e5 or e72?

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pcelbau

New member
I'm happy with my e63, but want 2100mhz 3g (for tmobile in the US and for Europe) and built-in GPS. The best alternatives seem the e72 (about $250) and the e5 (about $200).

I mainly care about web browsing and maps (Google or Ovi). I'd also use the phone to play music and Mail for Exchange to sync my google calendar.

The main advantage to the e72 seems to be a better screen and keyboard.

Which seems better for me?

Alternatives tend to be more expensive or have features I don't use (such as email clients, threaded texting).
 
The AWS bands (TMobile US) are different from the 2100MHz bands in Europe. e72 does not support the AWS bands, but the E73 does...
 
I've owned both phones. The E72 for about a month in April. And the E5 for the last 5 days. Both phones a have their good points and bad points.

For me the camera is the deal breaker for me on both phones. On the E72, the optical trackpad made it difficult to focus and activate the shutter. (yes I know it can be disabled, but then the it makes navigating through everything else more difficult) On the E5, the camera is standard fixed focus, instead of Nokia's enhanced fixed focus. Pictures tend to come out somewhat fuzzy, instead of having crisp. Makes it impossible to take pictures of anything other than landscape, in perfect lighting.

The screen is the biggest difference, I would recommend the E72 over the E5. For one, the E5 washes out when used outdoors. But, the E5's screen can also be hard to view at an angle.

They both share the same processor, but the E5 has 256mb of RAM and 250mb or onboard storage. The E72 only has 128mb or RAM and the same storage. The E5 seems to run a little smoother than the E72, even with transition effects turned on. I don't feel there is a huge difference in the speed of webpages loading. But that may be due to network speeds.

They E72 has a larger battery (1500mAh) than the E5 (1200 mAh). Even with the same processor, the E5 claims to give 25% more battery life than the E72. I can't confirm this yet, since I haven't had my E5 long enough. I do recall being able to get almost 3 days from my E72.

In my opinion the keyboards are pretty much the same. I actually like the menu key layout on the E5. The E72 seemed to be a little cramped.

The battery cover on the E72 can be a problem for some. It would fall off too easily. So, what does Nokia do? They made the the cover on the E5 too difficult to remove.

After owning the E5, I may actually go back to the E72. I've gotten used to using just the Dpad on the E5. Or I may just wait to see how the E7 performs. Either way, I don't see owning the E5 into December.
 
I don't really care about the phone's camera - I usually carry a compact camera.

It sounds as if the e5 is better, other than the screen, but the difference in the screen is enough for you to prefer the e72. Am I reading you correctly?
 
I own a E72 but just upgraded to a Nokia N8. The E72 is an ok phone, it has good battery life and ovi maps is solid. Browsing the web on it his HORRIBLE!! the built in is what it is, it has trouble with large pages thats no secret. Opera Mobile 10 RULES, but the E72 doesn't have enough memory to browse much of anything ( just load up hofo in opera mini and POW out of memory error ). I would think the E5 would make a better phone given it's increase in memory, or perhaps if you can find a E71 with the appropriate frequencies it might make a better phone.

I have only had the N8 for a few days so far but I can say it dominates the E72 in every single aspect ( except perhaps battery life ), it's GPS locks faster, the speaker is louder ( another beef with the E72 is i cannot hear it's speaker in the car ), the mail integration is better, the camera is better.. it can browse the web without out of memory errors.. basically it can do it all.

If you want a hardware keyboard you might want to wait to grab a E7 when they come out, S^3 is years ahead of S60v5 that the E72 is sporting.
 
The main problem with the e63/72/5 for web browsing is screen size. Unless a site is designed for mobile devices, reading web pages can be a challenge. Opera mini 5.1 beta loads hofo (including this thread) with no issue on the e63. Can the e72 or e5 be that different from the e63 for browsing?

My main use is while travelling. Google maps can tell me where I am and how to get where I'm going. Google maps or the web can find restaurants, museums, etc. in the area, ratings, hours, etc. I can use the phone as a wifi hotspot with joikuspot, so that I can use an ipod touch for browsing. I also use the phone for walking around music if I'm not using an ipod or touch.

The n8 and e7 are overkill for my needs.
 
E72 doesn't run S60v5. It runs the same S60v3 fp2 as the E5. There are a few added features in the E5 as far as OS. The N8 and the E72/E5 are completely different form factors. As much as I would like to recommend the n8, I'm going to wait a couple of months before I try it.

I bought my E5 on ebay for $169 shipped. It was brand new, but had no box or owners manual. But, for the price, I figured I would give it a try.

The screen is going to be a personal preference. I'm not sure if its the screen or the factory screen cover that is causing problems on the E5. I was going to take it off and replace it with a different one, but since the camera quality is a bigger problem for me, I haven't done it.

