Nokia E90 cell phone review - Messaging
|
Mark Brezinski Published on September 17, 2007 Comment on this |
|
|
|
|
Supported E-mail Services (6.0)
The E90 supports POP3 and IMAP4 services, but doesn't have any built-in clients for popular e-mail services. We give points for POP3 and IMAP support, but we prefer to see no-hassle e-mail clients for popular services where you don't have to enter arcane details like mail server addresses, etc.
Push E-mail (0.0)
The E90 doesn't support push e-mail out of the box. You can choose to have it check your inbox every 30 minutes at the fastest. You can download free software that allows push e-mail from Nokia: businesssoftware.nokia.com.
Multiple E-mail Accounts (10.0)
The E90 can support six different e-mail accounts. Most users won't feel any sort of e-mail limitation.
HTML and Attachments (4.0)
The E90 handles HTML a bit differently than most phones. It doesn't support HTML in the actual e-mail, but every e-mail comes with an attached HTML version of itself. This happened regardless of whether or not the original e-mail contains HTML or even any characters at all. This is an awkward workaround that there's no real reason for. It does recognize Word, Excel, Zip, and PDF files. You can also edit these files thanks to the E90's Quick Suite and Adobe software. Though there is a Quickpoint that should theoretically open PowerPoint documents, the E90 failed to recognize several test PPT files. We really would've liked better functionality here, but the E90 falls to the same problems as the rest of the Series 60 functionality.
E-mail Customizations (0.0)
Unlike other phones with advanced functionality, the E90 doesn't allow any kind of font or size customization. We would've liked to see some of the Quickword features here.
Time to a New Message (5.83)
In our time tests, we always begin with the phone in a closed, unlocked standby. For this test, we stop the timer as soon as a new e-mail entry form appears. We do five such timing tests and average the times. The E90 was able to open up a new e-mail form in 3.43 seconds. This is a bit on the slow side. The E90 actually has a very organized folder structure, but it unfortunately adds time to any sort of menu navigation. Of course, the E90 is only slower than it should be by a little more than a second, so it's not as if you'll have enough time to get bored and frustrated while waiting to write an e-mail. This is assuming, of course, that you can't get bored and frustrated in less than one second.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Nokia E90 | 3.43 | 5.83 |
| HTC Mogul | 6.22 | 3.22 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 1.76 | 11.36 |
| Nokia N95 | 4.40 | 4.55 |
| Helio Ocean | 2.10 | 9.52 |
| Apple iPhone | 1.90 | 10.5 |
E-mail Usability (7.0)
Those not familiar with setting up a POP3 or IMAP4 account will probably have some trouble getting their accounts up and running. Once that's through, however, the E90 offers a very streamlined e-mail experience. Once connected to a mailbox, you have to either manually retrieve your e-mail or set the E90 to automatically pick it up (every 30 minutes at the fastest). One odd addition was that every e-mail came with a HTML attachment of the original document.
Navigating within and among inboxes is easy. Up and down scrolls through e-mails, while left and right cycle through your different mailboxes. You can sort your e-mail by date, sender, or subject, mark them (which adds a green check mark to the end of the list entry), or revert them to unread status. You can't create folders, so you'll have to rely on the rudimentary sort and marking system.
Supported IM Services (2.0)
The E90 contains an IM client similar to Jabber. In order to get up and going, you need to enter in a server name and Web address. This information is out there if you look, and allows you to log on to many different IM services. Simple it isn't, but it does allow quite a bit of freedom providing you do your research.
MMS Support (7.0)
The E90 supports MMS well. You can opt to send an image in an MMS while highlighting the file, while viewing it, or just after taking it. Whenever you do something picture-related you're given the option to send an MMS. You can also create an MMS from any menu that allows you to create an SMS. Just about the only place you can't create an MMS is from within an SMS; you must choose beforehand if your message will contain media or not. Though the two message types are split for outgoing messages, they both arrive in the same inbox. The MMS/SMS division also has a third wheel in audio messages, which also receives its own category for sending messages.
The E90 contains an extra MMS feature that isn't found on most phones: presentations. This allows you to put together simple PowerPoint presentations containing an image, text, a background, and screen transitions. These presentations will only work if the recipient's phone supports them.
SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
The E90 does not replace ASCII smiley faces with any sort of smiling graphic.
SMS/MMS Ease of Use (7.0)
SMS and MMS messages are very easy to use. You can pick addressees from your contacts list by hitting the select button in the "to" field and then checking the box next to their name. You can also send messages to groups in much the same way, just press right to select the group tab and bring up the list.
Time to a New SMS Message (5.03)
As with our e-mail time test, we begin with the phone unlocked and closed in standby mode. We stop our timer once the new SMS message entry form appears. The E90 was able to open up a new SMS form in 1.99 seconds. This was done by repeatedly smashing the select key, as no actual menu navigation was necessary. This is a good time, but not quite as good as the N95. Regardless of the extra second, the E90 is still very fast.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Nokia E90 | 1.99 | 5.03 |
| HTC Mogul | 5.46 | 1.83 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 3.82 | 2.62 |
| Nokia N95 | 0.90 | 11.11 |
| Helio Ocean | 3.10 | 3.23 |
| Apple iPhone | 2.62 | 3.82 |
| Previous Next | |
|
|
|