Once upon a time, a little rubber boot factory went crazy and decided to make cell phones.

Yeah.

That’s pretty much the premise for one of the largest telecommunications companies on the planet. Nokia makes phones now, and a lot of them, as in 126.9 million phones just this past quarter (Q4 2009, source: Unwired View). I recently succumbed to the pressures of the Internet, found a sale online and bought a Nokia E72. Great, yet another new phone, but hey! At least I now have the chance to review it also.

Lame excuse, but let’s carry on.

“What BlackBerry is that?”

If you see my phone and ask me that, I will beat you down with the full fury of its Finnish all-metal body. And by “beat” I mean “verbally rebuke with politeness”. Of course, no one would ask that if it didn’t look like a BlackBerry, which to the untrained eye, it does. It’s got a screen! A row of buttons underneath! A big keyboard below that! There are no slidey bits, no flips, no nonsense. Just one solid block of heartless corporate communication.

Nokia files this type of design under “full-keyboard messengers,” a line they launched with their Nokia E61 back in 2006. I’ve owned almost every variant and successor of the series, with the exception of the Nokia E63, which I really, really could care less about.

But no matter, what we’re interested in is the E72. Nokia’s come a long way since the E61 came out. The E71 was really the first runaway hit in the series, and to this day, still a hot sell worldwide, despite the release of the E72. The latter, much like its immediate predecessor, is a thin, thin phone. Much of it is made of metal, giving it a solid feel in the hand and the confidence that it can do some serious damage if hurled at someone. Nokia has pretty much taken the E71 and made it better in almost every way. The only exception would be looks, as the E71 is still sleeker, in my opinion, although it lacks the improved 5-megapixel camera, 3.5 mm headphone jack, optical joystick and 600 Mhz processor.

The keyboard is amazing on the E72 and the screen is still one of the best I’ve ever seen on a mobile device. Despite having a measly 320×240 resolution, it displays millions of colours and is easily readable even in direct sunlight. Like the E71, battery life is phenomenal, lasting almost a whole day with my heavy Internet usage, sprinkled with voice here and there.

On the software side of things, the E72 runs S60 3rd Edition FP2. Translated, this means it runs something pretty old. Even then, the new processor makes this phone fly and despite the unwieldy and archaic menu system, you can jump around the phone rather quickly. The optical joystick isn’t quite as good as the one RIM features on their newer BlackBerrys, but unlike most reviewers, I quite like it. GPS is a dream to use also, and with the recent announcement from Nokia that all Ovi Maps premium services are now free, forever, I’ve put away my TomTom. Multi-tasking is something that Nokia’s flagship N97 phone really can’t do, but the E72 will run over 10 programs at a time with ease. Not like you need to, but it just shows how robust it is.

I am running firmware v22.007 on my E72-2, the suffix meaning that this is the North American 3G version (see here for a reminder as to just what that means). The current bugs that I can gather from this firmware are that holding down the “Ctrl” key doesn’t put it into Silent mode as it should and the Camera app sometimes makes the phone blow up. As in crash, not actually explode. Other than that, the E72 is very, very good right now.

“But I Have An iPhone!”

So do I, and guess what? Despite the fantastic UI and fun apps for the iPhones, I still prefer the E72 to it. Texting and emails are a breeze, and support for 10.2 Mbps cellular wireless speeds means that when Rogers finally decides to lift the speed cap, this phone will be one of the fastest around. Make that THE fastest one around, by almost 50%. Nokia is also notorious for releasing phones with lousy to mediocre firmwares at launch. They are also infamous for making them awesome after a few firmware updates, which is something this Nokia user has long since accepted. Despite that fact, the E72 is already a great phone. Fantastic, even. So much so I have to repeat this fact in the last paragraph.

The Bottom Line

If you’re in the market for a new phone and want one that will last you a very, very long time, consider the E72. Physically tough, runs forever, robust messaging. An excellent all-around phone experience, possibly too good, as I can’t seem to put the darned thing down.

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AJ Pau

In describing AJ within 50 words, “mobile” and “phone” would show up for sure. Beginning with a palmOne Treo 650 long ago, AJ’s used many devices from Europe, Japan, even North America. He’s dabbled with the Internet since discovering Netscape 1.0 as a child and is neurally linked to Twitter.

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