If E5 had the E72 screen and camera, I would definately go with the E5. Save the extra $75 to $100. for something else.
 
sorry got my OS wrong :) v5 is the touch from the 5800 and such. The E5 would probably be much better ( heard it has more RAM? ).. that said I've never used it.. I can say the E72 is quite hobbled due to it's lack of RAM. If you only do maps + email and music it should be fine it's really once I fired up opera or web that things went to pot with it. the speaker on it is kinda weak ( My previous nokia's recent nokia's are E70, N82, N95-3, and 5800, they ALL have a more powerful speaker ). The sound output from the 3.5mm jack is nice and clean and the bluetooth works good.

I stand by my N8 being much better ( even in it's early state ), I was going to wait for a price drop to buy it but after months of frustration with the E72 I just ordered the N8. The onscreen keyboard isn't as nice as having a hardware keyboard.. but thats just a matter of getting used to it i figure. I used my phone as a do it all device I travel for work ( around 40% of the year ) and don't like to carry so many devices with me, the N8 makes it's maiden voyage to the US tomorrow I'm looking forward to the 3G on Tmobile :)

EDIT: The E72 would have cost advantages and battery life advantage thats about it, I think the E71 is worth investigating, I haven't looked in awhile but I within a few weeks of getting the 72 I wished I had just gotten the 71 and saved myself 100+$ instead. The only stickler would be is if it has the free ovi maps which for me is a big deal, but if you don't use it it doesn't matter so much i guess. it also doesn't have the 3.5mm jack if you wanted to use headphones with it.
 
Display: The E71 doesn't support the 2100MHz band that was the original requirement or I'd recommend the same. The screen on the E72 is much better than E5 and even the E71. It's brighter and more vibrant. The E5 has a 256k color display while the E72 has a 16 million color display, this is why the E5 seems washed out compared to E72. Advantage E72.

Browser: Browsing experience, as mentioned, will be similar due to the same size/resolution screens on all devices mentioned. The faster processor on the E72/E5 will make loading much quicker, however the E5's 256MB of RAM will allow pages to load without RAM errors. The E72 gets RAM errors quite a bit depending on the complexity of the web site (Engadget). Advantage E5.

Price: Advantage E5.

Camera: The 5MP cam on the E72 has auto focus and will take better pics than E5 through auto focus on the optical pad can be awkward for sure. I haven't seen any pics or used the E5 to comment but I used to get decent pics from my 2MP fixed focus E70 in decent light.

GPS: Lock times should be identical and both come with Ovi Maps free navigation and both will run Google Maps easily. Draw.

Mail for Exchange: Both have integrated and can be used to sync Google calendar/contacts. Draw.

Both have 3.5mm headset jack for listening to music and both can run Joiku Spot for WiFi tethering.
 
From your post and qwerty123456's, it seem the e72 has browser problems. This seems odd to me, since I never have these problems with the e63, which has only 110mb of ram. Perhaps the OS or something takes up more room in the e72.

Good summary
 
Must be the OS or something :) I would compensate in the browsing by turning off images in both opera and the built in. Also I do most of my browsing via google reader which seems to compress or pre-filter the resulting links so they don't have as many non-mobile friendly things in them.
 
That's exactly it. The E63 and E71 with S60v3 FP1 has more free RAM than the E72 does with FP2. So while the faster 600MHz processor of the E72 loads web pages more quickly (much faster than the 369MHz proc of the E63/E71) it runs out of RAM on heavy pages. Disabling the automatic loading of flash and disabling Java may help out a lot but I haven't tried this. Mobile pages work very well though. The extra RAM in the E5 likely allows the web browser to operate more freely without closing background apps.
 
It comes down to screen and camera. E72 wins in picture quality and better screen. If those things are not important, then the E5 wins in every other category. The other thing that a I haven't seen with my E5 is a random reboot/freeze. My E72 would freeze or reboot every other day.

On a side note, the battery seems to be holding up as well as the E72. all my phones go into offline mode at 10pm and back to normal at 8am to save battery. but I haven't had my phone on a charger since Saturday night and I'm at 50% battery. (if the bars are correct)
 
Yeah, it comes down to what is important to each individual user. For me the camera is the deal breaker here. I could probably get used to the screen, but switching between my N86's AMOLED Screen and the E5's its a big difference. I really like everything else about the phone, considering the price. A few years ago, a phone with all these features would have cost twice as much. I look forward Nokia's other S60V3 phones, especially if they are going to use faster processors and more ram.

Now I need to decide if I should sell the E5 or wait for a FW update to see if the camera will be tweaked.
 
Yes - it seems for me the trade-off is screen v. stability (and price). I suspect I'd have an easier time getting used to the screen than random crashes. An E72 with a bit more ram would be ideal, which is too bad considering the cost of 128mb of ram.
 
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