Ok, I have the absolute greatest wife ever, she got me a white Nokia E72 as a fathers day gift.  I am the luckiest guy ever.  Well here’s my review, I love it for the most part.

The Nokia E72 has a great number of benefits like the

• 3.5mm headphone jack
• The flashlight
• The newer version of Symbian
• A VERY quite keyboard when typing on it
• Many many other benefits.

But it also has some drawbacks

• I don’t like the fact that it doesn’t auto capitalize the letter “I” when typing messages.  It is my biggest annoyance with the device
• It doesn’t have enough RAM
• The build quality isn’t as good as the E71
• The battery life isn’t as long as I would like
• The center of the D pad should be white on the white version of the handset that I have
• My biggest problem with the E72 is that mine is defective.  I wasn’t sure I was going to mention this but I figure I should.  The left soft key on my handset has to be depressed extra hard to make it work properly.

I am madly in love with the idea of this device but I’m not sure it’s a big enough step up from my previous phone the Nokia E71.  If you don’t have an E71 then I think this is a perfect phone but if you have then you may be disappointed.

That being said, I’ll probably get another one anyways.  I do love my Nokias!!!  And I’m proud of it @Ew4n.

So I’ve been a big user of the Ovi Store lately.  It has come a long way in the last few months and I’m very keen on it.  But while I was in Barcelona a few months back I had a meetings about the Ovi Store and voiced my frustration that I couldn’t purchase handsets from it.  I said how silly it was and I thought they were missing out on an untapped market.  Some people don’t have computers and some (like me) don’t have shops to visit to purchase Nokia handsets.  Then it happened…

Last week I was on top of the world.  I had a great day and I was thinking it was time to get a brand new white Nokia E72.  So I actually (knowing it wouldn’t be there) opened the Ovi Store app on my E71 and searched for the E72.  Of course it didn’t appear.  It didn’t even give me a link to go and buy the phone from the Nokia website.  Seriously Nokia, there needs to be a link that appears if I search for any of your phones that will shoot me off to give me a chance to purchase the phone.

So Nokia missed the boat on me.  Sunday morning I was in a bad mood about an email and when I thought about it I was in no mood to spend the money to purchase and E72.  If it was only possible for me to buy the phone somehow via the Ovi App Store they would have made a sale.  And I know I’m only 1 person but how many people do they lose out on in a day/week/month because they can’t buy from their phones?

Now I also know some people will say, “I don’t want a $300-$400 phone on my phone bill”, fine, ask me for a credit card.  I don’t mind.  I’m used to shopping on line and I don’t find my phone to be any less secure then my computer.

I don’t think any of the mobile phone app stores sell handsets and I just don’t get it, not at all.  I can imagine someone dumping their phone in the sink accidentally (I didn’t say toilet because I wanted to be classy) and killing it.  People can’t live without their phones so I would imagine them borrowing a friends phone and buying a new one on the spot, no questions asked.  So Nokia, let’s get the show on the road, it would have been nice to have purchased the E72, but I’ll have to live with my old E71 a little longer.

So I used the E75 for a while then went back to my trusty E71 and back and forth and back and forth for weeks now.  I love the format of my E71 but like the menu and speed of the E75.  Plus the E75 has US 3G and my E71 doesn’t.

I keep telling myself be patient the E72 is coming.  SO WHERE IS IT NOKIA?  We haven’t heard a peep in what feels like months about the E72.  I’m actually getting tempted to buy an iPhone to tide me over until the E72 arrives.

I was told that it should be out around CTIA in San Diego next week.  Well next week is almost here.

Import thing is I’ve been told that emoze and Truphone will both work on the E72.  I would imagine that Nimbuzz and JoikuSpot will also because they work on the E75.  So I’m set in terms of my must have apps.

Now I was told that there would not be a North American version but I was then reminded that probably meant that it wouldn’t be picked up by a provider like AT&T or T-Mobile but that Nokia would still launch it.  My only question is how long will we have to wait for the NAM version?  Nokia has a nasty habit (except for 2 handsets recently) of launching NAM versions weeks or even months after the European variant is made available.  So let’s hope they launch at the same time.

