Nokia’s tempting little brick: the E90

The Guide has already declared the iPhone the greatest phone on the planet and we’re not about to revise our verdict. But as gadgetholics, it’s hard – very hard – not to be tempted by the awesome feature-set of Nokia’s latest and greatest Communicator, the E90.

Let’s get one thing out of the way straightaway: yes, the E90 is huge. Not huge in comparison to previous Communicators (Nokia have made good strides in this respect) but huge compared to most other smart phones out there today. Line the little brick up against an iPhone, a Treo, or a Crackberry and you’re instantly struck by how much bigger and heavier it is.

But there’s good reason for the heft because the E90 packs so much functionality into its form factor that no other phone on the market today can compete. You’ve got full 3.5 access speeds, WiFi, built-in GPS, decent 3.2 mega pixel camera and 30 fps video recorder and, best of all, that huge, gorgeous internal screen. Browsing on the iPhone is a delight but you still have to zoom in and out. On the E90, no such need. The vast majority of web sites render without any need to scroll left and right (of course, as on a desktop PC, you still need to scroll up and down.)

You can read good reviews of the E90 elsewhere on the Web. The most detailed ones we’ve found are those by All About Symbian and My-Symbian. So, we’re not going to give you a full run down of the phone’s considerable abilities. Instead, let us tell you why we think that, if you can put up with the size, this thing may well pip the iPhone and all other contenders to the post:

• The screen: we touched on it above. The size and high resolution of the internal screen is not to be underestimated. Nothing else – short of Nokia’s own N810 internet tablet – comes close. This is as close to a desktop experience as we’ve had on a phone-sized device.
• The keyboard: We love the iPhone’s clever soft keyboard and predictive software. They work great. But the reassurance of a good quality, full sized QWERTY keyboard is still unbeatable. You can ‘hunt and peck’  on the E90’s keyboard with a couple of fingers, use it holding it two-handed with your thumbs, or put it on a desk and pretty much touch-type. It’s a really flexible system and feels great in most situations.
• The pedigree: When it comes to judging high-tech gadgets it may seem odd to put a value on their history and provenance. But we think pedigree goes a long way towards making something Prodigal. And the E90 has it in spades. It is the latest in Nokia’s long line of Communicators. Long before the Treo ever surfaced, long before Blackberries, Nokia pretty much invented the concept of a PDA combined with a ‘phone back in 1996 when it released the 9000. Since then, they’ve continued to innovate. We’ve seen the 9110, the 9210 and the 9500 and 9300. The E90 is their latest, top of the line, Communicator.
• The openness: We love our iPhone, but as true gadgetholics, we can’t help wanting to play around with our phones, adding functionality and software. Well, until Apple opens up their platform, you can’t do that on an iPhone. The E90 is completely different. Because it runs S60 – the most common smart phone operating system – it has literally hundreds of pieces of software available for it. It makes our E90 almost infinitely expandable, keeping it fresh, and increasing its usefulness on an almost daily basis.
• The build-quality: Trust us, don’t rely on reviews to form a judgement about the E90. If you haven’t already done so, you need to spend some time using this phone. The ‘feel’ of it is just superb. From the gorgeously engineered metal double-hinges that allow the screen to be positioned at any angle, to the metal casing and sturdy buttons, the E90 has wonderful industrial design and, as a result, is a joy to use.

So, it’s the smallest Communicator ever but yes it still comfortably lives up to its predecessors’ nick-name: ‘the brick’. The world at large will assume you’re carrying around a relic from the early nineties. True gadget fans will instantly recognise that you’re holding the most feature-rich phone on the planet today and one that has a rich heritage to boot.

What does The Guide recommend as the best smartphone? Overall, the iPhone’s genuinely revolutionary user interface and peerless industrial design secure its place at the top of our list, but its monumental abilities, fantastic build quality and its place in smart phone lore, mean that the latest ‘brick’ from Nokia is still very hard to resist. We use both.