Hands-on with Nokia's E90 smartphone

It's big, it's bold, and it's got just about every feature you could ask for in a business-minded smartphone. Unfortunately, Nokia's E90 clamshell has a monster price tag to go along with it.

Before we get started with the tour, let's get one thing straight—this is a $1,099 phone we're talking about here. Take a moment to let that sink in. You could buy a laptop for the price of this thing. Of course, remember that this is Nokia, maker of the $750 N95 slider, one of the hottest phones I saw last year.

Anyway, still reading? Good, because the E90 packs in some serious horsepower within its hefty clamshell form-factor. And hefty is the word for it—the handset weighs in at nearly seven-and-a-half ounces, and measures about 5.2 by 2.2 by 0.8 inches. Make no mistake—the E90 is a brick.

But if you think of the E90 as more of a business companion with phone capabilities than, say, a "phone first" device, it starts to make more sense.

The outside flip comes with a sharp-looking, two-inch LCD, with a standard numeric keypad and a four-way navigation pad beneath. Standard stuff.

Opening the phone, however, reveals a massive (by smartphone standards, at least) four-inch display and a generous, full-QWERTY keypad. Typing on the E90 is a breeze thanks to the wide, flat keys, and I especially appreciated the dedicated row of number keys (many other phone QWERTY keypads make the number keys share space with the top row of letters). Also nice: the row of one-touch function keys that jump you to your contacts, messaging, Web browsing, events, and the main "desk" menu.

Running on the Symbian Series 60 OS, the E90 makes for one of the few phones I'd actually use as a serious document editor. Armed with QuickOffice, the handset lets you open and edit Word and Excel files—and thanks to the jumbo-sized display and keypad, editing or even composing a Word document is actually a doable enterprise.

Messaging on the E90 is, naturally, also a pleasure, and with a little help from third-party apps like RoadSync, you can sync up the handset to corporate Exchange servers.

The E90 comes with on-board GPS plus turn-by-turn directions, as well as a media player, and FM radio, a 3.2M camera, Nokia's top-notch Web browser (second only to Safari on the iPhone, in my opinion), Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth (for wireless headsets and file transfers).

Unfortunately, while the EDGE-enabled E90 is capable of 3G, it will only work on European 3G data networks. That said, there's a good chance we'll see a version of the E90 geared for U.S. HSDPA carriers (such as AT&T).

So, nice though it may be, is the E90 really worth $1,100? Well, only if your boss is footing the bill—although if you look online, you'll find it on sale for about $800. The good news? The E90 is sold unlocked, so you can use it with any GSM carrier (like AT&T or T-Mobile).

Related:
Product page [Nokia]