Nokia E5 Qwertyphone

Maps, snaps and office apps

Focal point

The main changes are a space bar – which now stretches the width of four keys rather than two – and the removal of the E72's optical trackpad in favour of a more traditional navpad. No bad thing in my book, as I found the E72's pad too skittish. Under the hood, you will find a 600MHz ARM chip with 256MB of RAM – up from 128MB in the E72 – which means the E5 runs fast and can multi-task without slowing.

Home screen

Main menu

The camera boasts the same 5Mp count as the E72 but is a fixed-focus unit. As far as basic phone cameras go the E5's is adequate but nothing more and the absence of a macro mode means shooting targets less than half a metre away is pretty pointless. The E5 lacks the 72's front facing VGA camera, but that is hardly a loss.

Keep your distance: only fixed focus shooting on this camera
Click for a full-resolution image

Click for a full-resolution image

The E5 uses the S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 OS which, though looking a little long in the tooth, has the benefit of being familiar and reliable. It also caters for most business needs with an excellent phone book, support for multiple e-mail accounts, Lotus Notes Traveler and Microsoft Exchange and Office Communicator. Nokia also bundles a fully functioning installation of Quick Office.

Quick Office WP

Web browsing

The screen is a 2.4in, 320 x 240 affair which lacks the E72's 16m colour palette and accelerometer, but works well in direct sunlight. Web pages are rendered well and easy to navigate using the D-pad, but browsing on a 2.4in screen is an inherently underwhelming experience, even with Flash.