Nokia E52 review: E as in Exceptional





Eseries seem to have been around forever: grown-up, confident and reliable. It's a small but solid lineup that's gone a long way from a fairly late start. Perhaps they've got a point: the business Finns are not running against the clock to discover, but look always on the spot to deliver. Eseries are less likely to obsess fans really - they're more into serving customers. And here they go again: the Nokia E52 looks well set to reward that once an Eseries, always an Eseries user attitude.

We've come to take the lethal dress code for granted, and the E52 brings a welcome speed and stamina boost to the family. The 600 MHz CPU couldn't have been more at home in that razor sharp stainless steel outfit.

Compelling exterior and strong performance are the textbook definition of the business range of handsets where Nokia are clearly the standard-setters. The E52 in turn, appears to be the standard measure for business value - you pay for an entry level Eseries and get top-of-the-line smartphone treatment. Did anybody say bestseller?

Key features

• Compact metallic body and extra slim girth (9.90mm)
• Quad-band GSM support
• 3G with HSDPA 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2 Mbps
• 2.4" 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
• Symbian OS, S60 UI with FP2
• 600 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB RAM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology, DLNA support
• Built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS support, digital compass
• Accelerometer for screen auto-rotation and turn-to-mute
• One-touch shortcut keys mean "business"
• 3 megapixel enhanced fixed focus camera with LED flash
• Secondary videocall camera
• 60 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion, ships with a 1GB card
• microUSB v2.0
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
• FM radio with RDS
• Class-leading audio output quality
• N-Gage gaming support
• Ovi Maps preinstalled with trial turn-by-turn navigation license (10 days)
• User-friendly Mode Switch for swapping two homescreen setups
• Office document editor (with free MS Office 2007 update)
• Remote lock/wipe over-the-air
• Comfortable keypad
• Smart dialing
• Great battery life

Main disadvantages

• Disappointing camera features and performance
• Video recording maxes out at VGA@15fps
• No DivX or XviD support (can be installed, possibly requiring a purchase)
• No TV-out functionality