After 2 weeks with the Nokia E90, I’m ready to give my review divided in a few parts. For the first part of the Nokia E90 review, I explore its physical aspects. In the end, I like the Nokia E90’s excellent build quality, but frustrated with the camera button. Thanks to Expansys for providing the E90.

If you haven’t yet, take a look at my Nokia E90 introduction where I took a video of the Nokia E90’s hardware.

Monster Size

My first impressions right after opening the box was, “wow, this is big!” According to the specs, it weighs 214g (7.5oz) and measures 133.5mm x 57.5mm x 20.5mm (5.3″ x 2.3″ x .8″). Let’s compare that with the Nokia N95 8GB measuring at 99mm x 53mm x 21mm. Even though the Nokia E90 is big and heavy in specs, it feels good to hold in the hands.

Nokia E90 vs Nokia N95 8GB size comparison

An issue is where to carry the phone. Placing the Nokia E90 in the jeans pocket is possible, but you certainly feel its weight and size. The bulge is noticeable, so don’t even try it on tight-fitting jeans.

Exterior.

On the outside, we see a 2in. display with the resolution of 240×320 pixels. Unlike other phones using secondary displays with dumbed down features, the Nokia E90 delivers a fully working one. The exterior keypads provides perfect tactile feedback to the fingers when pressed. You can feel a nice clicking movement after each press.

A 3.2 megapixel camera is placed on the back below the speakers and above the battery cover. The flat surface is protected by 4 rubber corners similar to what we see on laptops to raise it a few millimeters. I like the microSD card slot cover. You pull it down and then it raises by spring mechanism.

Nokia E90 microSD slot

On the side are buttons for the camera and the voice recorder. Unlike Nseries phones, holding down the camera button will not open the camera application. I also have another complaint about the camera button. Even though the Nokia E90 supports autofocus, doing the “half-way press” is a hit or miss! This button ruins the experience of taking pictures.

Open Position.

Opening the Nokia E90 feels nice. Nokia must have concentrated on the hinges really well because it works great. When you open the Nokia E90, you feel it snap into place at the 90 degree angle. You can then move it a little more or until it is completely flat.

The 4in. display with 800×352 pixel resolution is great for browsing the web compared to phones with smaller screens. Most webpages fit the whole width of the screen. This requires less left and right scrolling. There’s also 5 brightness levels that you can control right from the keyboard. I choose the max brightness. Selecting any of the lower levels are too dim in my opinion.

Plenty of shortcuts are available on the qwerty keyboard and users are given two to point to their preferred app. This makes it really quick to open up applications. Unfortunately, the keyboard inside does not have the same tactile feedback as the exterior keypad. It feels harder to press. It’s not a big deal, but I sometimes find myself going backwards to reinsert a letter.

Nokia E90 Keyboard

I feel the keyboard might be too big. I have to extend my thumb to reaching for the letters Y, H, and N or if I’m trying the Ctl+C and Control+V for copy and pasting. On a positive note, the Shift, Control, and Chr buttons are really useful. It really makes the Nokia E90 feel like a laptop. Numbers, punctuation keys, and other functions are easier to access than non-qwerty keypads.

Conclusion

The Nokia E90’s build quality is excellent. Opening or closing the Nokia E90 feels great. The size might discourage people, but having a full-featured keyboard is probably more important to those interested in the device. People will like also the wide screen display for browsing the web. However, I have a problem with the camera button and the qwerty keypad. In the next part of the Nokia E90 review, I’ll be exploring and reviewing more into the functions.