Nokia E72

My return to Kenya, 11 weeks ago, created a small problem and opportunity. I acquired my predecessors BlackBerry Curve 8900, a nice phone but I was having a really hard time cancelling his email address and setting up mine on the phone.

Following another decision not to use a laptop at work, I decided get a really good phone that would take care of all work needs (computing, data and voice) and then use a desktop computer, with a huge monitor, at the office. The most critical function I required for the phone was the ability to sync my information between the phone, desktop computer and the stuff on the server; the ‘cloud’.

My starting point was Nokia because in the last 13 years, I have used a Nokia for 8 years and the BlackBerry for 5. When searching using Google I was immediately struck by the Mail for Exchange feature.

Looking through options of phones with this feature I settled on the Nokia E72 and purchased this for KES 27,999 (USD $346.61).

It was astonishing that the email setup only required 2 steps; email account name and password. Well actually there is one corresponding step of adding a password to provide additional security.

I was however in such a rush to setup and start using the email service that I only opted for the email sync feature and overlooked that I could also sync my contacts and the calendar; I did these three weeks later. It is amazing how seamless the sync feature works between the phone and desktop.

The phone has so many extras which I have not really tinkered with; the ability to read and write word and excel documents, reading PDF documents, a 5 mega pixel camera, lots of memory, a QWERTY keyboard etc. But the clincher for me remains the Mail for Exchange service which syncs with Microsoft Exchange Server.

I now have a great phone that can use to access my email, calendar and contacts when travelling throughout Kenya. When travelling I have only had to borrow a laptop once for 2 hours and I have used a computer at a business center so for the most part my strategy of a good phone and desktop and no laptop is working. I just need to get new glasses to cope with my struggling sight when reading on the phone at the end of the day.