Me and the Nokia E75

Me and the NOKIA E75

Hi, first let me say , I am a long time Nokia user and fan, I have used there handsets for well over ten years, and have always found them reliable and easy to use and as a result have stuck with them, the user interface is always 'familiar' and so as you move from one to the other it's easy to adapt to your new phone. I was converted to Nokia by being given a 'company' mobile ( free is better than anything else ! Right ?) a 3310 and later bought a 5210, got a 3510i as an 'upgrade' if you could call it that, worked fine but looked horribly cheap and nasty, then moved on to the 6230i which was the first phone I had that even resembled 'smart', good camera, for its time, bit of music, colour screen and really pocketable. I then started on N-Series phones ( which is mainly, but not completely why I find the E75 so horrendous) . Started with the N91 4gig, not the most popular of phones , but for me it had everything, internet browsing, video, great music player, good camera and even made calls and sent messages LOL, (recently passed it on to my son after using it as a spare for 2 years) next was the legendery N95 8gig, probably one of the best phones ever made, it excelled (and still does) at everything and was a real milestone, and the handset that really converted me to using my phone far more for media, rather than just a telephone, it is still my 'backup' today. Finally I now use a Nokia N97 .

Now the N97 is really the cause of this blog, something I have never done or even really thought of doing ( so please accept my appolgies in advance if I start rambling and become boring) The launch of the N97 was exciting for me, sad I know , but I'm a gadget freak and a bit of a geek, I had to have one. Now initial reports and reviews praised the Nokia 'computer in your pocket' but as the public got hold of it various problems arose and it got a lot of bad press, even so , as soon as my contract was due to finish, I jumped in and got one. Because of the problems I sought aid on the web, and found Nokia Discussions, and after many hours learning, commenting, helping others and being helped, I became experienced and knowledgable enough and also quite lucky, for WomWorld to offer me a test drive, that being the Nokia E75. After much hard work, software upgrades, and fiddling about the N97 is now great, I love the large touch screen, it holds literally 1000's of songs, loads of video, gives a great web experience, good camera, full QWERTY keyboard and a good camera ( which fairly or un-fairly is what I am comparing the loan E75 with).

Right then, the Nokia E75, the latest of a successful and popular range of 'business phones' from Nokia, I have used an E71, which I found easy to adapt to, and was really quite a pleasent experience and as I still have my N95 which I still use occasionally, so it's not a touch screen thing (although I really like them and wouldn't want to go back to a conventional keypad) But the E75 is just awful, and it's not really the phones fault, ther are just a few things that make it the worst of both worlds. As a handset it's fine to make a phone call, but the user experience for any other function is terrible, the standard keypad has little tactile feel, its very smooth with little definition between keys,it has four horizontal'bars' with letters on rather than 12 'buttons', the keys are very closely situated so you can easily press a shortcut key whilst trying to operate the soft keys, and the joypad requires so much pressure to navigate it's given me thumb strain within a couple of days ! The outer edge which controls the direction of the curser feels like it's seized up, and as a result smooth scrolling is virtually impossible (except in the E-Mail client which is quite good) which takes us to the next problem, the slide out QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard itself is quite good, the keys are a reasonable size and the 'feel' of them is ok, in fact it's quite good, as far as it goes, but, there is no direction/scrolling control either when on the web or in documents, you have to use the stiff, unpleasant joypad on the standard key pad, which apart from being awkward to use any way, completely stalls any fluidity when typing !!!! Why Nokia couldn't have placed either a D pad or direction arrows on the QWERTY a'la N97 or N97 mini, is beyond me, it's so much easier when working in landsacape to have all your controls in line with a web page or email. Which brings me to another gripe, when in landscape mode with the QWERTY open. when on a web page your 'options','exit','back','close' etc are placed at the right hand side at the bottom and top of the screen next to the shortcut keys on some applications, but on others they appear right and left at the bottom, so you have to guess which shortcut key to press or turn the handset to portrait mode to select the right key. I'm sure , with time, you could get used to this, but the fact is it's awkward and unintuative !!

As I said near the begining, I really prefer a media based phone, and am happy with my N97, I had hoped the E75 would make a pleasent change, unfortunately, it didn't, and it didn't inspire me to put in the effort to discover it's endearing qualities (if it has any) as a basic comunications device, I suppose it's ok, but as a business phone I think it falls short, and as for entertainment, it doesn't provide any.
The bottom line is, I think, if you want a Nokia business phone, go for an E72 (great reviews) if you want a media phone try a Nokia 5800, if you want one that will do both try a N97 mini, the poor E75 can't compete with any of them at any level, if the QWERTY worked well and the joypad didn't break your fingers it would probably be a good business phone, but from my pesonal and smatphone prdjudiced view it just isn't, I really can't see any place for it in the market. I hope anyone who has one enjoys it, but if I was looking for a Nokia phone at the moment, I'd spend a few extra quid and buy one of the others. Of course there are 1000's of different handsets of different types and manufacturers, so there are plenty of phones for everyone, I just can't think of someone who would put the E75 at the top of their list !!

On the Nokia Discussions forum there is a thread 'Nokia N97 is the worst phone ever.....' if it ever truely applied, it doesn't now !

If you're still awake, thanks for reading,what may be my first and last 'blog' :)