KEY POINTS:
Over the next few days I'll be running some reviews of various gadgets I've been using over the holiday period, starting today with the Nokia E90 Communicator.
The E90 is an unusual device. It stands virtually alone in a sea of smartphone devices that pack QWERTY keyboard, high-speed internet access and mobile office functions into a phone handset. The trend towards touchscreen interaction in the iPhone, HTC Touch and LG Prada has also been ignored by Nokia which continues to make its Communicator range controllable with a multi-directional pad and buttons down either side of the screen.
This is the third generation of Communicator I've used (the 9200 and the 9500) being the other two, but the general idea with the E90 hasn't changed - it's a device that works best when its sitting on a desk, the screen folded out, letting you type up documents and emails with relative ease while you have a conversation via the very good speakerphone. Although I've never seen anyone in New Zealand tapping away on a Nokia Communicator - I see plenty of Blackberrys, Treos and imates instead, the Communicator has few rivals when it comes to a powerful compact computer that also works as a phone and internet terminal.
The E90 is by far the best in the Communicator range so far, though I miss the more spacious keyboard of the larger, chunkier 9200. The 9300 had a smaller keyboard bur remains the most compact of the Communicators ie: you can fit it in your pocket.
In terms of connectivity the E90 has all the bases covered - HSDPA for mobile data, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a built-in GPS chip to work with the satnav software.
The Wi-Fi, much like the Nokia N95 I've found to be particularly good, easy to log on to networks and authenticate and it holds the signal well. The GPS also works much like the N95 (free downloadable maps available for most countries but a premium service available in some countries for assisted navigation from the phone) though the crisp, bright four inch, 800 pixel widescreen is much better for displaying mapping.
The other major upgrades that come with the E90 include a digital camera and the Series60 software platform which is much slicker than the previous Symbian iterations employed on the Communicator. I'm mainly familiar with the Windows Mobile and increasingly rare Palm operating system so switching over to Symbian is somewhat jarring. But once you've found your way around the menu system you'll discover that everything you need is there - QuickOffice for viewing and editing documents, calendar, contacts and POP and IMAP email functionality.
You can set up the E90 to sync with your Exchange server for email and there's even a client making it compatible with the Blackberry platform. Despite its limited storage compared to say the N95 with 8GB of onboard storage, the E90 performs very well as a multimedia device. Video files (Real Player is the default video player) look good on the widescreen and the external speaker produces decent audio. The screen can be tilted to any angle, much like a laptop's, so you can find the best viewing angle. This is also handy for making video calls as it avoids the shaky camera work often associated with handheld video phones.
The E90 has 128MB of onboard memory but comes with a 512MB MicroSD card - which you may want to upgrade to 1GB if you're using a lot of video or music.
There's an FM tuner which can automatically scan for radio stations, a Flash player for animation you may come across on the web and a particularly good voice recorder.
Web browsing on the Communicator is a treat thanks to the wide screen being well suited to displaying web pages. Annoyingly, there's only a 2.5mm headphone jack so you're stuck with the Nokia headphones or a similar-sized set, but the E90 does boast Bluetooth stereo sound so there are a wealth of options when it comes to wireless headsets for music playback and making calls.
The E90's real charm is in its design quality. The new hinge design is excellent and the phone has a nice, strong metallic body with silver trim around the screen and keyboard. The keyboard is pokey, but well laid out. Several hot keys along the top of it give quick access to messaging, the internet, calendar, notes and the front desk.
Playing around with all those functions do suck battery life and I've been getting up to four hours of use with a mix of Wi-Fi use, music playback and general calling and texting. For just the latter two uses, the battery life is very reasonable
The E90 carries on the proud tradition of the Communicator series by improving connectivity options, refreshing the software platform and improving the physical design. The real question is whether its appeal is as wide as it was now that phones that allow mobile executives to do numerous things quite easily on a much smaller handset.
The Communicator will continue to have niche appeal - I don't expect to suddenly start spotting them in cafes and airport lounges. But if you need to be able to tap out documents, can't be bothered with a stylus, touch screen or the cramped keyboard of a smartphone or with trundling a laptop around for that matter, the E90 is the perfect mobile productivity tool.
Check out Mobile Gazette's video review of the E90 on YouTube.
Price: $1336 at ComputerLounge.
