Nokia E72: A 2 Year Ownership Review (no pics to ogle)

This will be a quick ownership review of a phone that is near obsolete now.  The Nokia E72. Honestly, the point of this review is to give me a much needed impetus to start writing regularly again. Here’s hoping it works.

In January 2010, I needed a phone to make Skype calls to a near one who was travelling to Europe. My Sony Ericsson K550i was a minion who started to die on me within hours of resuscitation (charging). The choices in the market gave me a headache. After much consultations and discussions with people in the know, I still had the headache.

A friend owned a Nokia E63 which I used for a few minutes to chat on ‘fring’. Liked it. Thought its a good buy, given the fact that all I needed was Skype. But life’s no fun if all decisions are so simple now, is it? Just when I was about to buy the E63, Nokia announced free navigation on Nokia maps. Being a travel addict that I am, the feature was droolworthy.

So I decided to go for E72, which had a GPS. Skype for now, and free navigation for later, I thought. Purchased the black E72 at a Sangeetha outlet for about Rs.19,000 (this was 26 January 2010).

First Impressions:

• The phone ‘felt’ well built, but the battery cover was ‘fidgety’. Could notice an ever so light movement/tacky sound.
• It was unfamiliar territory for my palms to hold such a large device compared to the minnow K550i.
• Took time to get used to QWERTY, but it was pleasant to type with.
• Earphones that came with the package were horrendous. Wouldn’t snugly fit in my ears. Painful. Rubber tips/rings were useless.
• The USB cable was shorter than Tyrion Lannister’s^ wee wee. Ultra short. ^Game of Thrones reference
• A pouch was part of the box contents. Again, horrendous. Wouldn’t fit easily. Threw it in the attic.

Charged the phone, inserted the sim card, let the settings wizard take care of basic settings. Typing was fun. Having push email was fun. Gravity app for twitter was much fun. The UI sucked big time. Had to navigate through nooks & corners to find basic features & settings. But none of it mattered. I needed it for Skype calls.

Usability:

• When switched on, a Windows 98 PC would boot faster than the Nokia E72. Even Captain Slow would be ashamed.
• The Skype app would crash when I tried to login. Had to use Nimbuzz /Fring.
• Again, the UI was sluggish. Very frustrating to use.
• The Camera gives me nightmares. Takes an eternity for the camera UI to load. Super sluggish to use.
• With the camera on, if you switch off the flash & try to click a picture, the LED flash still lights up while auto focus happens.ARGH
• The fidgety back cover made tack tack sound while I held it in both palms & typed. One edge of it didn’t fit snugly.
• Nokia maps looked like it was meant for the Neolithic era. Google maps beat the latitudes out of Nokia maps. Totally.
• Battery backup was sweet for few months. Easily 2 days with push email ON. Within an year, it reduced to <8 hours.
• Setting up Wi-Fi only or no Wi-Fi even when available etc is a painful & most of the times a futile experience

Those are probably the important impressions worth sharing. In these two years of ownership, I have dropped the E72 many times, except for small scratches around the edge, it still looks brand new. One just cant beat Nokia when it comes to build quality. The phone got drenched in rain more than a couple of times. A sauna session in a bucket of uncooked rice & voilà! Its back to working normally.

What’s Good:

• Build quality
• Keyboard
• GPS accuracy
• Quality of pictures from the 5MP camera is decent
• LED flash can be used as a flashlight.

What’s Bad:

• The Symbian OS
• User Interface
• The Camera UI (OH HAVE MERCY! Its a torture!)
• Nokia Maps
• Whatever else that’s not on the aforementioned Good section

So there you have it. Nokia E72: Bungee jumper, swimmer, likes rain. But sucks as a phone. Don’t buy if someone tries to sell one to you.