• Introduction

The Nokia E90 Communicator is the latest addition to the Nokia Communicator series, but things have changed. This phone belongs to the E-Series line, but most importantly, it has the S60 software platform.

Communicators have been based on the 9xxx line, but as E-Series englobes Enterprise phones (hence the E), the new Communicator fits perfectly in the E-Series. Prior to the E90, the Communicators ran on S80, such as the 9300 and the 9500. I haven’t reviewed S80 previously, but the change should have been predictable: Nokia wants to focus on S60 as their “flagship software platform”, as it not only characterizes Nokia, but so that people don’t have to constantly adapt to new User Interfaces. S60 is ready to empower both multimedia phones and business phones, removing the need for different software platforms. The only thing that Nokia needed to do was adapting the S60 User Interface to the large internal display that Communicators have.

Nokia has some experience in the Communicator series, this one is certainly not the first or the last Communicator. They have been characterized by their clamshell form factor, large internal display, as well as a full QWERTY keyboard. What distinguishes the Nokia Communicators from the competition is that they don’t have a touchscreen, but especially that they are very, very ugly.

An overview over the E90’s competition:

The HTC TYTN II runs on Windows Mobile, has a fast processor: a Qualcomm MSM7200 at 400MHz, although it has a weaker battery at only 1350mAh. The Samsung F700 runs on Symbian OS9.2 with S60 v3.1 Feature Pack 1 as well, but its battery is even weaker, at only 1000mAh.

Let’s look at the first Communicator, the Nokia 9000: it weighed a monstrous 397g, it had a grayscale display, had 8MB in total memory, an embedded INTEL 386 processor, and run on GEOSTM 3.0 Operating System, it was launched in 1998, and on standby, it lasted a mere 35 hours.

The second Communicator was the 9110i, it was launched in 1999, it weighed a “lighter” 253g, and it run on a GEOSE Operating System, had 8MB internal memory but support for a MMC memory card, and had a AMD 486 processor. The standby time had been improved to between 60-170 hours.

The third and fourth Communicators that Nokia launched, the 9210 and 9210i were quite close to the Communicators we know today, they both were slightly lower on weight compared to the previously stated devices, run on ARM9 based processors, and had a Symbian Operating System, as well as a colour display. Nevertheless they were huge, and were launched in 2000 and 2002 respectively.

I believe there is no need to talk about the 9300 and 9500, as they are close to the Communicators we know today but run on Symbian OS with S80 UI. Only the 9500 had a camera, unlike the 9300.

(Specifications from GSMArena)

The E90 is available in Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Europe, and African markets. It works on GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900, WCDMA 2100 bands.

Nokia E90 Communicator Technical Specifications

At the first glance, the E90 surely looks very powerful and productive, but for the ones that are used to NSeries will know that looks can be deceiving, as even the smallest NSeries can be as powerful as the E90, thanks to the complex software, which we know as Symbian OS.

The E90’s front panel has misused free space. There is a lot of free space, which could be used to incorporate, perhaps, a larger display.

I cannot complain about the keypad: The keys are well designed, simple rectangles which fit on the finger’s space and feel good to press. The navi-key has a massive ’select’ key, compared to the rest of the keys. In contrast, the D-Pad is quite thin, although it doesn’t make a difference in terms of ergonomics, as it still feels good to press.

There are simple design elements such as a shiny border around the front panel, which limits the keypad and display. On the front panel as well, there is a small ‘profile/on/off’ key and the ear speaker.

The phone is extremely thick and doesn’t feel good closed on the hand, and it’s too heavy. As you see in the pictures, the N93 is even thicker than the E90, therefore the thickest phone we have reviewed is still the N93.

The connectors’ section contains a miniUSB port, a 2mm charging port, and the earphones jack, which is not a 3.5mm but a 2.5mm audiovisual jack.

On the left side of the phone there are two very thin rubber buttons: one is the camera button (with autofocus level), and a voice command button. I feel that the wrong material was chosen on such a phone, to include rubber buttons.

