Nokia’s Energy-Saving E52 – Ready for Exchange And Notes

Nokia’s latest E-Series enterprise smartphone, the E52, is absurdly small and thin, supports both Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes Traveler – and has a claimed standby battery life of nearly a month.

The Nokia S52, available in the second half of this year, will offer business users the ability to talk up to eight hours without recharging the handset, and supports both Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes Traveler for email use. It is expected to cost around €245 (£219).

The phone looks very much like a slimline (9.9mm thick), 98g version of the Nokia E75 without the slide-out qwerty keyboard, and follows other slim E-series phones such as the Nokia E71. Nokia claims it will have a 28 day battery life on standby, if users turn off advanced features.

The announcement, made in Warsaw Poland, comes at a time when the handset maker is looking to expand its business with the opening of the online Ovi application store, which looks to challenge the success Apple has had with its App Store. At the same time, Research In Motion and Palm are also looking to expand their smartphone offerings and enter the lucrative world of mobile applications.

In a series of presentations in late April, Nokia executives began painting the new Ovi store as more than an online store for applications but as a broader platform that should attract developers. Nokia also showed off its N97 smartphone and demonstrated how its Ovi apps work on the device.

In addition to eight hours of talk time, the Nokia S52 smartphone offers noise cancellation technology that makes it easier to talk and listen to calls. For enterprise users, Nokia is including VPN (virtual private network) technology that allows the phone to sync with the company’s voice mail system. This technology, which Nokia calls Call Connect, allows users to have one voice mail system, and it also allows them to route calls to one device.

The E52 works with Exchange and Lotus Notes to make getting e-mail easier. There is also support for Nokia Messaging. Other features include support for HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) and HSUPA (High-Speed Uplink Packet Access) connections, a 3.2-megapixel camera, and A-GPS (Assisted GPS).

Finally, the Nokia E52 offers a 1GB microSD card and a free, 60-day trial of Files on Ovi.