Nokia E90 - The Inital Verdict

[Rafe]

Steve Litchfield reports on two months (off and on) with the Nokia E90, now kitted out with near-production firmware, delivers his verdict on this latest Communicator and looks at exactly who might (or might not) buy it. Steve also includes application screenshots and sample photos in this definitive overview at the E90 and how it measures up.

Read on in the full article.

[krisse]

"It still falls some way short of the full 2007 Flash-infested experience though"

Does the E90 support in-page Flash at all?

The 6290 also has FP1 and the new browser, but coped fine with most Flash pages that I tried it with, actually displaying the flash within the page rather than in a separate app. I had to switch on the in-page flash though, it's off by default. There were a significant number of Flash sites the 6290 couldn't cope with however, including some of Nokia's own.

[Bassey]

Nice summary Steve. It looks like a great device for those who need a good data entry format and can live without a touch-screen. I was slightly curious, though, with regards your comment about push email hitting the battery hard. Push Email has no effect on the battery whatsoever. Granted, there is an occasional "ping" to maintain the network connection (every 15-30 mins) but you are talking about the transmission of a single packet of data. The blinking status LED uses more battery power than that.

Enabling push email should use no more power than, say, setting the device to pull your email every hour or so and, for a lot of people, it could actually save power.

[slitchfield]

I was going by the horror stories I'd heard about running a client for Microsoft Exchange push email on Eseries devices - this seems to be a major souce of battery drain - not so much the data transmision but of the constant processor hit. But then I don't use 'push' at all, anyone able to fill in some details here?

Steve

Excellent review Steve :-)

I'm thinking about the E90's merits against a P990... two completely different beasts, I know - especially when it comes to UI and input.

Can you comment on this?

Word on availability? Also word of N800 availability at retail? (The Nokia online shop is simply impossible!) The 9500 and 9300i had the following flaws: 1) Symbian OS - Unstable compared to Linux - Unable to open multiple browser windows without crash 2) Slow CPU - At least double the speed is required for power users. Is the E90 much faster?

[jah]

Good review Steve. Looking firward to future installments.

@Pythonista - my 9500 is very stable. Which Linux Communicator/Smartphone were you comparing the 9500 to?

[Bassey]

Originally Posted by slitchfield

I was going by the horror stories I'd heard about running a client for Microsoft Exchange push email on Eseries devices - this seems to be a major souce of battery drain - not so much the data transmision but of the constant processor hit. But then I don't use 'push' at all, anyone able to fill in some details here?

Steve

Well, the Exchange Push-Email solution works as I indicated above. A data connection is left open (which consumes no power as GPRS and 3G work on packets so the only time they draw power is when they are transmitting or receiving). The Exchange server pings the phone every once in a while (configured at the Server end, but usually 15-30 mins) but, again, this consumes virtually no power. Then, when data is received by the server it transmits this over the network to the device. So the only power hit is when data is actually transmitted. Or, in other words, it's no worse than going into your inbox and selecting "Send/Receive". Except that selecting Send/Receive consumes power even if there are no mails waiting because it transmits data to log-in, handshake, check the pop box and disconnect.

I suspect the reports of power-drain are from people who are using 3G and are in dodgy reception areas. In which case, the drain comes from the 3G signal constantly dropping and searching and isn't really directly related to push email. They'd get the same drain if they left 3G switched on but didn't have push email enabled.

But I think it's a fairly commonly held misconception that push email drains the battery. After all, it kind of sounds like it should. It's only when you delve into it a little deeper and find out how it works that you realise it's at least as efficient as pull email and usually a little more so.

[Bassey]

Originally Posted by jah

@Pythonista - my 9500 is very stable. Which Linux Communicator/Smartphone were you comparing the 9500 to?

Yeah, I'm no S60 fan but to claim that the Symbian OS is unstable seems a bit of a leap. I've literally never heard anyone claim that before and I owned the very first Symbian powered device and have had several since.

[krisse]

"Also word of N800 availability at retail?"

Don't know if this is exactly what you wanted, but Amazon.co.uk has the N800 in stock at the moment.

Hi,

Could you test Vauhhall Trafficnet to see if it can handle the Flash content in that (not video based).

vauxhall.co.uk/vx/travelandleisure/trafficnet.do?method=loadTrafficNet
Please put http, www at the front (could not post a url)

I find it excellent for spotting any possible traffic hotspots. Currently able to actually run it on my HTC Universal, but it runs out of memory just before it gets to the useful bit.

Would be great if it works on the E90. Paticularly since it has more free ram.

Thanks,

Zuber

Sorry to disagree with bassey, but Ive used the same device with Push email enabled + it totally removed from the device. There is very considerable difference in the battery life between the two.

So whilst I dont know the absolute techiness of the push email system I do know from real life experiance that push email enabled = higher battery drain.

When using pull email its entirely down to how many times you choose to poll the server. In my case it was only 4 or 5 times a day - I'm not a Crackberry type user - and battery life was pretty much as though no email being used - so again push email used considerably more battery than normal email.

[jpfitzp]

Hi Rafe! Hi Steve! Hi folks! Loved the review and your work to date - very informative. I notice from the early review of the E90 scoring is 2 less than the N95 - accepting they are different beasts - given the N95 's challenging battery scenario ,the E90's increased RAM - any thoughts on why the score being less than final N95 score ? I was a Psion user - not enjoying the BB Pearl experience (too cramped) and very excited about carrying this about. Any news on UK networks (who's carrying it) and release date? Thanks again! JP

[krisse]

"I notice from the early review of the E90 scoring is 2 less than the N95 - accepting they are different beasts - given the N95 's challenging battery scenario ,the E90's increased RAM - any thoughts on why the score being less than final N95 score"

Obviously I can't speak for Steve, but IMHO I wouldn't take too much notice of scores, especially if the difference is as small as two percent. As you say, the N95 and E90 are very different beasts and you can't easily compare the scores because they're aimed at fairly different audiences.

Personally I try to score devices and software largely based on how good value for money they are. The E90 is a very expensive smartphone, so if I was reviewing it, it would have to do a lot of things very well to justify that large amount of cash. On the other hand, something like the 6290 is a significantly cheaper smartphone (about 320 euros sim-free) so the technological bar for a high score is much lower as E90 users would rightly demand far more than 6290 users.

Scores are also about how much room for improvement there is, so that if a similar new device or application comes along which makes improvements on the previous one, there's room for a higher score to acknowledge those improvements.

[nj7]

Originally Posted by krisse

"Personally I try to score devices and software largely based on how good value for money they are. The E90 is a very expensive smartphone, so if I was reviewing it, it would have to do a lot of things very well to justify that large amount of cash. On the other hand, something like the 6290 is a significantly cheaper smartphone (about 320 euros sim-free) so the technological bar for a high score is much lower as E90 users would rightly demand far more than 6290 users.

Good point. For the price of E90, is better buy Samsung Q Ultra, UMPC. Is overall a better device, for more or less the same amount of money. And even make calls, because have place for a SIM card.