Nokia E90: A Critics Review : Part I
July 15, 2008 – 1:04 am | by sehaj
Hello Readers, I recently got my hands on the Brand New E90 Black you must have seen the Un-boxing video. In case you missed it Click Here for a sneak peak. In the following article I am going to Review the Nokia Beast for you. I have been using this device for over a week now and I am in a good position to critically analyze the device. So lets begin.
Built and Design:
The Nokia E90 is a Majestic phone. It is a style statement in my opinion. The Black Color increases the charm of the device. I personally feel that the Black color doesn’t suit all phones but the E90 looks spectacular in black. Black is the New Bling and with E90 covered, what else could you ask for. The Mocha color was also very beautiful but the Black color takes the phone to an entirely new league. The difference between the Mocha and the Black color E90 is that the hinges of the mocha E90 were silver but black E90 is completely black including the hinges. The phone when spotted in your hand speaks about your class and substance without you saying anything. “A true Gentleman’s Device”
With a size of 132 x 57 x 20 mm, 140 cc and a weight of 210 g , the phone is Big but then in comparison to its predecessors the 9500 and 9300 it is smaller and better looking. The built quality of the phone is excellent with the entire metal body the phone Epitomizes Grace. The phone as all of you know comes with a regular keypad and a full QWERTY keypad which is the feature which is associated with the “Communicator” device. The QWERTY keypad has a very soft touch and it is a pleasure to use the keypad. The keys have been laid down very elegantly.
The External Screen at 2 inches diagonal could surely have been made a little bigger as a lot of space has been wasted on the outside. But the Internal Screen at 4 inches diagonal sure makes up for the small external screen as it is a delight to work on the internal “Large Wide Screen”. The Front panel of the phone has a normal keypad which is very easy to work around and you can possibly complete all tasks without the need of your opening the phone. We see a lot of blank spaces here and there and it makes the phone give an empty look from the outside. I feel that Nokia could have actually made the screen bigger and touch sensitive for the proper utilization of the external space which right now looks empty.
The Back Panel of the device has a Clean finish. With a Large battery slot it leaves only a small space to put in a Camera and A Flash but it is just sufficient enough to have good optics. The camera is located on the upper one third of the device along with its flash. At the bottom there is a space laid out for the Memory card.
Features
The phone is feature rich it is a “Complete device”. Marketed as business phone E90 has surprised me completely with regards to the Multimedia features this phone has to offer. Some features are just out of this world while other need a bit more work to achieve perfection, but overall i am pretty impressed.
Camera
The camera of the phone is a “surprise package”. The Phone comes with a 3.2 MP camera with Auto-Focus and a flash. The quality of pictures this phone captures with the help of the Auto-Focus are supreme there is a extremely good detail-capturing. I can say this without any qualms that this maybe one of the best cameras which come with a “Business Phone”.
A second thought when comes to my mind is that Nokia could have done better. I well understand that the QWERTY Keypad takes a lot of space but still to truly Sensationalize the device at least a 5 MP Carl Zeiss should be laid in ans the flash can be upgraded to Xenon. I know it is too much to ask but i’m sure the next version will certainly feature a better camera optics.
The Camera key is the biggest disappointment in this phone. What was Nokia thinking when they built the camera key? The camera key is hard to press and to click the picture with the Auto-Focus you need to press at a particular depth, the pressure point which is a pain to achieve. Clicking pictures with the device is not only tough but also irritating. The outcome of the pictures is excellent but that is if your fingers don’t get hurt in the process. Not the best camera’s in town but the Best In E-series at present i.e. a business phone.
Music
The phone comes with very decent speakers that are strategically placed at the back of the device near the camera. The speakers are very loud and with a little tweaking they are good for personal use. The music feature should not be compared with the N-Series as this phone is predominantly a “Business Phone”
Another complaint which I have with Nokia is the headphone jack. The E90 comes with a 2.5 mm jack. Why doesn’t Nokia provide a standard 3.5 mm jack with the E-series? This question haunts me. What is the problem with doing so I am not able to understand? In the present scenario we either have to keep using the headphone/hands-free we get along with the device or get a convertor which is very difficult to find in this part of the World. There is ample space in the E90 to easily accomodate the 3.5mm jack hope Nokia is listening this is a must upgrade in the next model u take out.
The phone supports a Micro-SD card slot. The device comes with a 2GB card. There is hot-swap available so using the Micro-SD card is a delight. The phone can easily handle the 2GB card without even a whimper and i feel it can go higher without any stalling. Good Job Nokia.
