The Nokia E52 is a really nice phone.
Wow, did we just seriously begin our review like that?
Well. Yes. Read on and we’ll explain.
When the Nokia E52 was launched a year ago, it did look pretty impressive. Unfortunately though, it took all of that year to release here in India, which only happened earlier last month.
Let’s take a look at those specs then shall we? The E52 features:
Okay so the E52 isnt exactly the most feature rich phone ever. Not right now atleast. But you’ll notice it does have some highlights here and there.
One of them is it’s size. The Nokia E52 measures 116 x 49 x 9.9 mm and weighs in at just 98 grams. Which is pretty freakkin petite, no?
We’ve compared the E52 to the wide-but-slim Nokia E72 and it totally won that battle.
So yes, the E52 is a nicely small device by today’s standards.
Firmware:
It’s worth nothing, the E52 in this review, is on version 031.012 firmware which was the latest at the time of this post. Features might be added or improved in later versions.
First Impressions :
We’d like to recommend reading our First Impressions of the Nokia E52, so that you know how or if our opinions changed from then to now.
On with the pictures !
Front View :-
At the front, the E52 has it’s standard T9 Keypad arrangement. Each individual key has it’s own distinction and has pretty good feedback. No complaints here, although getting used to T9 after using Qwerty for so long, was no easy task.
Above it’s keypad is it’s Dpad (not opti-navi like the E72) with 2 shortcut keys (officially called “One-Touch” keys) on either side. On the left you have the Calendar shortcut key next to the Home (Menu) button. On the right, you have the Messaging/Email key next to the delete key. Both One-Touch keys can be set as shortcuts to different applications on a short and long press basis, which means you actually have 4 different shortcuts. However for some strange reason, you cant set just any application as a shortcut, as some just dont appear choose-able on the list.
The Dpad is slightly stiff to operate, but you get used to it in no time.
Both the calling keys (Call and Call-End) on the E52 are in the same white-on-black color scheme as the rest of the keypad. This can be confusing at first, or when handing your phone over to a new person, since it takes a couple seconds to register that there’s no Green and Red color coded keys, as is usual. No Biggy though.
On top, you have the left and right selection keys.
It’s worth noting that like all of Nokia’s recent devices, the Dpad on the E52 blinks to indicate that it’s switched on, or for new emails or text messages, missed calls
The E52 has a 2.4? QVGA screen which is quite nice and bright. Though, that being said, it would be considered quite small for web browsing and a couple other things by today’s standard.
At the top, we have the Front Facing VGA camera (for video calls), and an ambient light sensor (to dim/brighten the keypad lights according to the situation).
Back View :-
The Back of the Nokia E52 contains it’s Mono-Loudspeaker and an Aluminum back panel.
The Loudspeaker is of average Eseries loudness, which means it’s not too loud at all. Plus since it’s on the back of the device, placing it flat on a surface will muffle the sound quite a bit.
The Back panel is great quality, as is usual with Eseries. However, it uses the same locking mechanism as the E75 and E72 which in our experience, gets loose over time.
The 3.2 MegaPixel Standard Nokia lens Fixed-Focus camera on the back of the E52, isnt anything great to be honest. You’ll get some decent pictures out of it, in most situations, but the fact that it’s fixed focus means not a lot of your shots will be very clear, or award-winning.
The Single LED Flash helps with night pictures, but again, isnt anything great.
You can check out more Images from the E52′s camera, on our Nokia E52 Camera Samples Album on Flickr.
Underneath the back panel, the E52 has it’s BP-4L 1500mAh battery that keeps it powered for ages. While we initially thought the battery life of the E52 wouldnt surpass that of the Flagship Nokia E72, it ended up doing just that, and by a whole 3 hours too.
With Moderate to Heavy usage the E52 easily lasted about 2 days. This is with :
So battery life, is definitely one of the E52′s most impressive features.
Top View :-
At the top of the E52, is it’s power button, and 3.5mm Standard Audio Jack (which doesnt support TV-Out). Any standard pair of Headphones should fit in fine here, and sound quality is pretty good. Just a notch below an Nseries device, in our ears.
Bottom View :-
The Bottom of the E52 is quite minimalistic, housing only a tiny microphone hole.
Left View :-
The Left of the E52 houses only the microUSB port, which is also the sole means of charging the device. As you can see, the side profile of the E52 is quite thin.
Right View :-
The Right side of the E52 houses it’s Volume Increase and Decrease keys (with a mute button in the middle). There’s also a dedicated Camera key located here, which is one step, since the camera is fixed focus.
The Retail Package :-
The Nokia E52 comes with the following contents in it’s retail package:
Unfortunately it only comes with a 1GB microSD, which is quite limiting by today’s standards.
The S60v3 Feature Pack 2 OS and UI:-
The Nokia E52 runs on S60V3 Feature pack 2.
This is basically exactly the same as the OS on the E72 and N86 and the rest of Nokia’s newer range of Non-Touch smartphones. No real changes here to be honest, but the OS is incredibly quick and stable at this point, and includes a couple transition effects here and there (turned off by default though). There’s a ton of apps on the Ovi Store, although at this point most of them are for Touch-devices.
