E as in Exceptional-Nokia E52

Introduction

Eseries seem to have been around forever: grown-up, confident and reliable. It's a small but solid lineup that's gone a long way from a fairly late start. Perhaps they've got a point: the business Finns are not running against the clock to discover, but look always on the spot to deliver. Eseries are less likely to obsess fans really - they're more into serving customers. And here they go again: the Nokia E52 looks well set to reward that once an Eseries, always an Eseries user attitude.

Nokia E52 official photos

We've come to take the lethal dress code for granted, and the E52 brings a welcome speed and stamina boost to the family. The 600 MHz CPU couldn't have been more at home in that razor sharp stainless steel outfit.

Compelling exterior and strong performance are the textbook definition of the business range of handsets where Nokia are clearly the standard-setters. The E52 in turn, appears to be the standard measure for business value - you pay for an entry level Eseries and get top-of-the-line smartphone treatment. Did anybody say bestseller?

Key features

• Compact metallic body and extra slim girth (9.90mm)
• Quad-band GSM support
• 3G with HSDPA 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2 Mbps
• 2.4" 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
• Symbian OS, S60 UI with FP2
• 600 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB RAM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology, DLNA support
• Built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS support, digital compass
• Accelerometer for screen auto-rotation and turn-to-mute
• One-touch shortcut keys mean "business"
• 3 megapixel enhanced fixed focus camera with LED flash
• Secondary videocall camera
• 60 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion, ships with a 1GB card
• microUSB v2.0
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
• FM radio with RDS
• Class-leading audio output quality
• N-Gage gaming support
• Ovi Maps preinstalled with trial turn-by-turn navigation license (10 days)
• User-friendly Mode Switch for swapping two homescreen setups
• Office document editor (with free MS Office 2007 update)
• Remote lock/wipe over-the-air
• Comfortable keypad
• Smart dialing
• Great battery life

Main disadvantages

• Disappointing camera features and performance
• Video recording maxes out at VGA@15fps
• No DivX or XviD support (can be installed, possibly requiring a purchase)
• No TV-out functionality

We guess you know what to expect from the Eseries and, in a way, the Nokia E52 is the most predictable of them business smartphones. It is a 3rd generation handset so to speak, and the straightforward linear progression from E50 and E51 should tell the whole story. Screen size, FP 2, GPS and system speed make the E52 a done deal for upgraders. But even users who consider it overqualified will find it hard to ignore.

The Nokia E52 live shots

Think big, act fast and look sharp is what Eseries have always stood for but there's something about the E52 that seemed to make our knees weak. It's the traditional Eseries styling - bold, confident but conservative enough to safely rule out uncontrollable displays of emotion. Still, the E52 must've hit the right spot and its commanding appeal is hard to define but hard to deny. So we'd better move on before we got too soft, and see if the ergonomics are on par or if they have been sacrificed for looks.

Unboxing fails to impress

The retail package of Nokia E52 is quite to the point really but there are a few of things missing compared to the Nokia E66 for example.

For one, the 2GB microSD card is replaced with 1 GB, while the stylish leather carrying case is omitted. The leather carrying strap is also gone missing but we won't hold that against the E52.

We've seen better retail packages in the Eseries

At least there is a microUSB cable (unlike the package of E63) and a one-piece handsfree on top of the mandatory charger. There's also a user manual and this time the computer sync software is supplied on the memory card - nice! It's just as easy to download it off the company website anyway.

Nokia E52 360-degree spin

Nokia E52 stands at 116 x 49 x 9.9 mm and has a volume of 54 cc, which makes it extremely pocketable and remarkably comfortable to handle. Back in its day, the Nokia E71 was the slimmest smartphone on the market but now the E52 claims the top spot, which it shares with the Toshiba TG01 touchscreen monster. The Nokia E55 is also about to hit the sweet 9.9mm any time now.

Even with such a slim body, the Nokia E52 is only 2 grams short of 100 which gives it a really pleasant solid feel. The extensive use of metal is certainly responsible for that and we are pretty happy Nokia chose to continue this trend with yet another Eseries handset.