The other features which the phone boasts of is Wi-fi and Radio. The Wi-Fi and Push Email are just awesome. Simply love the ease of your email on the go on the Big Screen and the ablitity to use the QWERTY Keypad makes it a fun to work around. The phone comes loaded with GPS and Nokia Maps so you wont get lost when you have this device in your pocket.The Phone comes equipped with Quick Office, Zip and Adobe reader. So it doesn’t fail when it comes to the buisness aspect of the phone either. I use the Wifi feature and i am completly satisfied with the Web-Browsing experience which this phone brings. The E90 is the best substitute to your Laptop because of the QWERTY keypad and Big Screen. So I am pretty satisfied with the email functionality and I must say that it was a delight to write long mails with the help of the QWERTY keypad. The normal Keypad is also very nicely built and incase you want to use that it would not pose as a problem.
Final Words:
The phone is an absolute “Must Buy”. It is the right combination of Business as well as Multimedia features. So It is a Critics Thumbs-Up
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Tags: black, e-series, E90, Nokia, s60, symbian
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An in-depth review. well done Sehaj. i feel now you should compare the E71 too. waiting for that…
chao
Thanks will do so as soon as i get my hands on the new E71 till then i am coming up with a trnsformation from e51 to e90
Wow, sounds interesting. You sure are one big E-Series Guru. I am eagerly waiting for part 2 and the transformation report.
You Rock..!
What happens when you close the phone? Does it exit all things it was doing?
The default feature is that when u close the phone the running application will go in the background and you can hold the menu key to open it if you want the application to keep running when u close the lid u can do that by
tools>settings>general>personalisation>display and turn cover display to off by doing this the application will keep running when u close the phone
Is there accelerometer in this?
How much does it cost? Is it the same price as the mocha color one?
@sonu ni the E90 doesnt have an accelrometer
@ irfan i dont kow about other markets i bought mine from india the mocha color was Rs34600 and the black was also thesame price but i have heard that other places the black one costs a lil more not too much maybe a diff of R200-500 thats all
Thanks a lot sehaj
A pretty good review. However, as a “veteran” user of E90 I can add that a couple of serious points have been missed and one of them is the FAX functionality or more precisely, the absence of onboard faxing.
Those, who had used earlier Nokia Communicators, know that all of the previous versions supported onboard faxing. In other words, you could both send and receive faxes with the Communicator with no additional software. For example, my cell operator had allocated a different number for incoming faxes. Technically, I had had the fax machine with me anywhere, anytime.
I know someone will say that only dinosaurs use fax these days. As a person possessing all kinds of gadgets (2 laptops, PSP, PS3, Winmobile phone, this E90 and some others) I must agree. Yet, as a business person, I must disagree. Faxes ARE used heavily even nowadays. Contracts can be executed via faxes and there are legal effects and sometimes faxes cannot be substituted. I remember the old Nokia 9300i saved me a lot money when I had an urgent need to send a fax and no fax machine was nearby.
To sum up, the absence of on board faxing is a big minus. However, Nokia E90 Communicator is still one of the best devices in ALL categories and the BEST device among the business gadgets.
great point george,
I understand that too but i there is no facility to use fax over GSM in india… please correct me if im wrong…
Hi geoerge thanks for your input it waas very helpful as you see the review that i have put up is only the Ist part i am working on the 2nd part as well and i will work on the functionality of the device in that post
But i completly agree with you that on board faxing is a must but then i would also like to remind you that the earlier communicators were OS 80 and the softwares for those devices were very limited and i personally thing that e90 going s60 and a hell lot of 3rd party applications available nokia decide to do away with the on board faxing but non the less you have made a very valid point
thanks hope you read the the 2nd part as well
Is E90 really a business phone,imean whatz there extra fetures.
@ imtiaz
well E90 is exactly THE BUISNESS PHone 1st of all essentially the QWEWRTY then quick office Wlan huge screen good battery bak up these are all an essential ingredients of a buisness phone.
Thanks very much for the review!! and the Theme too…really thanks!
Hello…i read a comment here about black E90 cost a lil more tan the moccha…but in online market the difference is Red or Moccha by 760$ and the black 970$…..why is that?…why should i pay more 210$ for the same features?
Hi Ammar, in India they both are the same price. however on the nokia store online i.e. http://shop.nokia.co.uk only mocha is available for 499.99 Pounds
Nice to hear that…thank u for yr reply Ani.