NOKIA E71: GLADIATOR OR MESSENGER

Nokia is known to produce quality handset. Gladly Nokia has done it again with the E71. And if the other handsets are German cars, then this phone is a Russian tank, may be T-90. This is the first thing that came to my mind when I held the E71 for the first time. Go hold one yourself to feel the build quality. I’m sure it will last many a years of power usage. So read on to get a greater insight into this new messenger in disguise of a gladiator.

DESIGN: Speaks for itself
No matter how many pictures of Italian cars you see, their true beauty can be admired only when you see them in flesh. The same goes about this phone. Although this is subjective, in my opinion, E71 is one of the sexiest phones Nokia has produced, if not the one. You have to hold it in your hand to see how incredibly small and slim this phone is. The smooth metallic finish and use of high quality plastics speak for the price of the phone.
Speaking of price of the phone, it may not go well with our American friends as they are used to the subsidized prices and contracts. But here in India unlocked phones rule the market. And thus the market is very flexible and also owning a phone is very affordable. With unlocked handsets available for as little as USD 24 and prepaid SIM cards with lifetime validity and free lifetime incoming for just around USD 4 to 5. And all this without signing any contract.
The battery cover at the back is metallic with dotted texture. It feels great to hold and gives a good grip, even though it’s a fingerprint magnet, a simple wipe will do the job. Also worth mentioning is the back cover release buttons, this is a good solution. The size (114mm x 57mm x 10mm) is perfect in my opinion. The E61 was too wide for single handed use. Although screen estate had to be sacrificed but smaller screen size with the same (240 x 320) QVGA resolution makes the screen a lot more crisp and detailed.
Nokia has done a great job of creating this tiny package of just 10mm thickness, with endless features to satisfy any greedy-for-tech geek. There isn’t a touch screen here like the iPhone but this is not a phone to be compared to the iPhone, as they both are targeted to different users. And also I don’t call iPhone lovers a tech geek. Yes I do like apples innovation and they have done a great job of creating a great GUI. But it’s everything but a Smartphone. But that’s just me. None of the phones are perfect, there different phones that do the job for different people. May be iPhone is good for some, but not for me. I prefer power packed Smartphone, not the simple dumb interface of iPhone. iPhone would have still worked for me if it wasn’t delivered with Apples marketing tricks. Everything is locked with the Apple and they control the phone more than the user. But if I start explaining Apples marketing this review would lead you to some other planet. So let’s get back to what we were at, the E71.
This is perhaps the smallest and thinnest QWERTY Smartphone to date. Other than the QWERTY keys and the regular D-pad, soft keys and call & end keys, there are four other important keys worth mentioning. Three of them being one touch keys which can be configured for long and short press. And the fourth being the new menu key or home key, which was earlier seen on the E51. A good move from the swirly key found on the other S60 devices, as the home icon makes it more intuitive of the function it is assigned.
All the design falls in perfect place but for the tacky red power key on/off key on the top of the device. It could have had a better color than that. A simple black key would have done the trick.
SCREEN: Crisp and Colorful
This is one area where I can bet on Nokia with my eyes closed. Nokia are currently offering some of the best screens in the market. Display is good in all lighting conditions indoors and outdoors, without any complaints. The 2.36” screen is a bit scaled down but offers crisp and clear viewing of videos and images. The 16 million colors are brilliantly displayed and the brightness sensor does its job well.

KEYBOARD: Spot on
Is this keyboard too small? Will it be easy to type on this keypad? If these are the questions on your mind, the answer to both the questions is ‘yes’. Nokia has done some serious engineering here. The keyboard although small, makes for a good typing experience, thanks to the dome shaped keys. The keys are prominently separated from each other even though there is no space between them. The tactile and feedback from the QWERTY is spot on. In my opinion it is even better than the E90. I feel the E90 is two wide to be used for thumb typing and I feel that even after having pretty large hands. Of all the phones I have used I feel the best pad for thumb typing is of the Nokia 6800. It’s a split keypad and takes time getting used to. But once you are familiar with the keyboard things speed up drastically. And if the E90 is used for typing with index fingers with the E90 on the desk the things slow down due to lack of enough travel of the keys. 9500 rules the roost in his department. E71 stands out in typing whether one handed or two handed. And process becomes speedy with the help of auto-correct and predictive text input that is included in the E71. The auto-correct option works similar to that in the PC and the predictive text saves time in typing the whole words by prompting words, press space and done, move to the next word. It has a learning curve but once you get accustomed this might become your fastest thumb board. Some people with large fingers may take time to get a hang of it but it’s not a deal breaker.