Design and construction

Eseries seem to always have the first pick from the Nokia selection of outfits. The Arte lineup is of course excluded but we guess Nseries users have every right to envy the special treatment the business smartphones are getting. The Nokia E52 adopts the unmistakable Eseries design language but speaks it with a voice of its own. The purist styling and durable materials on a remarkably slim and solid piece of gear do make the E52 our favorite in the family so far.

The metal accents on the handset's body are a nice thing too see, and they boost both looks and durability. This time even the keys below the display are metal for an extra nice feel to navigating the handset.

The grooved surface of the rear cover has quite a raw and industrial feel which makes the otherwise slim and refined handset even more poised and convincing. The front is keen to reply with a glossy silvery frame enclosing the dark graphite navigation deck and numpad.

The E52 is available in three different colors - Metal Grey Aluminium, Golden Aluminium, Graphite Grey. No doubt the Golden one will have its fans as well, but the Graphite unit we reviewed had us greatly impressed.

The earpiece of Nokia E52 is placed at the top of the front panel, flanked by the ambient light sensor and the video-call camera.

The etched earpiece has a stylish metallic frame

Below is the 2.4" 16M-color QVGA display. Its quality is quite pleasing with great contrast and brightness for a really vibrant image. In QVGA terms that is - the E52 is hardly up to scratch with high-res displays that are becoming more and more common. Yet it's quite hard to find a modern phone bigger, higher-res display in a bar-shaped handset in this segment.

On a positive note, the Nokia E52 screen offers the uncompromised sunlight legibility, which is a company trademark. No matter how bright the sun outside, you can always read the display comfortably.

Continuing our journey down the front of the handset we come upon the metallic D-pad. It's large and comfortable enough to use, just like the 8 keys surrounding it. They all offer nice tactile feedback and the metallic finish on most of them is an added bonus.

Essentially, the D-pad and two rocker-styled controls nicely project over a brushed metallic deck that accommodates the two soft keys and the Call and End buttons. The rockers host the menu key and backspace, along with the two typical Eseries one-touch shortcut keys. The latter can be used as shortcuts to four applications of your choice - two handled by short presses, the other two by a press and hold. Their default function is visualized by an icon.

Even some of the keys are metallic this time

Next comes the Nokia E52 alphanumeric keypad which easily ranks among the best standard numpads we've used. The keys are large, with distinct borders and great touch orientation. Press feedback levels are also commendable and, while the terraced layout of the E66 still beats it by a small margin, it is an excellent keypad too.

The keypad is very comfortable

The white backlighting is strong and pleasing to make the E52 perfect to handle in the dark.

The backlighting is nice and even

The 3.5mm standard audio jack and the power button are at the top of the Nokia E52. This time we are talking a normal button (maybe a bit small but with a distinct press), rather than the unfortunate red knob on the Nokia E71 and E66.

The 3.5mm standard audio jack and the power key on top

The microUSB port is on the left side of the handset. It has no protective cover (unlike the E71) to prevent it from getting dust in. By the way the audio jack is exposed too.

There's no protection for the microUSB slot • There's hardly anything going on at the bottom

On the right side of the Nokia E52 we come upon the two volume keys, the voice command key and the dedicated shutter key. They are all a bit small for our taste but the nice press makes up for that. Back in Nokia E51 there was no dedicated camera key at all, so we welcome its addition here.

The Eseries trademark three key combo and the shutter key are on the right side

Design and construction (continued)

The steel back cover of Nokia E52 is a certainly one of its best parts. Furthermore, unlike previous generation Eseries handsets it is perfectly immune to fingerprints. There's no way to get it greasy like the E71 or E66.

The E52 looks a treat from the back

Reraside we find the 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera lens (presumably of the enhanced sort), along with a LED flash. The specs alone hint that imaging is yet again bottom of the priority list but we will get back to that in more detail later on.

The 3MP shooter has no autofocus • the loudspeaker grill is right next to the camera lens.

A nice little latch at the base of the battery cover allows you to release it quickly and easily. The all-metal part pops out, earning another point for the device in the process. Under the cover we find the microSD card slot and the massive 1500 mAh Li-Ion BP-4L battery.

Pressing this button releases the battery cover

With a power plant like this one, the Nokia E52 is said to last 672 hours of stand-by or 8 hours of talk time and that's more than impressive. We can confirm more than three days of some really heavy usage and there's hardly a contemporary smartphone outside the Eseries that can pull that of.

