After having shown you the differences between the E75 and the E71 on a form factor and hardware level, here is the promised Software comparison. The major difference between the E75 and the E71 lies in the fact that the E75 runs on S60 3rd Edition FP2, whereas the E71 runs on S60 3rd Edition FP1. But there are also other differences that have been introduced to create an appeal for the E75, so let’s run them over shall we?
FP2 and what it brings to the E75
Running on Feature Pack 2, the E75 benefits from one major advantage over the E71: firmware update Over-The-Air (OTA) as well as User Data Preservation (UDP). OTA combined with UDP mean that you can easily type *#0000# on the E75’s homescreen, click check for updates, download and install, all while walking on the street or while laying in bed for example. The installation file is usually a small 3-5MB file, and the whole procedure takes 10 minutes or so. Plus, all the date on your device is preserved, be it contacts, calendar items, or settings, or music files, or installed application. The lack of these 2 features on the E71 means that a software update requires you to have a PC (not a Mac) with Nokia Software Updater installed, it’s a whopping 100MB file usually, and it takes ages to download and install. Plus, when you’re done, all your data is lost, so you better have everything backed up somewhere, and you will spend an eternity re-installing all your apps again, and setting the device back like you like it.
Other smaller benefits of FP2 are the fancy transitions, the alphabetically sorted lists of applications when setting shortcuts for example, the much improved Gallery layout, and another important feature that is Destinations. Destinations allow you to group internet Access Points and prioritize them, so you can have your device pick a WiFi signal whenever available or revert back to the 3G connection if not.
Nokia Messaging
For some people, Nokia Messaging on the E75 was a great integrated experience, for me it wasn’t. I have dwelled long enough on this issue now, so I won’t repeat myself. If Nokia Messaging already works for you on your current device, there’s a big chance that it’ll also work on the E75.
N-Gage
The E75 is the first commercially available Eseries device that comes preinstalled with N-Gage. The lack of N-Gage on Eseries has startled me before, as I know for a fact that if Nokia wanted to maximize profits from their services, they would need to make those services available to the biggest number of people. Well, N-Gage seems to be well established in the Eseries line now, with the E75 and E55, and that’s a great plus. Even though I’m not N-Gage’s biggest fan (I’m not even a small fan), I like the fact that the E75 gives me the option to play some of the games, if I want to.
One issue with N-Gage though is the lack of landscape mode support: the N-Gage client remains in portrait, even with the E75’s QWERTY open, making a weird experience. Also, from the 2 or 3 games that I tried, I noticed that all of them opened in portrait mode, despite the availability of the landscape mode, and despite the fact that the qwerty has dedicated gaming keys. I would’ve loved if the game intelligently noticed if my qwerty is opened, and hence launched in the screen mode that is appropriate for that.
Camera
One nice addition to the E75’s camera is the Sports Mode that allows you to snap pictures of fast moving subjects, or of steady objects when you’re moving yourself, like landscapes when you’re driving in your car. The E71 doesn’t have a Sports Mode, which means that pictures in these situations always end up blurry. Couple the Sports Mode with a good Close Up mode (the two modes that I love to use, other than Auto), a very decent imaging software, and the E75 has all the features of a good camera, just like Nseries.
E75 and E71 similitudes
The E75 offers the same Eseries-specific and S60-specific software features as the E71: Podcast, Nokia Music Store, Nokia Maps, Dictionary, full QuickOffice, Adobe Reader, Zip extractor, Barcode reader, Active Notes, improved dual-view Calendar, quick access to contacts from Standby, improved Missed Call and Message notification on standby, Dual Standby screen switch, fully customizable active standby layout, internal memory and memory card encryption, two configurable key shortcuts… making the E75 a real powerhouse.
E75’s shortcomings
When introduced in February, a lot of Nokia employees liked to present the E in E75 and E55 no longer as Enterprise, but more as Efficiency. I was on board with that change in politics in the interpretation of the E in Eseries, because as a long-time E71 user, I believe that you don’t have to be a business user to enjoy the power tucked into that small piece of human art. The E71 stands for efficiency in all that it does. Unfortunately, this can’t be said about the E75, at least under the firmware I tested it with. I’m not sure if the firmware was final or not, but it was v100.something.
The problem with the E75’s software, under that firmware (let me emphasize on that), is that it didn’t feel as solid as the E71. It was slower, less efficient, it froze much more frequently, and it basically didn’t spell “Efficiency” to me. Now don’t get me wrong, it was nowhere close to the fiasco that was the N96’s firmware, but it still felt a bit less efficient and fluid than the E71. 4 major bugs annoyed me:
- Qwerty shortcuts are gone. On standby T9 mode on the E75, when you long press * it toggles bluetooth on/off, when you long press 0 it opens the web browser, when you long press # it switches the profile between Silent and General. On the Qwerty, only the 0 shortcut to Web worked. I also tried pressing Fn + the key, in order to access the * and # characters, but it didn’t work. That’s a letdown, because you expect to get certain shortcuts on a full qwerty like that. The E90’s qwerty was a heaven of shortcuts compared to that.
- T9 didn’t support smileys. I’m not sure if this is a problem associated with the fact that it was a french device, but usually, when T9 is activated and I press “1″ twice, I get to cycle through the usual set of smileys. I’m a smiley person at heart, and I use them quite extensively to express my feelings (usually, if I type it, then I’m really making the facial expression) whether in SMS, emails, IM, Twitter… Not being able to type those smileys quickly, but having to look for them, was a great bummer for me.
- Contacts search from standby bug. On the E75, like on the E71, if you start typing on the standby screen, it searches for Contacts that fit your search string. Then, you can usually scroll up to the contact you want and either click it to open their card inside the Contacts application, either click right to instantly call/message/email them. The bug that I faced on the E75 is that sometimes, when I clicked a Contact, instead of it opening the contact’s full information card, it just opened the main Contacts application screen, with nothing typed in, and I had to retype the contact’s name in order to access his info.
- Music search lag. Often times, when I open the music player on the E75 and start typing to search for a certain song, artist, album (depending on what I am browsing exactly in the Music Player application). Usually, it takes just one letter typed to have the Find option activated and to start searching for songs that start with that letter. The problem is that on the E75, it takes more than one letter typed. I have to type, wait a little, type again, and it will only take the second or third letter I type as the beginning of the search string.
On the software note, the E75 definitely has some very nice aces up its sleeves: N-Gage support, the small niceties tucked here and there, and especially OTA firmware updates and UDP make it a BIG winner in my opinion. Unfortunately, in its firmware’s current state, the device is a bit laggy and seems less snappy in executing commands compared to the E71. Maybe that is being too picky but for a device that is being marketed for its Efficiency, I found it a bit less efficient than the E71. I’m sure that things can only get better with future firmware updates, so this shouldn’t be a deal breaker if you’re really interested in the E75. Stay tuned for tomorrow when I post my final comparison between the E75 and the E71’s camera.
