The BlackBerry Tour wasn't the only beautiful new smart phone we saw last night, we also had a chance to peek at the new Nokia E72.
The E72 is a follow-up device to the E71 that landed on AT&T as the sharp metallic-black $99 E71x, and it does a much better job of combining the multimedia aspects of the N-series with the business features of the E-series.
The E72, at first glance, looks nearly identical to the E71, but upon closer examination we found a few noteworthy enhancements. The quick-launch keys have a few location tweaks, but most noticeable is the new optical track pad. You can swipe your finger around on the pad to move through menus, or if you prefer, you can use the same 5-way multi-directional pad for selecting and navigating. We imagine the optical pad could be a good way to quickly zoom around large spread sheets of image galleries. It was responsive and easier to use than the Samsung Epix's similar optical pad.
The E72 also has a full 5MP camera as opposed to the 3MP one on the E71, which should allow for some pretty good shots if the N-Series line has anything to show for it. Its 3.5mm headphone jack is the icing on the cake.
We hope to see this device land as a follow-up to the E71x soon, but Nokia hasn't announced a U.S.carrier or whether that would ever happen.