An impressive battery by all means

In case you haven't guessed it yourselves already, let's point something out - the Nokia E52 is flawlessly built just like the Nokia 6700 classic. The phone looks great all over and is one of those few that really manage to impress our team so much. A joy to have around, the handset is equally comfortable to use. Splendid ergonomics, durability and hot looks make a perfect mix.

The Nokia E52 is sure to impress and deliver

User interface: classic Symbian with FP 2

Nokia E52 runs on Symbian 9.3 OS with the Series60 3rd Edition user interface. It has Feature Pack 2 like the E75side-slider and upcoming devices like the E55 and E72.

More importantly though, the Nokia E52 is powered by a 600 MHz CPU. In Symbian terms, that's a lot, not even Nokia's current flagship - the N97 - can match it.

Nokia E52 runs on Symbian S60 3.2 much like Nokia E75

The E52 comes with the new S60 icons for a pinch of 5th edition (touch) styling. The interface can freely rotate to landscape mode thanks to the accelerometer, which also offers silencing calls and snoozing the alarm by flipping your phone over.

The accelerometer sensor has a number of settings

The phone's main menu has two view modes: a 4 x 3 grid of icons and a list. However, with the E52 you cannot opt for having animated icons like on some other Nokia phones. This is probably just another way of reiterating the specific business focus of the phone. At least the font size is widely configurable depending on your preferences and thanks to the Font.

The main menu has two view modes

Inside the main menu, the circle next to the icon of a running application is a well known Symbian indication reminding users to quit unwanted applications that are still running in the background.

Almost every bit of the interface has a landscape mode too

The active stand-by mode goes without saying on the Nokia E52. This is a convenient way to add shortcuts to all your favorite applications on the homescreen. You can even assign shortcuts to websites of your choice for quicker access.

In addition you can bring up to 14 different kinds of notifications no the homescreen: email boxes and voice mail, through calendar and to-dos, to the currently running track in the Music player and FM radio. How many of those 14 get displayed is completely up to you.

Basic, active or talking stand-by theme

Each of the one-touch keys (messaging and calendar) can be customized to access any feature (actually two per key) of choice. The two soft keys functions are user-configurable too.

If for some reason the active stand-by mode isn't your cup of tea you can use the basic theme or switch to the talking theme instead. The basic theme leaves the screen pretty bare and lets you assign shortcuts to the D-pad while the talking theme…well, talks. It brings four shortcuts to your homescreen and tells you what the currently selected one is.

Once you enter any of the menus, it tells you which menu you have opened and sometimes gives you some extra useful information about it. For example, when you enter the clock application, it tells you the current time. It would even read out the names of the contacts.

The talking theme has its own clock application

This talking theme is pretty handy to use when you can't look at the phone. It might be a good idea to activate it while driving for example so you don't need to actually look at the phone should you need it for something (not that we encourage cellphone use while driving).

Another cool feature of recent Eseries handsets allows you to toggle between two different phone setups - the so-called Mode Switcher. Each of them can be customized with its own theme and homescreen applications for maximum usability. This way you can have both a leisure and a business profile and switch between them with a single click.

The built-in memory is 60MB, which is a decent amount. The included 1GB microSD memory card comes in very handy for extending it, but higher capacity cards up to 16GB are supported.

As we managed to confirm, Nokia E52 has no problem handling a 16GB microSD card. Accessing applications or any other files on the memory card is quick and you probably won't notice any difference compared to accessing data in the phone memory.

As with any Symbian phone, there is a built-in voice recognition system. It is launched by the dedicated key on the right side of the E52 and does a good job. It's fully speaker-independent and recognizes a very high percentage of the user commands.

And finally, there's a nice security feature known as Remote Lock. If your Nokia E52 gets stolen or lost, you simply send a coded SMS message to remotely lock the phone. After three unsuccessful attempts to unlock it, it wipes itself clean of all personal or sensitive info. You might not get your Nokia E52 back, but at least nobody will get your personal data either.

The customization options for the user interface of the Nokia E52 are mainly restricted to its functionality out of the box. There are three themes preinstalled on the handset, each in two flavors - business and personal. You can assign a different theme to each of the modes - the preinstalled ones have subtle differences, just enough to indicate which mode you're in.

