Nokia’s E90 Communicator handset provides mobile email and office tools in a device about the size and shape of a spectacle case. It offers 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS, but its user interface may prove confusing to those more used to Windows, and its Wi-Fi support seems to have been added as an afterthought.

Announced in February and due to ship this quarter, the E90 is the latest in a long line of Communicator models, but now forms part of Nokia’s E-series devices aimed at enterprise buyers. As in previous models, it can make calls like a standard phone but can also be used to edit Office documents as well as access email. The new model supports 3G wireless networks for the first time, while keeping the Wi-Fi support added in the 9500.

When closed up, the E90 resembles a large candybar phone with a colour screen and numeric keypad. When open, the device reveals a second, landscape screen and a qwerty keyboard for easier access to its built-in applications.

The E90 runs Nokia’s Series 60 Third Edition platform, which is based on Symbian OS 9.2, and presents a standard phone-like display with a ribbon of icons to access functions, including messaging, clock and the device’s 3.2 megapixel camera at the rear of the case. A menu key provides access to further applications and device settings.

When closed, the E90 can be used like an ordinary phone. It has a standard five-way navigator key surrounded by call/hangup buttons and the menu key. Two
buttons beneath the display are for context-sensitive functions, plus a standard numeric keypad. Although the device looks and feels a little oversized compared with many standard phones, it can easily be held to your ear to make voice calls.

Most of the E90’s applications can be accessed with the device closed up, even the Quickoffice productivity tools, thanks to the external screen, which fits a 240x320 pixel display into its 2in size. Keying in text is somewhat laborious this way, however, so most users are likely to just make voice calls and send SMS messages with the device shut, but open it up for easier access to applications.

Opened up, the phone switches to its second screen, a 4in letterbox display with a resolution of 800x352 pixels. The screen is attached by a very sturdy hinge mechanism that allows the display to be set in a number of positions, so the E90 can be used like a laptop or opened right up so the screen is flat against a horizontal surface. A second camera next to the screen enables the E90 to make video calls, but this feature requires the user to be connected to a 3G network.

The keys on the E90’s qwerty keyboard are arranged in a grid, and we found it relatively easy to type using thumbs while cradling the device in both hands. The size of the keys makes text entry slow, however, and we found it no quicker to sit the unit on a flat surface and type using fingers.

The keyboard also has a number of dedicated keys to access some functions, such as the web browser. There is also a smaller version of the 5-way navigator control found on the outside of the device.

The user interface of the E90 makes the most commonly accessed functions easily accessible, but other functions, such as configuration screens, are randomly distributed throughout the menu system, and we had to constantly shuffle backwards and forwards through folders when testing the device.

Nokia’s web browser renders many web pages as they might be viewed in a PC browser, but the controls leave a little to be desired, and seem to require the user to go through menu options merely to step back to the previous page. Pages are also slow to load when using a standard GPRS mobile connection, which is the way most users will use the device unless they are near a Wi-Fi hotspot or a large city with 3G network coverage.

When using Wi-Fi, we ran into a problem we also encountered when testing Nokia’s E61 smartphone last year. The device seemed unable to detect hidden access points (those not broadcasting their SSID) when scanning for available WLANs, and had difficulty connecting even if we manually entered the access point settings into the connection list. Even when connected, our review unit proved unreliable and regularly dropped the Wi-Fi connection while we were using it.

Nokia ships the device with a voice-over-IP client capable of making internet calls using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This should allow workers to route calls via Wi-Fi instead of the cellular network if their firm has an IP telephony infrastructure, but we were unable to test this because of the problems we had with the E90’s Wi-Fi.

Another feature we were unable to test fully is the device’s GPS support. The E90 was unable to obtain a GPS fix whenever we tried this feature. Nokia provides a Maps application that supports route planning using GPS, as well as access to location-based services.

Other applications provided on the E90 include the Quickoffice suite, which enables workers to view and edit documents in Word, Excel and PowerPoint format. There is also an Acrobat PDF Reader and a Zip archive manager tool, plus a client for Nokia’s Intellisync device management tool to allow administrators to remotely configure and lock down the E90.

The E90 weighs 210g, twice the weight of a standard phone handset. It does seem to have a good battery life, however, quoted as up to 5.8 hours talktime and up to 14 days on standby. We found the battery indicator level dropped slowly even when we spent hours with Wi-Fi switched on while trying to connect to an access point.

The E90 has 128MB internal memory free for user data and applications, plus a microSD memory card slot on its bottom edge for Flash cards up to 2GB.