It’s not only for being a low-quality material, but it simply doesn’t feel good to the fingers. The camera button has two levels: one for the autofocus , the other for capture press. The keys themselves feel bad, and now to differentiate levels it’s even worse. Larger keys made out of another material would be more comfortable. Next to the camera button is the Infrared port.

The best hardware section of the phone in terms of ergonomics is the memory card slot. Instead of having to use long fingernails, a simple push is necessary, and the spring will pop the cover out, and reveal the memory card. To close is the same method. This type of slot is used as there is enough space on the phone.

The back cover is also of simple removal: simply press the “button” with a fingernail, and slide out the cover. This will reveal the BP-4C 1500mAh battery, as well as the SIM card slot, where the SIM card needs to be slid in order to be removed. To insert it, it’s much more complicated, as it’s a thin slot, and you can’t see what you’re doing.

At the back there is a 3.2 megapixel camera and a L.E.D. Flash, and they are quite far apart. The flash looks as the same on the N95, although there are few differences, as you will see later in the review.

If the phone is turned off and you open the flap in order to reveal the internal display, you will notice the damage caused by the keyboard on the display. This is Nokia’s faulty design. What happens is that some keys crash onto the screen when you close the flap. This doesn’t affect functionality of the display or the keyboard, but the marks are very visible. As you see in the image below, this was the state of the first trial E90 I received, you can also refer to the post about its display.

They keyboard has sections at different levels. The main keys and the whole alphabet is risen, while the left and right columns, and top row are at a lower level. This risen keys provide a good feedback to the finger at a press, but they are the probable reason for the marks on the display.

There are also two keys on the left side of the display, and two keys on the right side. Both are large and feel good at a press, but there is no backlight to them. A silly mistake from Nokia, as many people (including me) like to use their phones at night, in the dark before sleep, such as for Instant Messaging clients (chatting).

On the QWERTY keyboard, the backlighting is done rather poorly. Besides the backlight having to be activated everytime you want to use it, the backlighting is very soft, and you can barely see it. Thanks to Ricky Cadden from Symbian-Guru for the tip on the ‘light’ key (yes, I didn’t notice it).

Including a D-Pad and other large main keys was very helpful in order to get work done faster. In such a big display the best thing is to incorporate a pointer, such as the one for Web, or a touchscreen, although Nokia insists in not using them until it releases the S60 Touch UI. Navigating with only a D-Pad takes a lot of time.

The extra dedicated buttons on the top row prove quite useful, as there are also two ‘Own key’ which can be customized to open your selected application.

The front panel can bend at different angles, but one thing is for sure, it is at a low level, the display is very low when the panel is at 90 degrees. The swivel needs to be changed for better view on the display.

One motive of discussion is the choice of clamshell and not slider. All Communicators have used clamshell as their form factor, but something new is needed, such as its competitors, the TYTN II and F700 are sliders. To transform the E90 in a slider, a touchscreen would be more advisable, and I wouldn’t mind getting rid of the front panel’s tiny display.

With the phone open, one-hand usage is comfortable. Browsing the web or checking the email just needs one-hand operation, even though the dimensions are so large. To type on the QWERTY keyboard, only two thumbs are necessary, preferably from your hands. It is definitely much faster than a regular numeric keypad.

• Operating System

The Nokia E90 Communicator runs on Symbian OS9.2 with S60 v3.1 Feature Pack 1. We have covered this Operating System and software platform in other reviews. E-Series somehow differs in a way that you can read below:

In some applications there are two panes, where one pane has the main view, and on the pane at the right, there is a sub-view. The views differ according to applications, but here are some examples:

Main view	Sub-view
Contact list	Contact details
Folder list	Selected folder’s contents
Image list	Selected Image view
Calendar	Selected day reminders
Message folders	Message list

There are quite a lot of voice-command applications on the phone. You can listen to messages and menu options. In messaging the voice isn’t always fluent, but you get the point of the message. You can select one of the two installed voices: Martin (male), and Ellen (female). You can also download new ones, it’s about 1.81MB for each. It all depends in which you prefer or what sounds best for you.

