With smartphones, there’s usually a compromise to be made between portability and usability: if you want to be able to type quickly, pocketability suffers; if you want a gadget that’s slim and light, emailing is unlikely to be a comfortable process.

The best phones, such as the HTC TyTN II, offer a compromise between the
two. Nokia’s E90, alas, does not. This phone forgoes the niceties of lightweight and sleek design in favour of specifying the most usable QWERTY keyboard on test and a very high resolution 800 x 352 screen.

As a result, emails are certainly easy to type, and the fact that you can close the lid and dial the separate number pad on the front is a bonus. The size also means that a huge, 1500mAh-capacity lithium polymer battery is included, which translates to impressive maximum talk and standby
times of 5.8 hours and 336 hours respectively.

Nokia also packs in Wi-Fi, 3G and HSDPA, plus a GPS receiver. In fact, it’s on a par with the award-winning HTC TyTN II in terms of features. Document compatibility is good and there’s also push email support via the downloadable Mail for Exchange and BlackBerry Connect clients.

But despite all the positives, there’s just no getting past the sheer bulk of the E90. If you want a decent keyboard, the 8820 and HTC TyTN II offer much better compromises.