The smartphone showdown

Just yesterday, hyalineskies reader and acquaintance of mine Mike Johnston left a simple comment on one of my Flickr photos: “Nokia E62… It is the Q killer.” I’ve had — and been an immensely happy user of — a Motorola Q smartphone for the past month and a half, finding its limitations compared to my Treo, well, not as limiting as people have said. Sure, there’s no touchscreen or powerful computing capability, little support for Office applications and a clunky appointments interface, but overall my Q has been reliable for exactly what I bought it for: on-the-go e-mail, Internet, and the occasional voice call.

I found Mike’s comment well-timed; however, my best friend just acquired a new, Cingular-branded Nokia E62 on the same day he posted the comment, and I stole the device away from her last night to play with it (and, in return, install some MP3 ringtones and a theme.) To date, I’ve had little experience with Symbian devices of any sort, considering it a bit of a black sheep OS in the world dominated by Treo and BlackBerry devices. With the E62′s GPRS access, gorgeously large screen, and suite of killer office apps out of the box, not to mention BlackBerry push e-mail and GPS navigation, the E62 dominates the Treo 700 series, my Q, and every BlackBerry I’ve ever used to date. It’s the killer device for gadget nerds, but I’m not rushing off to replace my Q. Why? I don’t want an E62.

When I bought my Q, I only really had three conditions in mind: I wanted something tiny with a QWERTY board and smartphone capability. And yes, while my Q doesn’t have GPS, has to be synchronised through the unreliable Missing Sync on my Mac, and has awful out-of-box Office support, my Q is still smaller and lighter than the E62 by a fair amount. While I can replace my Q’s software shortcomings, I couldn’t make the E62 smaller without rendering it inoperable.

It may seem silly from a geek’s perspective that size is my first priority, but I cannot stand the bulkiness of the Treo or BlackBerry. After living with a brick in my left rear pocket for nearly a year and a half, the Q is a relief. It’s aesthetically beautiful in every way the obese Treo isn’t and drastically simplified. The Q’s interface feels much more tailored to being a phone than that of the 700p or 700w ever could, and the e-mail client built into the Q works perfectly. While I generally hate Microsoft’s products (aside from my Xbox360,) Windows Mobile has come a long way and works well on this phone.

If there’s one thing I really love about the E62, it isn’t Symbian or any of the phone’s software capabilities. It isn’t its too-businesslike, stoic design. It’s the feel of it. Its cold metal battery door feels substantial on my fingertips, and while my Q’s keys respond with a sharp, audible click, the E62′s keys give way softly, making writing emails and long text messages comfortable within the thumbboard’s confined space. The E62 hardware feels like a luxury car compared to my Q’s economy feel (no pun intended on this entry’s category.) It makes BlackBerry and Treo keys seem like miniature spikes. If I could swap the E62′s key membrane with the one on my Q, I would without hesitation. The finish on the E62 is more than just good; it’s absolutely luxurious. (Motorola, are you listening?)

If you’re looking for a powerful geek phone, the E62 is absolutely superior to anything else that currently exists; I’m certainly a geek in every sense of the word, but I was looking for the Kate Moss of smartphones, not the functional one. Mr. Johnston, you might be right about the E62′s functionality, but my superficiality has the best of me here: you can have your E62. Now go navigate your way, or read a PDF, or something. Yeah.

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