The Homescreen is limited in terms of customization, but you can choose which “active standby plugins” you want to see on your homescreen, and you change the application shortcuts at the top.
Using the “Mode Switch” feature of Eseries devices, you can also switch between a “Business” and “Personal” Homescreen theme, each with it’s own customizations and such.
Memory :-
The E52 unfortunately just has about 60Mb of internal phone memory. As mentioned before it also comes with a 1GB microSD in-box.
Ram hovers at about 40Mb available at startup.
Ovi Store and Installing Apps :
The E52 ships with an Ovi Store Client built-in (atleast ours did) so finding and installing apps wont be a problem. You can also install compatible apps (in .sisx or .jad format) from a PC using PC Suite, or in-device.
Internet Browsing :-
Browsing on the E52 is pretty much your standard Symbian S60v3 affair. There’s flash support and huge websites just about load (although if they’re too big, the browser will just flat out crash, but that doesnt happen too often thankfully).
Most sites have mobile editions that the E52′s browser defaults to, anyway. The tiny screen on the E52 does make it the experience sub-par though.
Email :-
The Nokia E52 comes with Nokia Messaging Pre-Installed.
Which is a good thing. The version seems to be the same as the one on the Nokia E72, with HTML View present for emails. Worth noting that you still have to select “view Html message” on such emails though, as the client will present the low bandwidth version. All the basic email features are in there, including support for Lotus Notes Traveler and Mail for Exchange.
Setting it up is easy enough. Regardless of whether you already have a Nokia Messaging account or not.
Text Messages and Calendar:-
As an Eseries device, the Nokia E52 features the usual Text Messaging Client seen on most S60v3 FP2 devices. There’s no conversation view, but text messages are sorted based on time, by default. Nothing new here to be quite honest.
The Eseries Calendar, with it’s bits of extra features here and there (compared to older Nseries), is still present in the E52.
Music, Images and Media :
The Music Player on the E52 is your basic S60v3 affair. There’s support for AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, MP3, AMR-NB, WMA Audio Formats, and a built-in FM Radio.
The Music player isnt anything great, but it works about well enough, and has all your basic features. Again, nothing new here in this department.
Likewise, there’s the same Video App, that also allows you to subscribe to a video feed.
But you’ll never really have to go there much, because the Image Viewer, also shows you Video along with Images, in a carousel view.
Like we said, nothing new in this department. There’s also a section where you can save your Streaming links, and other formats like Excel sheets, Powerpoints, etc.
GPS :-
It’s worth mentioning that the E52 ships with Ovi Maps v3 with Free GPS Turn-by-Turn Navigation. That in itself, is one heck of a useful feature.
A-GPS locks happen under a minute, but that depends on your location and situation. Once locked on, the E52 stayed locked on, with no break-up problems unless we went through a tunnel or that sort of thing.
Accelerometer and Sensors :-
The E52 has an accelerometer onboard, to automatically change screen orientation, or for use in Turning Controls, such as Flip-to-silence calls and such.
Office:-
The E52 ships with a full Excel, Powerpoint and Word Document editor and viewer, in the form of Quickoffice v5.3. There’s also the Adobe PDF reader onboard. They do a good enough job, although editing excel sheets on such a small screen can slowly drive you quite mad.
Apart from the Above :-
Being an Eseries device, the E52 has a couple of the usual extras that appear in that range of Nokia’s devices. You can type a contacts name on the homescreen, to get easier access to him/her.
All those sorts of things.
Conclusion :-
Rating: 
So at the end of the day, the Nokia E52 is just a really nice little phone.
There’s nothing super impressive about it. It doesnt have a large touchscreen to play around with. It wont make you the coolest person in the club.
But it is a very stable little smartphone that’s very quick with the UI, very light on the pocket both in terms of size and cost, and has great build quality to it.
Not to mention that it’s battery life will keep you powered for quite a while. It was quite a relief to have a device that I didnt have to charge at the end of every day.
So there you have it, the E52 is a nice little phone, with great battery life and a very quick, stable UI. Sure it definitely doesnt have the best camera in the world, and sure it’s phone memory doesnt have much legroom. It’s tiny screen means you wont really enjoy surfing the internet, or reading anything on the E52. But apart from all that, I’m still quite amazed that Nokia managed to cram so many things into this tiny package. Wifi, GPS and that 600Mhz processor. Not too bad at all. Ofcourse at the end of the day, it’s still a year old device though.
Here’s a short video overview of our Final Verdict on the Nokia E52 :
Dont forget, if you’re interested we also have a Nokia E52 Review Album on Flickr, and a Nokia E52 Video Review Playlist on Youtube that you might want to check out.
Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile things.
Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, ClintonJeff.com, on Google Plus or on Facebook or Twitter below:
Nokia explains their ClearBlack Display Technology
Nokia Lumia 900 up for Pre-order for $25 at U.S Microsoft Stores
iOS apps crash more than Android apps
“Nokia Hello” new NFC Project by Nokia Research
Nokia’s Stephen Elop makes Reuter’s top 50 social CEOs
Pingback: Popart » Blog Archive » Gimp Tutorial: Che Yourself (Pop art spin off)