Nokia E52 review: E as in Exceptional

Gsmarena have posted their review of the Nokia E52. Here are the phone's key features, main disadvantages and final impression.

Key features:
- Compact metallic body and extra slim girth (9.90mm)
- Quad-band GSM support
- 3G with HSDPA 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2 Mbps
- 2.4" 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
- Symbian OS, S60 UI with FP2
- 600 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB RAM
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology, DLNA support
- Built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS support, digital compass
- Accelerometer for screen auto-rotation and turn-to-mute
- One-touch shortcut keys mean "business"
- 3 megapixel enhanced fixed focus camera with LED flash
- Secondary videocall camera
- 60 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion, ships with a 1GB card
- microUSB v2.0
- Standard 3.5mm audio jack
- Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
- FM radio with RDS
- Class-leading audio output quality
- N-Gage gaming support
- Ovi Maps preinstalled with trial turn-by-turn navigation license (10 days)
- User-friendly Mode Switch for swapping two homescreen setups
- Office document editor (with free MS Office 2007 update)
- Remote lock/wipe over-the-air
- Comfortable keypad
- Smart dialing
- Great battery life

Main disadvantages:
- Disappointing camera features and performance
- Video recording maxes out at VGA@15fps
- No DivX or XviD support (can be installed, possibly requiring a purchase)
- No TV-out functionality

The Eseries have certainly gone a long way, it's Nokia for business and they mean it. The Nokia E52 is a no-compromise tool and you can tell at a glimpse. The extensive use of metal doesn't go unnoticed by either eye or hand. Speaking of hand feel - the excellent build quality is perfectly matched by great ergonomics.

The hardware is top notch as you have every right to expect in the Nokia Eseries, except for the camera of course, but don't pretend you're surprised now. Well, the QVGA screen could be questioned too, but non-touch Symbians just seem stuck at that resolution and that's that.

With great email and office support, excellent browser and speedy CPU to run things fast and smooth, only one question remains. Is there really much left for the E55? It's practically the same phone with a half-QWERTY keyboard.

So we guess, the Nokia E55 kinda boils down to a limited edition E52. After all, most people will perhaps prefer the traditional phone keypad. The unusual half-QWERTY is not so much of an advantage after all when you factor in predictive typing on E52 and the steep learning curve when tackling typing on the E55 new type of keyboard.

Anyway, we're trying to put the E52 in context here and we can't do without its half-QWERTY sibling, the Nokia E55.

As to real competitors, the E52 is not really challenged beyond limits - Wi-Fi and GPS in a compact package seems to be largely reserved for touchscreen handsets or for full QWERTY phones like the E72.

There is one exception that delivers an even larger display in the same metallic design and the same Symbian S60 smartphone OS - the Samsung i7110. It somehow evaded the popularity it deserved, but that may be attributed to its quite high price. It is bigger than the E52, but's also got the imaging all covered with its 5 megapixel camera.

On the other hand, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 may be thicker and 11 mm wider and 4 mm thicker than the Nokia E52 it's just 12 grams heavier - not so much bigger overall considering the full QWERTY. If BlackBerry Connect is something you need the extra heft is something you'll just have to get used to.

Speaking of QWERTY-enabled handsets, we shouldn't also miss the best-selling Nokia E71 and its successor E72. The Nokia E72 follows the metallic styling of E52 almost to the letter.

The software packed into the E52 covers everything - from WiPresenter to Nseries-like gallery and N-Gage support. Neither the gallery, nor the games are that important in a strictly business device, but they would surely help push out the envelope of business-only manners to a wider public. And it sure helps to know that the E52 can kick back and relax too. Business sure comes first but those hot looks will as well connect with a different crowd too, to whom file attachments and mobile VPN are just a part of the nine-to-five rat race. And there's more to life than just work, right?