Nokia E90 review

Nokia E90 Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 29 August 2007

The Nokia 9000 Series has been integrated with Nokia's new Eseries portfolio to produce the E90 Communicator. It has retained its original folding design, but added new features and more power, meaning this handset is faster and offers more than any Communicator device to date.

The E90 is currently available for free on a monthly contract from several major networks.

Design
The Nokia E90 looks like a giant phone from the 80s when it's shut, but open it up and it transforms into what looks like a mini laptop. It's definitely not pocket-friendly in any way, but is one of the most stylish Nokia devices in its class and has a solid feel and quality finish.

As with all the previous Communicator handsets, the E90 boasts a large internal colour screen and full Qwerty keypad. The latter lets you tap out long emails and read them in relative comfort, thanks to its long, wide design.

Once you open up the E90 it looks like a mini laptop

The keys on the keypad provide a good amount of tactile feedback although we did find the space bar a little stiff. The internal display is sharp and great for using to view emails, photos and Web pages.

Of course, you wouldn't want to make phone calls on the E90 when it's open, which is why there's an external screen and keypad. Both are well laid-out and convenient to use for calling and writing quick text messages.

Unlike previous Communicator external displays, the E90's gives you access to every feature available on the phone. This is very useful and less fiddly than having to open the phone up.

Holding the internal and external sections together are two chunky metal hinges that prop the screen up at varying angles. These allow you to view the large internal screen on your desk or hold it up completely flat, which is good when writing emails.

Features
This is one of the most feature-packed smart phones Nokia has produced so far and, unlike previous 9000 Series handsets, runs on the S60 platform. You can keep in touch practically anywhere you go via infrared, Bluetooth, quad-band GSM, HSDPA (3.5G) and Wi-Fi.

As with Nokia's consumer-based smart phone, the Nokia N95, the E90 comes with built-in GPS and Nokia maps. It serves its purpose when looking for an address on foot, but we found it a little slow to pick up a GPS signal and you need to pay to get step-by-step and voice navigation.

Two hinges connect the external and internal screens and let you view the screen at a comfortable angle from your desk

Browsing the Web was also a little less exciting than we expected because certain pages took a while to render properly, but once they did the large screen made them much easier to view than on smaller phones.