I tested the document applications, opening a variety of Word, PowerPoint and Excel files and found that the phone did a reasonable job of maintaining formatting. It was a bonus to be able to edit the files, but labor intensive. I'm not sold on using a smart phone to work on spreadsheets or PowerPoint files. It's slow going with such a small keyboard and display.

Speed-wise, the E62 isn't a barn burner. There was a small but noticeable lag when switching between applications and downloading Web pages.

On the upside, Nokia gets a thumbs up for its S60 Web browser, which displays thumbnail views that make it easier to scroll pages and navigate. For instance, when you hit the back button, tiny graphical representations of the pages you've visited appear. When browsing, the device's joystick works like a mouse, complete with a cursor.

The browser offers popup blocking, bookmarks, support for RSS feeds, blogs, JavaScript, multiple windows and more. Overall I found using the E62's browser to be a better user experience than, say, using the Treo's Blazer browser. The E62 also comes with a WAP browser that lives under Cingular's MEdia Net icon.

Uniformly, from e-mail to instant messaging, the E62 was a breeze to configure and easy to use. What about battery life? It's rated for an impressive 5.5 hours of talk time, and I got about four days of total use on a single charge before recharging.