BATTERY: Never say die
This is one of the most important part of any business phone. What use is a feature rich phone if it runs out of juice? Nokia has again stroked the right chords in this department. Open the battery cover and you’ll be greeted by a giant battery, almost the same size of the phone. This is the same 1500mAh battery used in E90 and E61i. The battery takes up most of the volume of the phone. Great showcase of engineering by Nokia. And with smaller; read less energy consuming; screen than the other two E-series giants the E71 manages to deliver 3 days of normal usage. And around a day with heavy usage with 1 or 2 bars left at the end of the day to go home and charge it. Here I have tested the phone with GSM network as 3G networks are not available here in India. So the battery life might decrease on 3G networks. But it surely won’t die before you go to bet. Of course battery hungry features like using WLAN and GPS will reduce that.

USERT INTERFACE AND OS: S60 V3 FP1 = Powerpuff Phone
The phone runs on Symbian platform. It uses S60 version 3 feature pack1 (with a tinge of FP2). The users of previous S60 phones will be very familiar with the interface. The changes seen here are few, but very important ones. The first being the most important one and you’ll notice it the moment you start using it, its blazing fast. I haven’t seen any S60 device faster than this. The menus and applications open with no lag whatsoever, attributing these fast legs to the freescale processer and the mammoth 128MB of RAM. (That’s right RAM not ROM)

The other tweak is the homescreen; it now has a Switch function. Using this, users can create two different homescreens with entirely different shortcuts, plug-ins, themes and background. For e.g. having an office homescreen where your appointments, office mail and shortcuts to Quick Office are present with a simple edgy theme and having the other homescreen with funky themes or your favorite wallpaper and shortcuts to gallery, camera and music player. Yes, Nokia has realized even business professionals have a personal life.
Another innovation on the homescreen is the smart dial. Its simple, just start typing the contacts name whom you want to contact and the screen will show you a list of all the contacts with the same combination in first or last name on the homescreen itself. Sweet. No need to open the contacts list. Everything right on the homescreen. And that’s not all, just scroll to the contact you want to contact and press the D-pad to the right to find a drop down menu with options to call, message or e-mail the contact.
Calendar has also seen some minor changes. It has a split screen view now, just like the E90. Good for utilizing the wide landscape screen. Also a new agenda view has been included. Rest of the calendar options remain the same. The smooth jump from one month to another while scrolling in the month view is a nice touch.
Messaging app is the same. I was wishing for some improvements here. I would love to see search-by-typing in messaging in the S60 phones just like their S80 brothers.

E-MAIL: Missing Blackberry
E-mail application is similar to the one found on earlier S60 devices. Setting up POP and IMAP accounts is very easy, thanks to predefined settings for the popular mail services like Yahoo, Gmail, Rediffmail etc. All you have to do is enter your e-mail id and password and you are ready to go - neat. The downside is that HTML mail is not supported by the application. However, a link with the mail will direct you to the web browser and the HTML format of the mail can be seen online.
Shocking is that Nokia has done away with the Blackberry Support. Yes, that’s right, no Blackberry. It has been done as Nokia has come up with its own solution, Nokia Mail for Exchange, which is under beta testing currently. For more on this click here.

WEB BROWSING: Enhanced with the landscape screen
Web browsing is a pleasure as in any Nokia S60. The S60 browser is the default one with mini maps and on screen cursor. Browsing speed on 3G couldn’t be tested due to unavailability of 3G networks in this region. But browsing on GPRS/EDGE was decent like all Nokia phones. And browsing on Wi-Fi was sheer bliss. The browser was quick; just like the entire interface; and opened almost any site thrown at it. With full flash support, the sites opened exactly as they would on the PC. The landscaped screen added to the experience.

MULTIMEDIA: Lacks 3.5mm jack
Multimedia features are on par with N-series devices. Just the 2.5mm jack leaves a lot to be desired. The music player is standard S60 type seen in N-series with support for search-by-typing. Album art is also supported. Equalizers, repeat and shuffle all are present. New equalizers can also be created. The tracks are sorted by album, artist, genres, composers or your own track list can be created. The sound through the speaker is clear and loud without any distortion. It is decent enough by E-series standards, except for the E90 which is in a league of its own with stereo speakers. The music quality through the headphones is also decent and clear with the stock headphones. Bass is inadequate but it makes for a good listening experience without any distortion even at full volume. The sound is very Nokia-ish and the soundstage represented is what I like about Nokia. With a little tweaking of the equalizer and using good headphones sound quality can be enhanced, although you’ll need a 2.5 to 3.5 adapter which is not included in the sales package.
I agree this is not a multimedia phone, but even business people need TV out to project their presentation directly from their phones. I hope Nokia works out on this one.
The Gallery is the old S60 type. No fancy revolving menus here, just a simple list view. I know the fancy revolving menus of the N-series are eye candy and a hit among many, but if my opinion is to be considered, I like the old S60 type gallery. For simple reasons that the old gallery is more organized and more customizable at the same time also quite productive. In the old gallery I can keep my images and videos separately, that way they are easier to find. Further I like to keep my images in different folders, just like I do it on my PC. I can organize files in this gallery but not on the revolving one. If there is one thing stopping the E71 gallery to be perfect for me, it would be search-by-typing. It would make things quick.
Nobody and no-thing is perfect. So let’s come to the disappointing part of the phone - the camera. I guess Nokia had to compromise on camera quality for making the phone slim. All the pictures are infected with noise, producing grainy pictures. And the 3.2MP shooter fails to deliver in the dark even with the flash on. Many people buy phones thinking all the cameras with same ‘Megapixels’ will produce the same result, and end up buying a phone with lesser price which actually might have lower camera performance. So don’t be lured by the tall figures of ‘megapixels’. A lot of things; like lens, flash, focus, etc; play a role in the quality of images produced by the camera. One such example is right here; the E71. The 3.2MP doing duty also has autofocus. The AF is less intuitive, but more useful I feel. First t key is pressed, and after the device has focused press the center D to click. Or for quick snaps you could press the D directly. The AF will not be used in that case, dropping the image quality a bit. But this makes the process speedy for those instant shots, and gives the users the best of both the worlds. Heck what if no autofocus for those instant shots? Did we never click when there was no AF? There’s no dedicated camera key for the good. This form factor makes it easier to take snaps using the D-pad.
Video recording is limited only to the free memory available. Video recording tops out at QVGA @ 15fps, which is a disappointment, considering its brother E90 capturing VGA quality videos @ 30fps.

