Nokia E75 Review

DESIGN & BUILD

Any good feeling about the E75 has to begin and end with the design. Those familiar to Nokia's E-series lineup will see a bit of the E52/E55 models in the front profile view. The QVGA (320x240px) looks great despite the scant 2.4-inch size.

Below the screen is a cluster of buttons -- probably the low-point with this model in terms of design. The application and call buttons are simply set too close to one another. Granted, I found very few instances of mis-pressing, the perception caused by the closeness of the buttons probably caused me to move a bit slower.

Also, the camera and buttons on the side feel a bit out of place. The side buttons and mini-USB/microSDHC covers feel like cheap add-ons and don't convey the same feel as the rest of the device.

The camera while solid at 3.2 MPx, seems more added on than a part of the lines in the body.

Still, the body of the E75 is a nice mix of plastics and metal. It feels solid -- like something chiseled, rather than assembled.

Outside of the niggles I really like the E75's build and design. It just feels well put together. And its small size gives no indication towards the healthy performance of this Symbian S60 device.

QWERTY Keyboard
Beyond the buttons and front face surrounded by a chrome accent, there's the sliding QWERTY keyboard (shown here).

It took a few days, but eventually I began to like the feel and spacing of the keys. Best part though was the "click" of sliding it open and closed. It just feels... classy.

Compared to some other devices that I own and have reviewed, the QWERTY keyboard used on the E75 is easy to get used to. While the buttons don't have much definition, they do offer excellent feedback and you can easily get up to a pretty good speed typing.

The only knock that I can levy against the keyboard was that, in some lighting conditions, the blue lettering on the secondary functions is hard to make out. Even with the backlight on it is sometimes hard to see. This is not a deal-breaker, though, as the device can be easily tilted and adjusted.