After having used the E72-1 (Made in Finland) for almost three weeks, I have the following observations. First I must note that though the list of positive points is shorter than the list of negative points, this should not scare one away from the E72! Positive experiences are more difficult to note than negative ones are. I am very happy with the E72, and most certainly don't regret it! Some people recommended to get the E71 (I expected the E72 to be available only in mid-January and at a much higher price, until I was suddenly informed it would be available in December already), but I didn't do so, primarily because of the following: HSUPA, 3.5mm audio connection, 5 MP camera. These are really significant improvements over the E71!
POSITIVE
* Battery life is quite decent. Since I do tend to charge it both at home and at the office by default, I haven't really tested it extensively, except for one day: I used it very intensively during some 5 hours on a hiking trip in the forest. I took 70 pictures, made 4 videos totaling some 10 minute, sent 5 pictures through Gmail, had a 15-minute phone call, 10-minute Nimbuzz call, some 2 hours on GPS (Google Earth) with tens of position fixes, and some time chatting on Nimbuzz. After that, it was almost empty. I wouldn't expect anything else after such use. (Since I had my laptop with me as well with some 12 hours of power, I could have charged via USB sleep-and-charge from my laptop, if needed).
* I like the optical pad. I only use laptops (as opposed to desktop computers); it's similar to a laptop touchpad, which I use all day. If you use laptops a lot, you'll love this.
* Camera is excellent. Both video and pictures.
* Email client works fine. Both Exchange and Gmail work fine, without any problems. For Exchange, I get new mails on my phone, through 3G, even before I get them on my laptop (Outlook 2007), through company LAN!
* GPS is excellent. Works great with Google Maps.Gets GPS fix in seconds.
* Bluetooth to laptop works fine (heard some things about problems with Bluetooth, though one source said this is specifically regarding earpieces, which I don't use).
* Signal strength is quite good. Switches from EDGE to 3.5G *and back* without problems.
NEGATIVE
* I had the spacebar-not-working issue just once. Rebooting fixed it.
* When you connect the phone through USB, sometimes it will start charging, sometimes not. (No relation to USB port, nor to battery status). Sometimes you just have to plug it in three times before it will charge through USB.
* Built-in chat client is more or less useless.
* GPS trip distance barely seems to work; first it registered me as having had a 26 km/h max speed while walking (not running!), then after walking for an hour it told me I had walked 350 meters.
* Sometimes, there is no sound in both Nimbuzz and Fring on calls via Skype and Google Talk. Often, the other party can hear me, but I cannot hear them (sometimes, neither side heard anything). Since this happens both with Fring and with Nimbuzz, it must be something in the phone.
* The spacebar is small. It is manageable, but small. Takes some time to get used to.
* On my (Israeli) edition, Hebrew (and ciphers) are in white, and English is in dark orange, which is almost unreadable. This is very annoying, since I, as - I imagine - most users of a phone like this, use English more than Hebrew. If anything annoys me, this is it. After a while of course, I don't need to look at the keys any more - but it's still annoying.
* The battery cover comes off easily, but *only* if you want it to. It will never fall off during normal use - only if you're actively and consciously touching the battery cover. I cannot imagine walking on the street, calling, and the battery cover suddenly falling on the sidewalk (which is the impression you get from some comments I read).
* I want to have flash off by default on the camera. Haven't yet found a way to do that.
If anyone has more questions, feel free to ask! Also, if you want to see 70 pictures and 4 videos shot with my E72, let me know and I'll send you the link to download them (219 MB).
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