is a welcome upgrade from the previous year. The E71 was already a kick ass device when it was launched, and it still is to this very day. The most tempting features that may force you to get the E72 would be the inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack, which made debut with the E63 and the HTML email downloads, allowing you to receive more colorful and formatted email.

The E72 will be out in the Philippines come third quarter of the year. Wait for it!

Here is the complete specs sheet for the Nokia E72:

Nokia E72 Data Sheet Nokia E72 Data Sheet Jayvee

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

Enjoy!

By Jayvee Fernandez

Jayvee Fernandez is a tech enthusiast and sitting Techbology Editor for The Philippine STAR.

He is also an EAN certified SCUBA Diver and underwater photographer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. His photos and videos have appeared in various international and local publications including Random House Germany, Discovery Channel Canada, and CNN.

36 replies on “UPDATED III: Nokia E72 vs E71 Comparison Photos and Review”

Does it have the same limitation in input languages as in E71?
E71 input language support was very poor. In most locations only 2 input languages are allowed.

Could you provide more information on how the navi button felt? and if it works well with the software?

Great. Now that I have another choice, its gonna be hard to pick between the HTC Touch Diamond 2, iPhone 3G S and this. You should do a comparison Jayvs!

Just wondering if you could provide me an answer. I understand that the BlackBerry Connect Software for Symbian Phones will work on this E72 providing it the Blackberry Push-email function,that said would you know if it would allow you to also do Blackberry Instant Messaging (w/ other Blackberry users) which is currently available on Blackberry units?

is the Nokia E72 now available in Singapore? Do you know when it will be available in the Philippines?

What’s happening with your website, my (critical) questions about the camera, the GPS and the price of the E72 are removed and my messages about this are ignored.

Is this an error of your website, are you working on it or don’t you like critical questions about Nokia phones?

Thank you Jayvee, so there must be an error on the website or somewhere in between, and you can remove my two preceding messages. Let me repeat my questions in a new message, forthcoming.

Thank you for your interesting review. However, I remain with a few questions about the Nokia E72 in comparison with the E71.
– The camera of the E71 was not very worthwhile and produced mediocre pictures. The camera of the E72 has more pixels, but does it produce better pictures? As we know from the compact cameras, more pixels doesn’t always mean better pictures. Noise and resolution (amongst others) are at least as important.
– The GPS on the E71 was rather slow and not very accurate. Personnally, I would put more trust in a separate GPS (as I prefer working with a separate camera) but as Nokia included it in these phones, it should work correctly. Does the GPS in the E72 work better than the one in the E71? (perhaps because of a faster processor?
– What it all boils down to: do the (slight) improvements of the E72 justify a nearly 50% increase in street price?
Thank you, regards,
Caracara

wasnt able to test the GPS as i didnt have a lot of time with the device. the camera quality is still the same. its an E series so the camera isn’t the highlight.

price is the SAME actually as the e71 when it first came out 🙂

Hello,

I’m just wondering. Are there any stores in the Philippines already selling the E72 unit? Which ones? If none, when will it be available in the country and at what price?

I’ve searched for it in the web — there are sites that say it will cost 20,500; some say it will cost 23,000 or 22,000 and will be available in the last quarter of this year. But, there was no indication that nokia.com.ph seems to be selling it anywhere (I consulted the site as a reliable source of information, of course).

Would you know? I’m very excited about it. Many thanks 🙂

JV,

Hope all is well with you and family. Pls advise if e72 is ok. Am replacing my bberry 8520 curve, the billing is just too much. Besides, there’s nokia messaging already at P299 unlimited.

Thanks.

Steve Singson

Hi Tito Steve,

E72 is great. if you want to replace your 8520, Nokia Messaging works OK. You need to be with SMART though. The only downside is that battery life might be sucked up because of constant data connection. Bring a charger or extra battery.

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