BARCELONA, Spain - The Nokia E75 showcased at the Mobile World Congress is the company's first phone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and its first enterprise device with a full keyboard not to be dubbed "Communicator". 

Although it does not follow the steps that its old-school predecessors took, the E75 comes ready for business. Like all Eseries phones, it is based on the S60 platform, version 3.2. It comes with only one display, of 2.4", which is considered low in its category. The display has QVGA resolution (320x240 pixels).

The phone has HSDPA, WLAN, Bluetooth, and USB connectivity; and a 3.5mm audiovisual jack, which can be used to output presentations, video, audio, as well as to work as a stereo headset. A-GPS is also included in the device, for navigation, and possibly geo-tagging.

(A Nokia E75 review by Alex Calarasu is available at the E75 blog).

For enhanced email capabilities, the E75 has pre-installed the Nokia Messaging service, Mail for Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes traveller, POP/IMAP support, and support for a variety of 3rd party email providers.

Multimedia is not forgotten, the device has a music player, media player, FM radio, a 3.2 megapixel camera, Nokia Maps, and support for microSD memory cards.

The S60 platform, enhanced for business, allows the E75 to fully sync contacts, email, home screen, and calendar; to switch between two different screens: one for work hours, which has shortcuts for business applications, and the other for leisure times, which has shortcuts for personal functions; it has intelligent word auto-completion, which learns as the user types; mobile VPN; among other functions.

Extra services part of the Ovi suite are compatible with this phone. The Share on Ovi service allows the user to share images, video, audio, and other files on the internet; and Ovi Files provides access to a user's files on a PC, even if the PC is offline. The latest Eseries phones are also compatible with the Ngage gaming system.

The Nokia E75 is scheduled to launch in Q1 2009 at a price of 375€ without subsidies or taxes.

PhoneReport was able to handle all colour versions of the E75: silver black, red, and copper yellow. They all seemed suitable for doubling as business and personal devices in terms of looks.

Even though the E75 is quite bulky, the screen measures 2.4" only. In total the phone itself measures (when closed) 111.8x50x14.4mm, and weighs 139g.

The keys have no vertical dividers, but they are well separated, and easy to distinguish. The front of the phone, below the screen, has 25 keys, including the numeric keypad, the call keys, d-pad, soft keys, and shortcut keys: home, calendar, backspace, and messaging.

Above the display there is a large area, in which the ambience light sensor, ear speaker, and secondary camera are located. The latter is meant to be used for video calls.

The front of the phone is covered in the predominant colour, but around it, there is a silver metallic colour, which is glossy, and contributes to the style factor.

The right side of the phone has a camera key, which is oddly located on the centre of the side; a volume rocker, and a voice command key.

The keys, and the side, are in a silver colour.

The left side of the phone has rubber slots for the USB port, which is used for data transfer and charging; and for the memory card slot. We were hoping that these kind of ports were left behind from the time the N93 was launched.

The slots are clearly easy to open, but a nightmare to close and secure. These ruin the the material consistency of the device. It is not known whether these will be replaced in the final model.

On the top of the phone, there is a 3.5mm audiovisual jack.

On the bottom, there is a Nokia 2.0mm charging port.

The back cover of the phone has line patterns, as a style accessory. The 3.2 megapixel camera, flash, and speaker, are also located on this section.

Opening the slide of the E75 is relatively easy, as it is spring loaded.

A keyboard with constant divisions is shown, but it has a division on the middle, indicating where the user should type with the left hand, and with the right hand.

Typing itself is easy, as the keys are large, and have evident divisions, but there are no physical spaces between them, which could have improved typing.

The Nokia E75 seems like a good option for those business users looking for something in the middle of business and personal use, those who do not wish to have a second phone, but two phones in one. The E75 is a balance between heavy business and personal life, with a good price to complete the combination.

The only problem is, of course, the size and weight, which don't make it ideal for a holiday phone. 

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