So if you are into changing those icons and colors you will have to download new ones online….but don't worry, there's plenty to choose from out there.

Phonebook is unchanged, no need to

The phonebook of the Nokia E52 hasn't evolved too much from the E75. It still does a tremendous job though, offering storage space for a virtually unlimited number of contacts and fields and all the available memory potentially usable for that purpose. We can't imagine anyone managing to fill that up. You are also treated to as many fields for each contact as you like and some other nice extras, so there's very little reason to complain.

Welcome to the phonebook

Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name, and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any name. You can pick whether you want the SIM contacts, the service numbers or the phone memory contacts to be displayed or alternatively show them all at the same time.

Some of the available settings

Predictive search, contact database back-up as well as grouping are also available. The final nice extra is the setting to search for contacts on a remote server (Mail for Exchange or Intellisync).

Editing a contact offers an enormous variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like. You can also create new fields if you are able to think of any. Personal ringtones and video can also be assigned. If you prefer, you may group your contacts and give a specific ringtone to each group.

Good luck trying to find a field that Nokia missed • you can even rename a label

The Call log application can hold up to 20 call records in each of the tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls. These are all accessed by pressing the Call key in standby.

Detailed info of your past communications is to be found in the call log

If you access the Log application from the main menu, you'll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers. You can even filter the entries (by contact or by type), a useful feature if you're looking for a specific call.

Telephony has to be good

With Nokia E75 you are extremely unlikely to experience any reception issues. Sound during calls is very clear and free of any interferences. It's not too loud at the loudest setting but it will do great unless you're in a very noise environment. Like quite a number of Nokia handsets, the E52 features advanced noise cancelling, which usually works quite nice elimination background noise around you.

Nokia E52 also has a Smart dialing feature, which helps you quickly find a contact straight on the standby screen.

Smart dial

Nokia E52 features the advanced Communication Manager out of the box, which the E75 lacked. With this quite useful application you can opt for various settings - accepting only calls from your contacts, from all non-private numbers or from anyone. You can create your own filters with quite extensive settings - including rejecting a call with SMS.

In addition you can set up different ringing profiles that can be scheduled to activate at a given time (hour and day). You can even enable an option to have the E52 say the name of the caller.

The advanced communication manager

The Nokia E52 also has support for VoIP calls - you just enter your account details and you are all set.

We conducted our traditional speakerphone test with Nokia E52 and it achieved an average result. Here is how it compares to same of the other handsets we have tested. You can find information on the actual testing process, along with the full list of tested devices here.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overal score
Nokia E75	64.8	60.7	65.9	Below Average
Nokia E63	64.6	62.1	69.0	Below Average
Nokia E51	67.0	65.7	71.2	Average
Nokia E52	66.6	64.6	75.7	Average
Nokia E71	68.0	66.5	76.2	Good
Nokia 5320 XpressMusic	74.3	66.6	78.3	Very Good
Nokia 6500 classic	74.7	75.7	83.8	Excellent

Great messaging

The E-series devices are mostly about messaging and connectivity so we are not surprised that they got this part right. The Nokia E52 offers only a standard phone keypad but the keys are big and comfortable to type on. The E52 is a wiz at all sorts of messages and won't shy away from viewing and even editing attached office documents.

There are three message editors aboard: SMS and MMS share the first one, audio and e-mail have their own. The SMS editor is the familiar application for all Symbian S60 smartphones.

An SMS automatically turns into an MMS when you insert some multimedia content

It goes without saying that a delivery report can be activated. The reports pop up on screen, once the message reaches the addressee and are subsequently saved in a separate folder in the messaging sub-menu.

When you are exiting the message editor without having sent the message, the editor prompts you to either save it to the Drafts folder or discard it.

The audio message, albeit technically a type of MMS, was obviously deemed worthy of a dedicated editor. It allows you to either record the message on the spot or use a previously recorded sound clip.

The three types of messages

The new email client (first featured on E75) has better looks and better messaging organization than the ones in the past. Each of the folders of your mailbox can now be sorted by whatever filters you might like and can then be searched if necessary.

Composing an email on the E52 is as easy as it gets

You can also select what the folders preview should look like, i.e. how many lines should be given to each entry, whether title dividers should be applied etc.

