Nokia E90 Cell Phone Review
By Richard Baguley
Reviewed.com Editorial Staff
September 25, 2007
At around $1,100, the Nokia E90 is one of the most expensive cell phones we have reviewed. But that's because it isn't sold through a carrier, and thus isn't subsidized as a way to persuade you to sign up. While this means it is expensive, it also means it will work with any GSM carrier in the U.S. (such as AT&T or T-Mobile), or the world over. And it has one big advantage over most cell phones; the clamshell design looks like a 1980s cell phone, but flip it open and you see the large internal screen and big QWERTY keyboard.
This means there are two ways to control the E90; from the outside using the keypad and a 2-inch screen, or from the inside using the QWERTY keyboard and a big, wide 4-inch LCD screen. The inside keyboard and screen are much better for most tasks. It is quicker to enter text this way, and the bigger screen is much better for viewing the calendar and documents.
Although the external keypad is on the large side, we found it quick and easy to dial with; our test phone numbers took an average of 2.36 seconds to dial, which is pretty quick. The E90 also does a great job of keeping track of calls. It's easy to look up incoming, outgoing, and missed calls, then add a number from this list as a new contact. The other organizational software is good, as well. Although the calendar wasn't able to handle some of our more complex tasks (like inviting a contact to a meeting), it is more than adequate for most day-to-day tasks, and is streaks ahead of the organizational software we see on many phones (I'm looking at you, iPhone).
In addition, there are a huge variety of third-party programs available for the Symbian OS the E90 runs, so you can replace the built-in programs with others if they don't fit your needs. We found we could manage 49 words per minute on the internal keyboard, which is significantly faster than most cell phones. But the keyboard is not perfect; the space bar is oddly placed, and you don't get a physical click when a key has been pressed down. This slows typing, as you need to keep glancing at the screen to make sure the key press registered.
While the E90 is obviously aimed at the e-mailer on the go, it's still a phone, and you'll still want to make phone calls on it. That's why we test the sound quality of cell phones extensively, and found the quality of the audio on the E90 left something to be desired. Both the sound it sent and received had issues; the received sound was too trebly, making voices on the other end of the line sound thin and reedy, while the sound the E90 sent was too bassy, making your voice sound boomy to the person on the other end. Neither was bad enough to make the voices incomprehensible, but the E90 didn't produce the clear, accurate sound we have heard from phones like the Helio Ocean and the iPhone.
The E90 has a pretty decent camera, though. We found the built-in 3-megapixel camera captured images with lots of detail, and although the resolution of images was not as high as a decent dedicated still camera, it performed well for a cell phone. The color of the images was a little off, though, causing some images to have a bluish tint. But overall, the images the E90 captured looked good, and this would make the E90 a good pick for someone who needs to capture images and take notes. A realtor, for instance, could use the E90 to take decent shots of a property and note down the details, all in one handy device.
E-mail is another area where the E90 shines. With the large internal QWERTY keyboard and an above average e-mail client, sending and receiving e-mail was a breeze. Although the E90 doesn't support working with corporate Microsoft Exchange or BlackBerry servers out of the box, Nokia offers free downloadable software that supports both. The E90 also has a very good Web browser, but browsing over the slow EDGE connection you get in the U.S. is a frustrating experience. The E90 has a HSDPA radio, which provides much faster data speeds in Europe, but this doesn’t have the right frequencies to work in the U.S. What it does include, however, is a GPS receiver, which can provide spoken turn-by-turn directions in collaboration with Nokia's subscription navigation service.
However, this slow browsing speed does have the advantage of leading to longer battery lives. Plus, the large case means plenty of room for a bigger battery that can hold more charge (1500 mAh; most cell phone batteries hold 1000 mAh or less). And this showed in our battery tests; the E90 lasted an impressive 10 hours and 34 minutes in our browsing tests and 8 hours and 46 minutes playing back music. The talk time wasn't that great, though, at 3 hours and 41 minutes. This would make the E90 a poor pick for someone who talks on the phone a lot, but a good choice for a heavy e-mailer.
The E90 is a great phone. It’s packed with features, and the big, bright internal screen and keyboard blow the socks off most other phones for writing longer e-mails and browsing the Web. For some users, it could replace a laptop on short trips. But it is expensive — more than three times the price of a HTC Mogul, a Sprint phone that also includes a keyboard. The unlocked nature of the E90 could be an advantage for some users (such as those who travel a lot or want to switch networks), but most users will be better off paying less for a phone that may not be as fancy, but won't break the bank.
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