There is a separate Search application, different from the Windows Live Search application on N-Series as it doesn’t blend in with the phone and active standby. The Windows Live Search application was better as it was accessible from active standby, although it took long to initialize. You can select to search in the following places:

• Messages;

• Emails;

• Calendar events;

• To-dos;

• Notes;

• Contracts and;

• Other files

There is a Teams application, which is basically a group of contacts with which you can create conference calls from your phone or through a conference call server, send messages, see particular logs, associate notes to contacts, associates web bookmarks to contacts, search, use push-to-talk.

Quickoffice is installed and licensed to full functionality with which you can edit and view .doc (Word documents) files and .xls (Excel spreadsheet) files, although only view .ppt (PowerPoint presentation) files. The presentation viewing is extremely slow, and needs improvement.

The Active Notes and Notes applications are included. With Active Notes you can add videos, images, audio, bookmarks, business cards, and other files to your notes, as well as group the notes in folders.

The Printers functionality is another addition to S60, as the S60 phones I reviewed don’t feature it. All E-Series probably have this functionality, which proves quite handy. It’s no longer just PictBridge, now you can connect to diverse HP printers with different connections. Documents, Spreadsheets, and notes can be printed, in different paper formats, although Web pages cannot be printed.. Only HPs are compatible for now, but hopefully in the future, other manufacturers will be compatible.

• Connectivity

The E90 has to be naturally rich in connectivity as it’s a Communicator.

Flagship NSeries have a full-bundle connectivity package, and so does the E90. The new addition here is the Printers application.

There is 3.6mbps HSDPA, WCDMA, EGPRS. GPRS, HSCSD, CSD, for internet connectivity.

Bluetooth v2.0 with EDR is still my preferred choice to transfer files, although there is a miniUSB port.

I’m not too sure why an Infrared port was included as they are slowly being scratched out from phones due to the restrictions (needs line-of-sight) and slow data transfer rates.

A 512MB microSD memory card is supplied for further storage than the available 128MB of internal memory.

• Camera

The 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus seemed like a necessary addition to the phone’s features. The 9300 didn’t have one, whereas the 9500 had a VGA camera. There is a L.E.D. flash as well.

Due to my curiosity on the flash I took few picture in the dark, but the clear outcome is the failure to do any type of focus. The N95, N93, and E90 are tested here. The N95 does reasonably well whereas the N93 does extremely poorly, even worse than the E90. (Order of capture: E90, N95, N93)

Video recording is possible at the resolution of 640×480 pixels (VGA) at 30fps.

• Sound

There is no 3.5mm jack, but Nokia’s 2.5mm audio jack. Earphones are included in the package.

The music player is slightly different when it comes to commands. There are no categories organising the tracks, such as “Artists”, or visualizations.

The E90 is after all dedicated to business, so here, I cannot complain. Although it is to notice that the volume level button is missing.

• Extras

A GPS receiver is included in the phone, the same A-GPS IC as the N95 is used in the E90.

Nokia Maps v1.2 is installed on the phone, although it cannot go in a total fullscreen. In such a large display, it would be pleasant to have a fullscreen navigation, but unfortunately, the two bars are visible.

As my A-GPS (Assisted-GPS) was always available, a GPS lock was achieved in less than a minute, regardless the flap was closed or open.

• Conclusion

Nokia’s experience on Communicators wasn’t enough to produce a phone to rival HTC or competitors alike.

Simple hardware faults or small details might disappoint the average user, or even experienced users. A N95 in business form was expected, but what definitely damages the phone’s ranking is the lack of a touchscreen and a single-display form factor, such as a slider form factor.

• Rating

Advantages: Symbian OS9.2 with S60 v3.1 FP1; 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus; large internal display; comfortable QWERTY keyboard; Printing ability.

Disadvantages: No touchscreen; small front display; no fullscreen Maps application.

Rating: 7.0/10