You can sort your email much like on a desktop computer email client

The email client supports a wide range of personal and corporate email standards such as IBM Lotus Notes Traveller, Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail etc.

Encryption is also enabled, as well as mobile VPN support for connecting to secure corporate Intranets.

It seems Nokia has got everything covered except for Blackberry Connect support, which might turn out to be a deal breaker for some potential E52 buyers.

The Message reader can read your messages while you're driving

Quite naturally, the Nokia E52 supports the ultra easy email setup we've been treated to recently. If you are using any public email service (it has to be among the over 1000 supported providers), all you have to do is enter your email address and password to start enjoying email-on-the-go. The Nokia E52 takes care of downloading all the relevant settings to get you going in no time.

On the whole, the E52 is great at keeping you up to date, but if you email more often than you call then you perhaps should look towards the E55, or E72. Either way though, a great email client and the ability to view and edit office documents will really help keep you up to date while you're away from the office.

Image gallery is zippy, organized and Nseries-inspired

The image gallery was a pleasant surprise - it's the same as the one found in Nseries phones and looks great. The speed of photo browsing increases if you press and hold the direction buttons on the D-pad. This allows quick skipping of tons of files if you're not in the habit of sorting out your memory card regularly.

Browsing the image gallery

Unlike, say, the Nokia N85, zooming here is very speedy, thanks to the zippy 600MHz processor. It does slow down a bit when you get over 100% but it will go up to 400% zoom. Zooming is done in small increments (about 10%) and panning is quite fast too.

The gallery offers a nice slide show with customizable effects and delay between slides. You can also choose the direction of the slideshow - forward or backward from the currently selected photo and the track to go with it. Music can also be switched off if you prefer.

The gallery also has a very good picture tagging system. In addition to geotagging, which is automatically handled by the camera, you can add as many tags as you like to each photo and then use them as filters. There's also the option to organize photos in Albums.

Zooming in • you can add tags to photos

Splendid audio quality

Normally we'd be surprised by the excellent results achieved by a business-minded handset in the audio quality test. Yet knowing how things are going recently with audio output of the Nokia handsets, the E52 splendid performance comes as more of a confirmation of rule, than an exception.

We can safely say that the E52 is the best performer in terms of audio quality that the Eseries have ever seen, overtaking even the E75. The bar-shaped E52 has better frequency response, stereo crosstalk and distortion levels than its side-sliding sibling and that seems enough to us to announce it as the new Eseries lead-singer.

Cutting to the chase - here go the results so you can see for yourselves.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Nokia E52	+0.05, -0.22	-85.3	85.0	0.014	0.034	-85.4
Nokia E75	+0.11, -0.91	-91.6	91.4	0.012	0.462	-73.3
Nokia E63	+2.63, -2.38	-75.0	75.3	0.018	0.102	-74.9
Nokia E71	+0.74, -1.26	-74.5	74.7	0.016	0.097	-75.8
Nokia E66	+0.74, -0.84	-72.3	72.5	0.021	0.102	-72.9
Nokia N78	+0.30, -1.59	-76.1	76.1	0.014	0.548	-72.7
Nokia N81	+0.39, -1.13	-86.6	95.8	0.041	0.040	-69.9
Samsung i550	+0.74, -0.76	-90.8	86.9	0.0024	0.033	-89.1
Sony Ericsson W980	+0.31, -1.25	-86.0	89.4	0.037	0.828	-86.3

Nokia E52 frequency response graph

You can find more info about the testing process here.

Music player is business as usual

Full-featured music ability is not supposed to make or break a business device but the music player of the Nokia E52 is still pretty decent and we set our hopes for good audio quality high when we saw that standard 3.5mm audio jack.

The lack of dedicated music keys is easily overcome by the smooth D-pad control. There is a huge number of audio formats supported including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. M3U playlists are also managed seamlessly and transferred files are added to the music library trouble-free by choosing the refresh option.

The music player is pretty straightforward

Filtering tracks by artist, album, genre and composer is automatic and searching tracks by gradual typing is also available.

The player comes with five equalizer presets, bass booster and stereo widening effect. You can also create new equalizer presets if the preloaded ones won't do.

