A month ago, Nokia didn’t have any candybar smartphones with slide-out QWERTY keyboards – now they have two, the business-oriented E75 and the music-centric 5730 XpressMusic. Both phones offer the familiarity of a numeric keypad and the convenience of the QWERTY in a compact package. They both offer quad-band GSM, 3G, and WiFi, and both feature a built-in GPS receiver. The E75 and 5730 XpressMusic both also boast a standard 3.5mm audio port, microSD card slot, and S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2.
These two smartphones also feature N-Gage support, stereo speakers, and even a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and single-LED flash. Both of these powerful smartphones will also come with Nokia Messaging, Ovi Contacts, and a host of other services pre-installed. If you’re left wondering, ‘So, what’s the difference in the two?’, don’t worry – you’re not alone. We’ve gone in depth, though, and found a few nuggets of individuality in these twins:
The Nokia E75 features 2 user-configurable shortcut keys, nestled in near the D-pad – these default to calendar and email/messaging, but have two settings that can be changed by the user – short press and long press – for a total of 4 user-configurable shortcuts. Nice. The Nokia E75 also has a paltry 50MB of internal storage, and lacks the Carl Zeiss optics on its camera. However, it is able to stand tall, with its Eseries metal build materials, it’s sure to take a beating.
On the other hand, the 5730 XpressMusic features a trio of dedicated music-playback buttons along its display, and ditches the E75′s user-configurable shortcuts for a more roomy navigational cluster. The front buttons on the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic are also separate, individual buttons, while the E75 merely features 4 single rows, with three buttons on each.
The 5730 XpressMusic also sports a few music-centric software extras, such as Nokia’s Say and Play system, which allows you to call up specific tracks in your music library by voice. A new social-centric Contacts View is also on board, which allows you to configure feeds for your top few friends, with live updates (however, this might not work as smoothly as you’d think). A new Shortcuts Bar on the homescreen also makes it easy to access your media, apparently.
So, which of these two candybar smartphones with QWERTY keyboards is for you? It’s a tough call, really, especially since the 5730 XpressMusic is supposed to be available several months later than the E75, but will also cost over US$100 less. Also, don’t forget to factor in that painfully vintage dot-matrix font on the 5730 XpressMusic’s keyboard.
