Nokia E90 - Web and Work (reviewed)

Thank�s... These days,you all are working a lot. Review after review. Device after device:icon14:

Great review. There is this one little thing that really annoys me about S60's Web browser though - the inability to select and copy text from any page with text. It's such a small, but extremely useful thing (you can't even save a page...), and I can't for the life of me understand why this feature has been left out. The E90's Web browser is no different right, Steve?

Steve: "So... is it possible to take a Nokia E90 on the road with you instead of a laptop? Certainly, for a day or two, but much longer than this and there will probably be too many caveats and things you'll have to start batching up 'to do' when you get back home, to your PC or Mac."
For the price it should be able to perform that and even do a grilled chicken...
It�s because of this, that devices like Samsung Q1 Ultra can have their places. Almost the same price but a all better device, a complete PC, with support of all kind of internet stuff and even make calls - 3,5G device.

"I still can't work out why people were cheering Steve Jobs at the iPhone launch for showing Google Maps, when any smartphone of any type has been able to do the same thing for several years...."

It was full of hardcore Apple fans, many of whom think anything Jobs says or does is:

a) wonderful

b) completely new and original and invented by Apple

c) a "paradigm shift"

It doesn't matter if someone mentions Apple's copying of the Xerox user interface for the Macintosh, or Apple's secret repackaging of SoundJam as iTunes, or that the iPod's first year sales were identical to the N-Gage's. All these things have been wiped from history in some people's minds.

Before the iPhone was announced, there were certain extreme Apple fans I know who were completely dismissive of the idea of converging a phone and a media player. "Separate is best" they said in no uncertain terms, declaring all phone music players innately substandard and convergence a Bad Idea. Even a tiny common sense suggestion like adding an FM tuner was dismissed on the basis that Apple would have already done it by now if people really wanted a radio. Everything Apple did was good, everything Apple didn't do was bad, and Apple was the source of all taste.

After the iPhone was strongly rumoured and finally announced (but before there were any solid details) these same fans changed their tune completely, seemingly for no reason except that Apple was now making music phones so it must now be a Good Idea.

Many of these extreme enthusiasts (especially journalists) seem to have been dazzled by market share, they think anything Apple touches will turn to gold because the iPod currently sells better than all other MP3 players put together. It's very much like the PlayStation's reputation in about 2004, when the PS1 and PS2 had both sold more than all their rivals for two successive console generations. Many many people including analysts and journalists assumed that this could never change, and that anything with the PlayStation logo on it would sell like hotcakes, regardless of its technical contents or price.

Looks good. If only it could handle vauxhall trafficnet.

Comeon Nokia. Fix this for the next firmware release. Also, add a pretend to be internet explorer option it as well.

Zuber

No, you can't copy specific text, but in the FP1 version of Web you can at least 'Save page' - it's in the 'Tools' menu. Sadly, the saving bit seems to be in obscured format in the hidden 'Private' folder. I'd have liked to have seen saved pages put into the Active Notes folder, seeing as they're all HTML too - with at least a fighting chance of doing something with saved content....

Steve

Did you try going directly to google mail rather than from the link on their mobile portal?

Thank you for the remarkable work you have done. I have seen that you tried "Yahoo" pages. Did you have a chance to check if E90 handles "Yahoo Beta Mail" pages?

Hi Steve, thanks for this review.

But what is wrong with your google accounts or E90 S60 browser?

On my E61 I can access the following without problem:
- gmail (basic html, no ajax, but better than mobile version)
- blogger, can post successfully
- docs&spreadsheet, got first message that safari is going to be supported soon (Webkit browser):


as suggested in funny way on this page, you can override the google browser check with the following link http://docs.google.com/?action=&browserok=true
- notebook
- iGoogle (but it depends on the widgets you have)
- picasa web folders
-------- couldn't upload photo via the web form though, you can do that via shozu
-------- full screen slideshow is amazingly working although it does adapt to E61 small resolution (I think it cannot go smaller than 500x350). Please try on E90.
-------- can download original pictures if this is allowed for the picasa album.

Google calendar can be loaded but it crashes my E61 browser everytime (maybe better chance with E90 and its bigger RAM).

Cheers - cooli.

Thanks for another great review, well balanced and objective as usual.

Did you try Opera Mini for the sites you were having trouble with?

Has QuickOffice reintroduced the ability to print yet?

Thanks all, for the comments. Note that I haven't got time to follow-up every one (hey, I'm halfway through the *next* E90 review part!), but very quickly:

Yes, Quickoffice has full printing support, the E90 seems to provide it as a service for every app on the device.

Yes, Opera Mini (wonderful, as always) gets me into just about any site, but that kind of foils the point of reviewing the bare E90 and its built-in browser.

The Gmail, Google Docs and Blogger problems were possibly due to a bug in this late beta firmware, so take all my findings with a pinch of salt. The point I was trying to make was that traditional sites will be perfect but that some Web 2.0 sites will have issues. Some of which will be fixed by the time the E90 comes out, either because of changed firmware or because the sites themselves keep changing and improving comptaibility.

**The field keeps on changing...**

More as it happens....

Steve

Post a side by side review with Opera. There is an excellent open source SSH client for Nokia phones - PuTTY. This should give you all Unix features and allow the Use of text browsers like Lynx. I am able to watch BBC video on my Nokia 770 under Maemo but not on my Macbook Pro. Does it work on the E90? How about pairing the Nokia N800 with its larger, higher resolution screen to the E90? Does it pair up? Does it play full-screen BBC video?

Please remember that this review was based on software that isn't yet ready for sales. I'd hope the writer would express this more clearly so people won't judge a product based on bugs found from unfinished software. I can say the following:
- Gmail login works and uploading images to Picasa web works with latest SW
- Creating posts the moderating comments in blogspot also works now

Review also mentions "annoying pop-up warnings" when using browser, these can be turned off from browser preferences

And for the BBC showing mobile page and some Google services not working... nothing Nokia can do about that except contact Google and ask them nicely. If anyone decides that their page should not be shown with devices made by Nokia, it's their right to do so. Browser just opens and renders content it gets from server, phone cannot affect what the content received is. If the page states that it does not support your device, first contact should be the web site owner

And now about Ajax and complex web pages... Nokia recently announced the support of widgets on S60 which are based on Ajax tecnology. That should tell what is the direction where S60 is going, and browser with it...