Glad it's useful.

a) how does it handle really quick thumb typing on the physical kb?

Initially I thought it to be rubbery and with little feel. I was quite wrong about that (I'll be updating the review to 1.4 soon), the keys are hard, much like N900's later revisions. They are easy to press, in spite of the full depth of press hinting they would work at the bottom, like a membrane keyboard.

Right now I'm a bit slower on it, mainly because I got so used to N900 kbd that I keep hitting Sym instead of Shift (Symbol is now in the bottom left corner). Also, with a bit larger device, keys are more spread out.

But, it's a remnant of N900 and not the device's fault. It feels nice and I'll be as fast as I was pretty soon.

I'll say that it's as fast (95%) when held in hand, faster when laid down and using 2 hands. N900 didn't have that, so comparing held typing to on-desk is questionable at best, but it is faster considerably. It feels another 30-50% faster, since one has both hands to type.

Just don't use it on a glass table, it's very smooth and tends to walk away during frantic typing.

b) I'm not a terminal guy or coder, so I wouldn't miss anything there, but just how customisable is the E7?

Menu:
It's basically the same menu as N900, like I said in the review. Single one-screen menu, with 6x2 icons, last one is "Applications", that auto-holds all installed applications. This is initial configuration.

It has "new folder" menu, several folders, and ability to rearrange items or move to folder, like all Symbian before it.

Overall it's fast and as customizable as one would expect from a Symbian.

It has a noticeable lag when opening large folders (30+ icons) but with organizing, it's fine. AFAICT, it can take folders in folders.

Desktop:
Desktop is less customizable than N900, there is no freeform. Advantage is, it's guaranteed to rotate.

Each desktop has 6 rectangles, each in a 4x1 form factor. In landscape, it's 2x3 (2 column, three rows), making the desktop 8x3. In landscape, it's all one column, making the vertical 4x6.

Each slot contains one item. Be it weather, wifi, battery monitor, whatever. The widget itself can choose whether to work in a 1x4 space (like the music widget on N900) or reuse as it sees fit. One widget allows a list of contacts, scrollable in-place (no grabbing desktop by this one), choosing a 4-contact in-row layout. It holds more than 4 contacts, and is scrolls in a carousel manner, keeping 4 in view at all times.

Others are more creative. One widget (Nokia) contains clock in first square, then the next three are divided horisontally, with top being date and bottom being current profile and cell info display. When in operation, once can click to open clock, calendar and profile menu, respectively. Places widget looks similar, with refresh icon on the left, and top being current location (click to view in map) and the second saying "Check in" which allows one to check in in nearby places.

To add apps or links to desktop, there is a link widget. This allows 4 items to be added to it. When in operation, the widget is invisible, so the icons seem to stay on desktop.

As a result, you can't have, say, 2 links, then a widget, then 2 links in landscape on a row, you can only have 4-4 combos. But since I am kind of a neat person, I never went for the "thrown around hatefully" Nokia commercial look anyway.

Themes:
Themes are as all other Symbian: skins for buttons, desktop images, colors, etc. One can choose own desktop backgrounds in spite of theme. Quite a few themes to choose from and I understand theme creation isn't hard when assisted by Nokia's software. I am sticking with one of the themes that came with the phone. As with N900, the themes inside seem well crafted.

Other than that, it's pretty much standard stuff. I understand that one could customize animations via themes but I'm not that deep in yet. Nor do I plan to be any time soon :)

Phone sports black theme, which saves battery and looks fine, and can choose from black and blue tint, black and orange-copper and black and ... silver? I think. You know, commercial for gray. Standard stuff, fast, I use my own backgrounds (Nokia-orange nature I saved from N900).

c) do you feel that Symbian Anna is an update that you kinda need to iron out a few creases, or would you be just be happy with good old S^3?

Right now I have no experience with S4, but I am yet to find any bugs. Occasional hung app, but no bug per se, no feature that crashes, no features that don't work, no unexpected slowdowns.

If I ever update to S4, it will be after a while, since this one is stable and I won't be rushing in. Also, they better show me drastic improvements. I can't think or any bugs that bother me.

There is one bug I reported(*), using OVI suite to update maps triggers a bug where the suite (and after reboot, the phone) no longer lists installed maps. But the maps app, in spite of the empty list, still "sees" the maps just fine, routes, and has all the details, just doesn't list them. One can also re-download them if needed be and they will be listed until reboot so they can be updated or deleted. On broadband, it's not an issue - Romania map is 50M. Larger countries are larger (ha!) but they are broken down to be manageable. Less than 100M per map, on wifi, not an issue. It's not like I update Europe on 2G.

* The bug has since been fixed, 17.07.2011, the next release of OVI Suite. It also fixed the phone behavior.

Don't feel that is an annoying bug. Besides, in the week I had this phone, I have already received an update to OVI Suite, OVI Store, Maps, maps and a few other library updates. They are actively developing it and the Beta Labs lets one try versions before updating. In case of showstopper, revert and don't update. And complain.

It's an upgrade from N900 as far as care for the customer entails.

I have already used most if not all Phone features, hoping to complain now rather than later. I went literally through the menu and apps and fired up everything. Only things I didn't test are VPN, WebDAV (it works but it has an issue with DropBox for me) and video call AFAICT.

d) do you feel that you have a Nokia device that is being supported by them right now, in terms of apps, Conversations, beta labs, updates?

As I said in the previous point, it is actively supported, updated, with betas free for all and I have actually received a reply on the bug report from a person from Nokia who assured me the feedback has been pushed to the devel team.

I'm going to say yes. Don't know how much this will go on, but it's a good bet Symbian is not quite near death and if E7 upgrades to the next incarnation of Symbian I have a decent chance of support for quite a while.

e) how much was yours?

About this lo.. oh, you mean the phone. :P

I received mine as a replacement for N900 from Nokia, it was in warranty when the board failed, Unfortunately, replacements come box-less so I never got the USB OTG cable and all other accessories. Fortunately, other than OTG cable all other accessories match (MicroUSB). They did not extend the warranty, however, which kind of makes sense since I never paid them.

However, the Nokia shop price is 500E, unlocked and free, with two year warranty over here. I did find it at 450E, but it is unclear whether it's stocked or just an estimate. It's likely it will float around 500, the recommended price.