- Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – First Impressions
- Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – 7 Things I Love
- Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – 7 Things I Hate
- Nokia E72 vs E71 Review – Hardware
Earlier, I introduced to you the Nokia E72 from the point of view of an E71 addict, explained in detail the things I love and the things I hate about this successor compared to the old Eseries favorite. Today, I take an in-depth look at the hardware of the E72 as opposed to the one on the E71.
Exterior Design
Design-wise, the E72 is a slight disappointment for E71 owners. It looks chunkier, although only 1.3mm wider, but it lacks the signature curves that made the E71 fit so easily in one’s hand, especially on the lower part. But as far as aesthetics go, it’s more of a subjective matter. The E72 looks more modern, but the E71 has that imposing clean and metallic allure. I personally prefer the E71′s raw beauty to the E72′s pimped up appeal.
Build Quality
Build quality was one of my main caveats while I had the E72. Although I did eventually mistreat it a little bit and it took it like a champion just like my E71, I just couldn’t help but feel like I always had to be more careful with it, as if it couldn’t handle anything. The reduction in metal usage and slight decrease in plastics quality make the newer Eseries feel cheaper and less robust than the old one. Also, I wasn’t impressed with the way the back cover battery door is only held in place by a small latch and always wiggles a bit.
Keyboard and Other Buttons
The three major differences between the E72 and the E71, key-wise, are the reduction in size of the space bar adding two more keys on the bottom row, as well as the raised one-touch keys for Messaging/Contacts/Calendar as opposed to the flat ones on the E71. Many suggested that the shrunken spacebar size could be a problem, but it isn’t for me. As for the raised one-touch keys, they can be tedious the first few hours as you hit them by mistake, but eventually you get used to having them there and don’t press them unless you need them.
Slightly lesser important changes are the move of the Bluetooth toggler and Silent/General profile changer from the * and # keys to dedicated ones on the lower row of the keyboard, which are easy to adapt to.
The biggest benefit, keyboard-wise in my opinion, is the addition of a torch shortcut on the spacebar. When you’re on the homescreen or when the device is locked, simply press the spacebar for a short while and the flash on the back of the E72 will turn into a full-fledged flash light. Dead useful.
Exterior Features
The main differences in the E72, feature-wise with the E71, are the addition of an optical navipad on top of the regular d-pad, the move of the speaker to the back of the phone, and the switch from a 2.5mm headset plug on the side to a 3.5mm plug on the top. The first one, the navipad, is something I could easily do without. I tried to use it, loved it at first, then eventually found it useless. The second one, the speaker change, is a super stupid choice, as it makes the loudspeaker volume on the E72 even lower and muffled when placed on a non-hard surface like sheets. The third one, the headset switch, is a welcome addition, and one I deeply wished I had on my E71 for months.
Interior Hardware
When it comes to the raw hardware placed inside the E72, in spots our eyes can’t really reach, the differences with the E71 can be run down to these points:
- Camera: a 5MP camera replaces the 3.2MP camera on the E71, takes far better pictures without the purple tint E71 users are accustomed to, shoots video at double the resolution, and can use the flash LED light as video light for recording in dark environments.
- Accelerometer: the E72 features an accelerometer which lets you silence its ringing or alarm by flipping it, as well as run apps such as Nokia’s Step Counter.
- Faster processor: the 600MHz processor on the E72 is the first thing an E71 user will notice: the device boots faster, menus with transition animations are snappy, launching applications is much quicker, and everything seems overall more responsive.
- Compass: while I only tested it in Ovi Maps, the inclusion of a compass on the E72 is a welcome addition for navigation, but should also come in very handy when augmented reality applications like Wikitude are released for S60 3rd Edition FP2.
- MicroUSB charging: the E72 supports charging via the regular 3pin Nokia charger as well as MicroUSB ones, ultimately allowing you to top up the battery with any computer you have around, while still transferring data files or media between it and the computer.
When it comes down to it, the differences between the E72 and the E71 from a hardware perspective are more of a hit and miss. Some changes are vast improvements over the predecessor, like the 3.5mm headset plug, camera, torch, others are slight regressions like the speaker placement and build quality.
The differences also continue to be a mixed bag in the software department which I will look at tomorrow.