The available equalizer presets • creating a new one

Finally, being one of Nokia's best equipped phones, the Nokia E52 naturally also includes support for the A2DP Bluetooth profile, which allows listening to music on a Bluetooth stereo headset.

Video player is decent

The Nokia E52 features Real player for playing your video clips. The video player works in portrait or fullscreen landscape mode. The softkey functions are hidden in full screen so they don't get in the way, and they only pop up when a key is pressed.

The E52 Video center • the video player has very few controls

The relatively big screen and the MP4 video clips support add up to a passable video watching experience but you will probably resort to another player anyway. The reason for this is quite simple - the E52 lacks DivX and XviD support out of the box. Luckily, finding applications for the S60 3.2 that support those codecs is a fairly easy task (though they can be paid).

FM radio has RDS

The Nokia E52 sports stereo FM radio with RDS, controlled by the well known radio app. Upon starting, the app asks about your location in order to set up the proper frequencies for your area.

The FM radio can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. Scanning for alternative frequencies when traveling can also be set to automatic. You can save up to 50 radio stations and the option to play through the loudspeaker is available.

The FM radio app

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Camera is a letdown

The Nokia E52 means business but imaging is not part of its job description. The 3 megapixel camera has only a LED flash and sadly, no autofocus. "Enhanced fixed focus" is here to cater for close-ups but as our tests have confirmed in the past, the new Nokia "catch-phrase" doesn't really mean you're getting more sharpness in close-ups or shorter minimal shooting distance.

Actually, the camera user interface is the only good part of the E52 snapper. Using our favorite tabbed interface, the camera offers extensive settings: from manual white balance and ISO sensitivity to exposure compensation, sharpness and contrast settings, as well as various effects which are labeled color tones.

The camera user interface is pretty familiar

A gridline can also be applied to the viewfinder to assist you in framing you photos using the photographic rule-of-thirds. Using it to align your subjects and place points of interest on or near the lines and their intersecting points makes your photos more professional and aesthetic.

The sequence mode and self-timer are nothing new. The flash can be set to four positions: automatic, always on, red-eye reduction and always off.

Small font tooltips are displayed to help you understand what the phone is doing at each specific moment (processing image, for example).

You can also customize the toolbar deciding on shortcuts to display for which settings and in what order.

Image quality

The image quality is decent for a 3-megapixel shooter. Color rendering and contrast are good, but the dynamic range is not on par. Noise levels are low, but that is achieved through noise-reduction that smears away fine details and textures. The sharpening algorithm on the other hand is way too harsh and produces visible artifacts in the photo.

Nokia E52 camera sample photos

The video recording doesn't improve our impressions of the E52. The business-minded handset manages VGA videos at 15 fps, which is far from stellar but is certainly better than what E71 and E66 offered.

The quality of the recorded video is not very good and even if 15 fps is acceptable to you, the E52 is not a camcorder. There's a fair bit of detail captured until of course it is periodically smeared by heavy compression when the bandwidth isn't enough.

Here is a sample video for you to check out.

Synthetic resolution

We also snapped our resolution chart with the Nokia E52. You can check out what that test is all about here.

Here's a comparison of the camera on the E52 and the one on the 5630 XpressMusic. The 5630 has a definite edge in resolved resolution. However, the processing in the E52 is better and doesn't introduce as many additional imperfections.

Nokia E52 resolution chart photo • 100% crops

Nokia 5630 resolution chart photo • 100% crops

Connectivity all-rounder

It's time to check out the connectivity options. This is a morale booster indeed for the E52 and it sure takes advantage.

The E52 is truly on fire where data transfer is in question - it just has it all: from Bluetooth v2.0 and USB v2.0 to Wi-Fi and 3G. Furthermore, the 3G comes with HSPA support for the fastest network data transfers - up to 10.2Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink.

A microSD card slot is also on board, under the battery cover. It might just be the quickest and most convenient way of transferring data.

The standard 3.5mm audio jack is also there and the only thing missing that we can think of is TV-out functionality.

Web browser does YouTube video

Browsing the internet on a Nokia smartphone is definitely a positive experience. The E52 is no exception with its excellent page rendering - most web pages look like they do on a desktop computer.

