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Hot on the heels of their smartphone success with the E71, a decent entry level smartphone, Nokia introduced the E72 and it looks to pack several upgrades.  Nokia apparently listened to users of the E71 as many of their requests have been answered.  Could this be Nokia’s ticket to success in the US?

Holy cow!  A digital compass, it took Apple 3 generations to do that!

Yup, a compass.  What used to be the domain of cub scouts and creepy folks in the woods has now become the must have add-on for phone geeks who used to use GPS to get lost.  Also improved is the keyboard making it more like the E63, a whopping 5MP camera, and optical scrolling button.

I’ve used these optical buttons before and instead of moving parts, say like the ball on the Blackberry Pearl, the phone gets the info through optics.  They typically work well, and don’t collect lint or dirt that can muck up your phone right quick.

What else is new?

The E72 will run Symbian 6.2, features a new version of Quickoffice for easy syncing with Microsoft office products, easier connection to your mail like Yahoo! and GMail, and a standard 3.5mm jack versus a silly 2.5mm jack.  Like I said, they listed and solved most of the minimal past issues with the E71 which earned 4 1/4 starts out of 5 stars on the AT&T website.

The price is set at approximately $450 before subsidies, trickery, and crafty rebates.  The predecessor E71 sells for just $99 on AT&T with contracts.  According to Nokia, the phone is due out in the 3rd quarter of this year.

Company site: [Nokia] via [IntoMobile]