Today Nokia announced a new E-series smart phone. It is the successor to the E71 and is named E72. The front of the E72 looks very similar to the E55. The main difference here is the full QWERTY keyboard on the E72 which makes it considerably wider than the E55. The landscape screen and QWERTY keyboard are responsible for the extra width. It is also because of this fact that the E72 is 2.5 mm shorter than the E55 but at the same time it is slightly thicker than the E55.
The design around the d-pad of the E72 is the same as that of the E55 but the major difference is that the E72 has an optical d-pad which should come pretty handy while scrolling through the menus and pages. Besides the brushed metal around their d-pads both the E55 and E72 have a steel frame going around their whole front. The battery covers on both devices are also made out of metal and both use the same battery (1500mAh).
Some major upgrades in the E72 over the E71 and E55 are the 5MP camera with LED flash and the support for up to 10.2Mbps HSDPA. A very nice thing is that the E72’s LED flash can be used as a torch by simply pressing the spacebar. The camera and its LED of the E72 are surrounded by a silver frame. Video recording capabilities seems to be the same on both phones. The hardware platform (CPU+RAM) should also be the same.
Even though both devices are based on the same software (Symbian S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2) the E72 will have a range of new software improvements over the current devices. The E72 will be available in the 3rd quarter of this year and at a price of 350€ without taxes and subsidies. Therefore it will cost about 100€ more than the E55.
Overall the E72 seems to have better hardware and software than the E55 but it will come with a price. Besides that the E72 should also appear later in the market than the E55.
To get more info on the new E72 please visit the official Nokia Forum.
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