It's hard to believe but it's been 10 years since the first Nokia Communicator was announced in 1997. The E90 is the eleventh Communicator model, following the 9000, 9000i, 9110, 9110i, 9210, 9210i, 9290, 9500, 9300 and 9300i.
Appearance and design
The E90 weighs 210 g. The size? Perfect combination: the same width as the 9500 (57 mm) and the same height (132 mm) and depth (20 mm) as the 9300/9300i. It's large enough to provide space for its really huge screen and superb keyboard but small enough not to be called a brick. Think of it as of a slightly wider 9300(i). The only parameter that remains on the 'hardcore' side is the weight - 210 g - but hey, it's a high-end PDA and not a toy, and it's still almost twice less than Windows Mobile based devices providing similar functionality, e.g. the HTC Advantage weighing almost 400 g (!).
How does it look? Shortly speaking, it's SUPERB. It's very professional and extremely stylish at the same time. Depending on colour version, it's dark brown (almost black) or red is with shiny silver frame surrounding the display and black keypad, silver rocker key and (chromium plated) large and very solid metal hinges. Forget about those weak and easily breakable plastic hinges known from earlier models. And it's not just the hinges - the whole device is very well built using high quality materials. I haven't experienced any squeaking sounds or weak/loose parts.
Keypad
Additional buttons
The external phone keypad has large rectangular keys, very slightly convex in the centre. They are much better than 9500's shaky and irregularily shaped keys but IMHO slightly worse than 9300/9300i keypad having larger keys and more space between them. But overall it's a good keypad with decent tactile feedback. The Zero key has a wireless internet symbol (long press activates Web browser). The hash key lets you quickly switch between the currently enabled and the silent profile. It also serves as the Edit button letting you highlight (using the rocker key) and Copy/Paste text. On the right side of the external display there is a small light sensor controlling backlight of the phone keypad.
Right below the screen there are two soft keys, menu and "C" buttons, the usual Green/Red Send and End buttons and a 5-way rocker in the centre. The 5-way rocker button consists of a square(ish) silver frame and a large black central button. It's very convenient to use, definitely much better than on previous Communicators and also much better than joysticks found on most of S60 smartphones.
On both sides of the internal screen there are buttons. On the left side you can find the usual Send/End buttons used to start/receive/reject/end phone calls. The Send button, depending on active application, can also be used to quickly invoke the "Send to" function. The red "End" button lets you quickly switch to the Activity (standby) screen while closing all active applications at the same time. On the right side of the screen there are two soft buttons serving the same purpose as two function buttons located under the external screen - their function changes and depends on application. On the left side, above the Send/End buttons, there is a secondary low-res (QCIF) video camera for video calls only.
Display
The model comes in two colors – brown and red. Either of the variations has the casing’s edging in its own way, while the main set of keys remains dark-brown. To me, one should count on wide availability of the red trim, as it is going to be a very highly tailored proposition. The share of women, potential buyers of this model here, is not too big, and in corporate purchases they will give the top priority to the default color scheme. However, specially for the enterprise segment, the company is planning on launching two extra trims – black and silver.
The layout of controls and display, with the clam closed, is standard. The outer screen sports QVGA resolution (240x320 pixels) and 16 million colors. The external sensor automatically tweaks backlighting level so as to make it fit the environment best, similar sensor works for the internal display as well. The picture quality the external screen puts up is good, yet turns out to be interior to other offerings by the company, being affected by insufficient brightness, which can’t be adjusted manually and therefore is one of the device’s drawbacks. On the other hand, this is a quality thing that plays a secondary role for the most part and its performance is not what everything is about. In the sun the display gets washed out, nevertheless the picture remains readable in most cases. Technically, it may be considered the main display, since you come to manage it when calling or reading messages. Regrettably, in many work modes the font size is relatively small, what is more, when reading mail all columns are so crammed that it is impossible to read anything. And this is what makes you sway towards using the communicator mode even more often.
Battery
The back side of the E90 is mostly occupied by the battery cover. The battery is the new 1500 mAh BP-4L providing 5 hours of talk time and up to 14 days of standby. And it does its job very well: one hour of Web browsing or GPS navigation on the large screen with max brightness will only consume one bar (out of seven) on the battery indicator. It's worth mentioning that unlike in 9500, you don't need any special techniques or tools to remove the cover and the battery; now they can be removed quickly and easily. The battery cover is made of meta.