The virtual mouse cursor is easy to control and generally works great. The D-pad control is not as comfortable as Samsung's optical joystick (think Samsung i7110, for instance) or BlackBerry's trackball but still does the job.

Browsing GSMArena.com on the E52

A mini-map can be activated and it even appears by itself when you scroll longer, which helps you navigate complex websites without excessive scrolling. The zoom level is also easily adjustable at the expense of only a few key presses. The web browser also offers fullscreen view mode.

Along with the usual key shortcuts, the browser in E52 offers a toolbar, which can be launched by pressing 1 or long pressing on the center key on an empty area of the page. You can customize which shortcuts are on the toolbar - up to seven shortcuts like "Subscribe to feeds" or "Bookmark manager".

The new toolbar

The Nokia E52 browser features built-in full Flash support. It handled many of the Flash sites we threw at it, but chocked on others (games most often). Flash content for version 9 and up seem to be the culprit.

Flash video handled seamlessly

Flash video is mostly not a problem for the E52 web browser - you can watch video on the full-featured versions of YouTube and the like. Not all however, DailyMotion and Vimeo didn't work, for instance.

Excellent time-management, Office 2007 support

Time-management is another business phone virtue. There's no wonder then that the Nokia E52 has one of the most elaborate organizer packages we've seen. There are a lot of nice applications, all very user-friendly and functional.

The trip starts with the calendar. It has four different types of view - to-do, weekly, daily and agenda as well as five types of events available for setting up - Meeting, Meeting request, Memo, Anniversary and To-do.

Setting up an event

The agenda view mode is relatively new to Nokia handsets and is really nice - it allows the dates of the month and the events for the selected day to appear simultaneously on the screen.

Day, week and agenda views

Mobile office is also duly covered, with seamless handling of Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. Furthermore, unlike most other Nokia handsets out there, editing documents is supported right out of the box.

With the Nokia E52 you won't need to pay extra for editing your office documents. And there's another thing you get for free - support for Office 2007 documents (.docx, etc.)

The E52 also supports document editing out of the box

A PDF reader is also part of the Nokia E52 preinstalled content and a ZIP manager allows extracting archived files straight from your phone.

A PDF reader is also available • ZIP manager

The other pre-bundled organizing and time-management applications are: a great unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as the Notes application. We are not going to get into detail with them, as their functionality and performance are familiar enough.

The ActiveNotes application is also on board allowing multimedia content to be added to your notes.

Some of the other organizer apps: unit converter, calculator and ActiveNotes

The Nokia E52 alarm clock application allows a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own name and start time. You can also customize the snooze time from the settings menu.

The E52 allows dozens of alarms to be set simultanelously

The useful "Search" application is also present on the Nokia E52. Its reserved space in the active stand-by menu no longer comes as a surprise. After all, an application this useful really deserves to be conveniently placed.

The application itself finds almost every item in your Nokia based on a given keyword. From messages to settings, every bit of data is checked and results are then listed.

If it's on the phone the Search app will find it

Finally, the Nokia E52 features a dictionary with a really rich database. English comes pre-installed but you can also download dozens of other languages for free from the Nokia website.

The dictionary has a rich database

The World Traveler app helps you when visiting a new city - it'll display weather forecast, it also offers a world clock, info on foreign currency, flights and even a 3D globe that marks your home and current location.

The traveler app can be quite helpful when travelling abroad

Thanks to the wireless presenter you can handle presentations straight from your phone.

WiPresenter is also here

GPS navigation is pretty good actually

The Nokia E52 comes complete with a built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS and Ovi Maps preinstalled. Voice-guided navigation comes at a price, and the only free trial period you get is the 7-day one you can get at Nokia's website.

The preinstalled version of the Ovi Maps is 3.0 and as usual it's pretty nice to work with. It has really detailed map coverage of a huge number of countries and a lot of extras such as traffic information, city guides and so on. Sadly, the extra features need to be purchased separately, as must the voice-guidance after the trial period has expired.

Nokia maps has four different view modes

The app also has very decent looks and easily customizable route planning algorithms. Our favorite feature is the 3D view mode, which unfortunately has to be turned on every time you restart Maps - that's an odd one, no doubt about that.

Ovi Maps is also usable for pedestrian navigation or you can switch the GPS receiver off and simply use the phone as an electronic map. The nice thing about it is that you can actually preload the map content, so you don't need to access the wireless network to download that on the go.

