With Nokia's flagship coming in for a lot of (justified and unjustified) criticism in recent weeks, I've been exploring some of the accusations in detail and acting as counsel for the Nokia E90's defense. What should Nokia put into upcoming firmware, what did they do right already without people 'getting it' and how are they doing on supporting the E90 hardware?

"With hindsight, everyone concerned shouldn't have been surprised at the outpouring of vitriol against the Nokia E90. Tinkering at such a fundamental level with one of the longest-lived and best-loved tech marques was always going to be controversial.

After the initial burst of qualified approval (see my own AAS reviews), Andrew Orlowski, in this Register article, spoke of the E90 as 'Nokia's new Coke' and referred to it also as the 'Cargo Cult Communicator' (not a compliment). I replied in kind at the time, addressing some of the criticisms of the E90's new interface.

Others in Internet forums have been just as critical of the Nokia E90, especially those considered 'power users' of the previous Nokia 9210, 9500 and 9300, pointing out things they can't now do on the E90. In some cases they're right, but in others they've missed the point. I'll hopefully demonstrate both in the bullet points below."

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