Imaging
3.2 Megapixel camera
Flash
Auto Focus
Camera Settings
Photo Modes
Video Recorder
Video Player
Video Calling
Photo Caller ID
Wallpapers
Screensavers
The Camera on the E90 is a 3.2 Megapixel CMOS with LED flash and autofocus. There is no Carl Zeiss logo on it, but so what? The pictures definitely aren't worse than the ones taken with e.g. Nokia N93, which means that the E90 can replace a basic standalone digicam. Max supported resolution is 2048x1536, which is enough for prints up to 25x20 cm (10x8"). The shutter release button is located on the lower right side of the device. And this is where I have to complain a little bit. The Camera button is very imprecise and doesn't work as it should on an autofocus camera. There should be two clearly distinguishable steps - the first step (pressing the button halfway) to activate autofocus and the second one (all way down) to take a picture. On the E90, however, the Camera button is too soft and you can't clearly feel them. Additionally, only the right side of the button can be pressed while the left side doesn't move at all, which makes the button even harder to use. Because of this, you'll be often pressing it too softly (in this case the camera won't even start focusing) or too hard (it'll take a picture straight away, without properly focusing first). And there are problems in the video recording mode, too. You can never be sure if pressing the button will start/stop recording or not. When watching some of the sample videos available below, you'll hear several static sounds at the end of the clips - it's me pressing the damn button mutiple times, trying to stop the recording, without much success. This hardly working Camera button is probably the worst of the very few annoying things about the E9.
Menu
The small external screen shows only a list of your contacts (first and last name + a small thumbnail on the title bar) as on all S60 smartphones. If you want to see details of a contact, you have to click his/her name, which will open a new screen with full contact information. On the large screen, however, the view is much more advanced and it closely resembles the the look of Contacts application of Series 80 Communicators - the screen is divided into two parts: the list of contacts on the left and contact details preview window on the right. So on the large screen you don't have to click on contact name and open a separate screen to see contact details, you see both the list and the details of a highlighted contact at once. The same rule applies to many other applications, including Calendar (week or month or to-do view on the left, list of entries on the right), Messaging (list of accounts/folders on the left, their contents on the right), File manager (folder tree on the left, folder contents on the right), Media gallery (list of multimedia files on the left, quick preview on the right) and so on. So if you are one of those who were afraid that S60-based Communicator would mean simpler and primitive UI compared to the Series 80 platform, don't worry - only the external UI is the same as on other S60 devices while the internal UI is considerably extended, maybe not exactly the same but coming really close.
The E90 does not have the pull down menu system known from the Series 80 platform. There is also no CBA pane (four soft buttons on the right side of the screen present in all previous Communicators). Instead, like all S60 smartphones, the E90 has two soft buttons (located under the external display and on the right side of the internal screen) serving as shortcuts to applications, function buttons, or menu buttons, depending on application/view and context. Yes, two is less than four so die-hard fans of previous Communicator models may feel a little bit disappointed that now some functions may require two clicks instead of just one but it is a matter of getting used to and I wouldn't say that it compromises functionality in a serious degree. The soft buttons open a menu that pops up in the centre of the display; they can have sub-menus and further sub-items. The only thing that's missing and would certainly make menu operations easier is some sort of Cancel/Back/Escape button that could be used with the left hand.
Personalisation
Just like any other S60 smartphone, the E90 is fully skinnable. What's more, it is also fully compatible with existing S60 themes (though some of them, not scalable and not prepared with the internal screen's resolution in mind, may look ugly). With themes, you can radically change the look of most of UI elements: title/status bars, window backgrounds, color palette, font and font color, ringtones, the look of battery/network indicators, the look of the digital and analog clock shown on the Active standby screen, etc. You can also customize screen wallpapers, screen saver (Flash animations are supported) and the way the main Menu works (grid or list).
GPS and navigation
The E90 is the second (after the N95) S60 3rd Edition smartphone with built-in GPS receiver. As mentioned in the hardware part of this review, it is based on Texas Instruments' NavLink solution. It's not as sensitive or as fast as the most popular SiRF Star III chipset and it requires some patience while you're waiting for it to lock on satellites but overall it performs really well. It usually takes considerably longer than SiRF III based devices to get fix but then it doesn't lose signal even under heavy foliage or if you put the phone in your pocket. I always test new GPS receivers in my car - it has an 'atermic' windscreen covered with a thin metal layer reflecting some wavelengths and, as a side effect, also weakening the GPS signal. Some commercially available receivers fail this test and require an external antenna but I'm happy to announce that the E90 placed under the windscreen or even on the passenger's seat gets fix and navigates without any problems or breaks, so it's not that bad. The GPS receiver of the E90 is also quite power efficient: one hour of navigation on the large screen with backlight on and set to max level only consumes one bar (out of 7) of the battery indicator. The best way to acquire a 'lock' is to stand still; in such case it'll take something between 20 seconds and 2 minutes. If you move, it may even take twice longer. It seems that it doesn't matter if the cover is open or closed so while hiking you can use the smaller external display to see your current position or navigate.
Conclusion
The Nokia E90 Communicator is a 3G Smartphone which provides the user with a mobile office in their pocket. The phone comes with dual screens & dual keypads. The E90 provides the user with a call friendly handset, when in it's closed position as it comes with a 16 million colour screen & a numeric keypad situated externally. The phone can be opened to provided the user with a large 16 million colour screen with a high screen resolution & a full qwerty keyboard. The screens are active matrix type displays with high screen resolutions to provide the user with the perfect viewing displays. The E90 3G Smartphone comes with a integrated GPS which allows the user to locate places of interest easily on their mobile device & supports a map application. The phone comes with a Symbian OS version 9.2 operating system complete with S60 platform edition 3.1. The user can enjoy a high quality mobile productivity on their E90 which comes complete with applications for browsing & editing documents.