A few reasons I’m so excited about this handset is that it will have the same physical format as the E71.  It will have the upgraded firmware including Feature Pack 2 and have the juiced up processor/RAM.  Lastly because of the 5mp camera and 3.5mm headphone jack.

I’m tapping my fingers on my desk as I wait………

So I just looked up the Nokia E72 on the Nokia website and noticed that it is missing a few things.  First off it won’t have included in the packaging a wrist strap or pouch like the E71 had.  It’s not a huge thing but come on, this is supposed to be a step up from the E71.  I know I know

Second thing is that it is apparently coming in 3 versions, Euro, US and a third I believe is APAC. What’s missing is the 3rd band on all the handsets.  They are all 4band GSM but only 2band 3G according to Nokia Europs Spec page.  Your options are

• E72-1 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 900/2100 HSDPA
• E72-2 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900 HSDPA
• E72-3 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/2100 HSDPA

Now I was under the impression this handset was going to be tri-band 3G.  Am I reading this wrong or or does the HSDPA count as a band?  If so what wave length is it?  I’m just trying to figure out which model to get.

Alert: This just in: I was told my a Nokia employee that we will not see a US/NAM version of the E72 released anytime soon.  I am extremely disappointed about that and don’t really know what to think.  I’m now perplexed what to do and what model to get.

So I’m very excited about the E72.  It’s going to rock, blah blah blah, I can talk about it for hours.  I think it will change a few things for many people.  It looks like your average QWERTY keyboard phone, it will have good email (I use emoze), it will hopefully include Ovi Contacts (but I’ll still download my current favorite IM app called Palringo), the voice quality and speaker phone will be Nokia esqu… great, and it will be an all around solid phone.

Now what I think may change things for people is the 5mp camera built in.  It is not N97 quality but I think people will start to leave their point and shoot cameras at home and start relying more on their phone.  We’re already seeing this but the E72 is the first business class Nokia that will have a 5mp shooter.  It will give people the option to leave their pocket camera at home.  Or in my case leave the N97 or N79 at home.

Do you leave your P&S at home or do you lug around a small camera and a camera phone?  If you do or plan on owning a 5mp camera phone do you think you would leave a pocket camera at home more?  Let me know what you think.

I haven’t written about the E72 on the blog yet because I was waiting for some reviews to come in and now one has, Eldar from Mobile-Review posted his thoughts and I only found it thanks to Stefan at IntoMobile.  Now I’m ready to talk.

The E72 is going to rock and is stepping up Nokias game.  The device it self and the numbers it sells will be good to say the least.  I have been reading and 1 number that jumped out at me recently (I don’t remember where I read it, sorry) was that people are now replacing their smart phones at a rate of once every 14 months on average.  Whether it be by choice or because it got wet in the washing machine etc. it is happening.  That means more people are ready to buy more phones more often.

I have been using the E71 for a while now and I can’t seem to put it down.  I tried reviewing the N97 and E75 and couldn’t keep my sim in either.  It is just an amazing device and I keep telling people how amazed I am because it is a year old and I still keep going back to it.  So now I hear from Eldar that the E72 is even better then the E71 which I suspected it would be.  Nokia doesn’t take the E series lightly.  This means that Nokia is going to sell boat loads of these devices and accross the world it will be the “it” phone to have if you go for a QWERTY keyboard handset.

I think I’m like most people in that I see the E72 as a worthwhile upgrade.  I won’t stick to the E71 if I can get an E72 with a 5mp camera that blows the E71′s paltry 3.2mp (always with a blue tint) camera out of the water.  For me the camera and the feature pack 2 upgrades make the phone worth upgrading for.  At least I won’t have to carry around 2 phones now, 1 for taking pictures and one for everything else.

Anyways, keep your eyes open for the E72 and if you get the chance to pick one up or upgrade to it I highly suggest you do, I don’t think you will be disappointed.  I for one will be getting one as soon as I can.