After yesterday’s long tirade on the importance of form factor, I will look today at the different hardware features of the E75 and compare them to those of the E71. If you want a straight out review of the E75′s hardware, with no comparison to the E71, check the one written by Ricky.
Build Quality and Design
Like with any Eseries, build quality on the E75 is phenomenal. As a matter of fact, I firmly believe Nokia should fire everyone that handles external build from the Nseries, S40 and 4-digit S60 units, and simply expand the responsibilities of those who work in the Eseries department. The build quality, the feel in the hand, the metallic and plastic finishes on the E75 are very reminiscent of those on the E71. You can easily tell that the same language is used on both, and if you’ve fallen in love with how the E71 feels, then you sure will with the E75. The slider is solid, with absolutely no wiggles when closed (Nseries slider, turn your heads in shame), and a slight unnoticeable wiggle when fully opened. It’s not annoying as the one on the N85 for example, where you feel the top and bottom slider collide each time you press the d-pad, but that’s a story for another day.
I can certify with a high degree of certainty, that despite months of heavy usage, the E75′s slider will remain as solid as now. It just feels this way. I’ve also read some concerns from people and some reviewers stating that the slider was too easily opened when typing on the left side of the external keypad. My unit doesn’t suffer from any of that.
One more thing I like about the black E75 I have in my hands is that the outer shiny black plastic has some very unintrusive blue dots that shine in direct sunlight. I couldn’t capture an image, as there is rarely any sunshine Paris, but I did notice it and I absolutely love it.
Accelerometer
One feature that I sorely miss on my E71 is the accelerometer and I was glad to see it working like a charm on the E75. This means that other than screen rotation, I can enjoy some applications and games that I have been missing on the E71: Step Counter, ShakeSMS, FlipSilent, Resco Bubbles, Marble Maze… to name a few.
Screen
The screen is 0.06″ bigger on the E75 compared to the E71, and while this difference seems incredibly tiny on paper and rather unimportant if you consider that both share the same screen resolution, it was a difference that I instantly noticed. It just feels bigger, don’t ask me how. The versatility of switching between portrait and landscape also add to that, as portrait mode can display more lines than landscape.
Battery
Here comes the dreaded part: battery life. Nokia chose to include a 1000mAh battery with the E75, as opposed to the E71′s 1500mAh battery. This is one of the factors that I love about my E71, as it allows me to stay connected with Java apps, email, and several apps running in the background, and still be able to make it home at the end of the day with some bars left to spare. I overuse my devices, something clearly depicted in my E71′s diary, so I was worried about how the E75 would fill the E71′s shoes. I’m sad to admit that it doesn’t. Despite the battery management improvements in FP2 over FP1, the E75 died on me two days before I came home, on the course of 6 days: the other 4, I was being a bit more careful.
Now this doesn’t mean that the E75 has a poor battery and it won’t last a day of usage, no-no, it WILL last with average usage, it will even last more than a day. But if you use your phone a lot, and you ask several things of it at the same time, then you’re better off looking at the E55 for example, that offers the 1500mAh battery.
Keypad
I have adressed the form factor and the qwerty yesterday, but I didn’t say much about the external keypad. Admitedly, it’s not the best one I have ever used, but it’s by far not the worst. It’s good. It’s especially good when you know that you can switch to that full keyboard goodness if you need to type a bit more than a few words.
One issue I have though is with the cluster keys around the d-pad. The d-pad itself carries the perfect design of that found on the E71 and E66, easily the best d-pad I have ever used, but the cluster around it is annoying. I have small fingers that didn’t even have issues with the N81′s cluster, but the one on the E75? Oh my. I don’t have a problem with the outer keys (softkeys, green call and red close key), I have an issue with the internal ones (home key, calendar shortcut, message shortcut, clear). Those seem to need to be pressed on the inner side, really close to the d-pad to react. The fact that the outer ring of the d-pad is raised really doesn’t help. I have found myself several times pressing the Home button, then waiting to see that nothing has happened.
Ports
Two main changes are introduced in the ports on the E75 compared to the E71. The first one is that the microUSB port also serves for charging the device. There is still a pin to charge it with the usual Nokia charger, but the versatility of knowing that you can also do it via a USB cable, is really nice.
The second one is the use of a 3.5mm plug for headsets instead of the aged and so-not-mainstream 2.5mm plug on the E71, as well as the placement of the said plug on the top of the device instead of the side. This goes a long way to show the change that Eseries have encountered in the multimedia department. As I use a bluetooth headset for music, the Jabra BT3030 that I absolutely love, I usually don’t mind the 2.5mm plug on the E71. But I have ran across several instances where I forgot charging the Jabra and wished that I could use its wired headphones directly on my E71. I couldn’t. With the E75, I potentially could.
Camera
Let’s take a moment to appreciate in silence then applaud Nokia for finally delivering an Eseries device that has a decent camera. Why the hell did it take them that long?! On paper, the E75 has the same camera as the one on the E71 or E90 or E66, but it delivers much more decent pictures. Most of all, it doesn’t suffer that washed-out or purple tint effect. The inclusion of a camera button that launches the camera, although slow and useless like pointed out by Ricky is his hardware review, is a step in the right direction. In case you’re wondering about the result in images and video, you’ll have to wait until later this week. So keep your eyes peeled for that, as well as for the Software comparison coming up tomorrow.
