Nokia E90 Communicator

Nokia E90 is “long awaited” would be an understatement. One of the weaknesses of the Nokia 9500 and the Nokia 9300 devices derived from it was a lack of 3G support, and the E90 now adds that. But it’s more that just a port of the old Communicator platform to 3G, the Nokia E90 also adds a GPS receiver and integrated navigation application, a 3.2 megapixel camera, FM radio and a significantly improved screen. As with the 9500, the Nokia E90 retains WiFi support and has a full QWERTY keyboard (although the keyboard has been improved in the E90).

The Communicator series of devices have always had the unfortunate nickname of “the brick”, and the Nokia E90 continues in that tradition. At a hefty 210 grams, the E90 is actually 20 grams lighter than the 9500, but 38 grams heavier than the 9300i. Nokia have done a remarkable job with size though - when viewed from the front (see left), the E90 is about the height and thickness of the compact 9300/9300i while retaining the same width as the 9500 at 132 x 57 x 20mm.

The E90 bears the “Communicator” name for a reason, and it comes with a wide range of communications options. Email support includes standard SMTP/POP3 protocols, various push email options, instant messaging and it even comes with a text-to-speech reader. Network support is quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) plus 2100 MHz UMTS (3G), GPRS and EDGE. Significantly, the Nokia E90 does include HSDPA support allowing for download speeds of up to 3.6Mbit/sec. On top of this the E90 comes with 802.11g WiFi. It’s hard to fault the E90 in terms of the networks it supports, but one omission is the ability to work with UMTS networks on anything other than the 2100 MHz band, which limits its 3G use in the US and some other countries.

Nokia E90 Communicator Specification:
Network:GSM 850/900/1800/1900 + UMTS 2100
Data:GPRS + EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSDPA + WiFi
Screen:800×352 pixels, 16m colours (main), 240×320 pixels, 16m colours (sub)
Camera:3.2 megapixels (main), 0.1 megapixels (sub)
Size:Large-wide clamshell, 132 x 57 x 20mm / 210 grams
Bluetooth:Yes
Memory card:MicroSD
Infra-red:Yes
Polyphonic:Yes
Java:Yes
Battery life:5 hours talk / 14 days standby

One very significant change from the 9500 is under the hood. This is a Symbian S60 (Series 60) smartphone, rather than the Series 80 operating system on the 9500 and 9300. Although this seems like a step backwards (because Series 80 was written specifically for this type of device), S60 support gives E90 users access to a much wider range of applications. Nokia 9500 users should adjust quickly to the new interface.

On top of all the other features, the Nokia E90 Communicator is also a multimedia phone, with support for MP3 and AAC audio plus video clips. There’s even an FM radio. Data and media clips can be stored on microSD cards with a maximum capacity of 2GB.

Another important feature is the Nokia E90 Communicator’s inbuilt GPS function. This allows for more than just basic location-based services, as Nokia are going to make it’s “Nokia Maps” application available. Although this seems to be a free SatNav (satellite navigation) package, it’s worth remembering that a lot of the value added features require a network connection which might incur data costs.

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