Despite the many things that I find myself loving about the Nokia E52, I couldn’t help being disappointed by a few aspects of the device, that I will expose to you below.
1. Build Quality Issues
Build quality normally isn’t on any of my “things I hate” list for Eseries, and although the E52’s design, style and materials used are incredible, I found myself frequently annoyed of 3 issues on the device. The first one is that the E52 leaks more lights than a Christmas tree. I can easily identify 15 sources of light leaking, other than the regular small ray that you see between two adjacent keys on a keypad, 15 different sources! Here are the images of the front, left side and right side of the E52 with all prominent leaks circled.
The second build quality issue is the fact that the middle column on the keypad (2, 5, 8, 0) isn’t well lit compared to the left and right columns.
The third issue is one that I noticed on this Nokia E52 from Lebanon, as well as a Nokia E55 (E52’s brother) from France and it’s that the front plate cover peels off really easily from the rest of the device. It’s not loose by any mean, but if you *try* to peel it, it takes almost no effort to do so.
2. No Green and Red keys
The E52 has Call and End Call keys, but the problem is that they aren’t colored in green and red as usual but in plain white. It is a matter of personal preference, but for me, as well as the 5-6 other persons who have tried using the Nokia E52 around me, the lack of this color differentiation makes it harder to recognize the call management buttons fast.
3. Not all applications can be set as shortcuts on the One-Touch keys
The E52 has two one-touch keys: one labeled with Calendar and one labeled with Messages, both of which can be set as shortcuts to different applications on a short and long press basis, totaling 4 different shortcuts. I normally like to assign one of these to Share Online so I can quickly send my photos through Pixelpipe to any of my destinations, but I couldn’t do it on the E52. I also couldn’t set it to open the pre-installed applications such as Can’t Stop Solitaires, Block Cascade, or Psiloc World Traveler. The choice of the applications that can or can’t be set to these One-Touch keys seems random, unexpected and pointless, unlike the E71/E66 for example where any application could be set to these shortcuts.
4. Slow Camera key
Of course, the inclusion of a dedicated camera key is a good improvement, but it’s painfully slow. I takes 4 seconds at least between the time you press the camera key and the time it’s ready to take a picture, which is ridiculous, especially that you have to keep the camera key pressed for at least 1-2 seconds of these in order to launch it, otherwise nothing happens.
5. Only 1GB Memory Card
At a time where 8GB microSDHC cards cost less than 15$ in retail, there’s no excuse for including a 1GB microSD card with the E52, no excuse at all, especially when your device can handle maps, music and video. Cheap cheap Nokia!
6. Lack of Macro Mode
The Nokia E52 comes with an EDoF camera that has a very set focus range. The problem is that you can never take a good macro photo. Personally, I use Macro photography for tons of things, like keeping important information or just insect and flower photos. Lately, for example, I’ve been looking for a new car and using Macro to take pictures of the car VIN numbers in order to check them on the CarFax site later. The E52 handles this, but it requires a very steady hand and a good angle of lighting in order to get the VIN number readable.
What do you think of this list of things I hate about the Nokia E52? Is any of them a deal breaker for you, or are you willing to compromise on this, given that the positive aspects outweigh the negative?