Nokia E52 also features a digital compass, which gets activated by swinging your hand around for a minute or two. In order for it to work, you need the map zoomed on your current GPS position. The compass (a magnetometer sensor) is turned on by default, but it doesn't work while turn-by-turn navigation is engaged. It's quite useful while making your way around on foot though as it rotates the map top match even your slightest change in orientation.

If you don't fancy using Nokia Maps, you can opt for any of the numerous third-party applications available on the market, there's no shortage of those.

The overall impression of the Nokia E52 GPS functionality is positive, with the GPS sensitivity pretty acceptable. It is good enough for most users' needs and won't make too many people look for alternatives.

Classic games and N-Gage

The Nokia E52 comes with two games preinstalled, both of which are pastime classics.

The first one, called Block Cascade Fusion is a variety of Tetris, in which color also comes into play - instead of just making lines, you have to line up 5 or more blocks of the same color horizontally or vertically. The changes in the rules take some time getting used to - the lines of 5 or more same-color blocks disappear only during the fusion… blocks are dropping frantically, while you're trying to figure out what the point is. It is part of the fun, so we won't spoil it.

Block Cascade Fusion

The other option is Top Hit Solitaires bringing 15 types of solitaire, with classics such as Klondike and Freecell (if you ever owned a PC you've played them).

Top Hits Solitaires

While it doesn't come preinstalled, you can install N-Gage on the Nokia E52, just head to www.ngage.com and follow the instructions. Strangely for a business-minded phone, there's full support for the recent Nokia gaming application. No need to tell you, there was no free activation code in our retail box.

Final words

The Eseries have certainly gone a long way, it's Nokia for business and they mean it. The Nokia E52 is a no-compromise tool and you can tell at a glimpse. The extensive use of metal doesn't go unnoticed by either eye or hand. Speaking of hand feel - the excellent build quality is perfectly matched by great ergonomics.

The hardware is top notch as you have every right to expect in the Nokia Eseries, except for the camera of course, but don't pretend you're surprised now. Well, the QVGA screen could be questioned too, but non-touch Symbians just seem stuck at that resolution and that's that.

With great email and office support, excellent browser and speedy CPU to run things fast and smooth, only one question remains. Is there really much left for the E55? It's practically the same phone with a half-QWERTY keyboard.

So we guess, the Nokia E55 kinda boils down to a limited edition E52. After all, most people will perhaps prefer the traditional phone keypad. The unusual half-QWERTY is not so much of an advantage after all when you factor in predictive typing on E52 and the steep learning curve when tackling typing on the E55 new type of keyboard.

Anyway, we're trying to put the E52 in context here and we can't do without its half-QWERTY sibling, the Nokia E55.

Nokia E55

As to real competitors, the E52 is not really challenged beyond limits - Wi-Fi and GPS in a compact package seems to be largely reserved for touchscreen handsets or for full QWERTY phones like the E72.

There is one exception that delivers an even larger display in the same metallic design and the same Symbian S60 smartphone OS - the Samsung i7110. It somehow evaded the popularity it deserved, but that may be attributed to its quite high price. It is bigger than the E52, but's also got the imaging all covered with its 5 megapixel camera.

Samsung i7110

On the other hand, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 may be thicker and 11 mm wider and 4 mm thicker than the Nokia E52 it's just 12 grams heavier - not so much bigger overall considering the full QWERTY. If BlackBerry Connect is something you need the extra heft is something you'll just have to get used to.

Speaking of QWERTY-enabled handsets, we shouldn't also miss the best-selling Nokia E71 and its successor E72. The Nokia E72 follows the metallic styling of E52 almost to the letter.

BlackBerry Curve 8520 • Nokia E71 • Nokia E72

The software packed into the E52 covers everything - from WiPresenter to Nseries-like gallery and N-Gage support. Neither the gallery, nor the games are that important in a strictly business device, but they would surely help push out the envelope of business-only manners to a wider public. And it sure helps to know that the E52 can kick back and relax too. Business sure comes first but those hot looks will as well connect with a different crowd too, to whom file attachments and mobile VPN are just a part of the nine-to-five rat race. And there's more to life than just work, right?