CONCLUSION: My Favorite Phone
Nokia should be commended for producing a fast series 60 smartphone, which shakes of its sluggish hierarchical behavior. It’s built like a tank and versatile like a Swiss knife. It falls short in areas like camera and Blackberry support, in which Blackberry support being more important for people wanting to jump ship from blackberry devices. So this surely isn’t the phone for those who need blackberry services.
Then who is this phone for? Well, this would be the apt phone for users who need QWERTY to type out mails and messages on their phone, provided you use push-mail services for your e-mails. I would also recommend this phone for the bloggers on the move, the QWERTY backed with powerful S60 browser and landscape screen makes it a great device if you want to write your blogs away from your laptop. This is a device you could take with yourself for camping and let your friends know your whereabouts while climbing a cliff by posting your pics and thoughts on your blog. And the powerful battery will surely last a camping weekend. It simply makes life better in all the scenarios.
This would also be a great upgrade for people who are using E61 or E61i. It is for those who find E90 and E61i too bulky. The phone does all the functions you’d expect from smartphone of this kind and then some more.

NOKIA 1100: Tribute To The Legend

When I was creating this blog, I was thinking of names like SymbianS60 Blog, Symbian Era, etc. But then I thought about other phones, which are not Symbian. There are some other phones that stand out in crowd. And today, I'd be writing about the 'More' in the name 'Symbian And More'.

It is scratched, bruised, fallen many times, yet rises again like a true gladiator, like a Phoenix rises from the Ashes. This is no gadget with any advanced technology, talking about smartphones would be alien to this phone. It is like a stone age man in today's multimedia ruled world. Yet without color screen or even polyphonic ring tones, it still manages to be a Legend.

Legend is the only title that suits this Nokia, which is being used since the past 5 yrs, has clocked more than 284 hours on its life timer and is still going strong without any hesitation.

This is the epitome of reliability and user friendliness. The small size (106mm x 46mm x 20mm) and light weight (86gm) make it extremely handy and pocketable. And the silicon keypad and rubberised finish of the body make it usable in any climatic condition, without loosing grip.

No matter how advance phone you use, there is something sweet about this phone. It's simple and it means business. It just calls, answers, sends SMS, receives SMS, just goes on and on and still stands tall as if it was never meant to sleep, never meant to rest.

Drop it. Alas! Keypad out, battery out, back cover-front cover are separate. No issues, just put it all back together and it will again very willingly greet you with the Nokia start up jingle. Do that with an N95 and you will regret having butter fingers.

Such is the power of this phone. As if it was a very determined person, more than just plastic and internal circuits. Someone that would never say die.

N97 : The Future Is Here

This is the marriage of N-series and E-series. Nokia unveiled the new N97 at Barcelona on Tuesday. This is the most feature rich phone ever to be launched by Nokia. And with touch interface (Symbian OS v9.4 S60 5th edition) which was introduced in Nokia 5800.
For starters the phone has a 5 mega pixel eye, with Carl Zeiss optics and autofocus, which is all becoming industry standard slowly. You can try being Spielberg by shooting videos @30fps in VGA resolution.
Dimensions (117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9-18.3 mm) are close to that of iPhone (except for the thickness), which this phone plans to eat up for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The 3.5 inch screen with 360 x 640 resolution should be enough to satisfy your hunger for wide screen handheld video viewing. The screen slides and also tilts similar to HTC Ty TN II. Sliding the phone reveals a full QWERTY keyboard. So text input methods are plenty on the phone which include physical QWERTY, onscreen QWERTY, onscreen half QWERTY, onscreen alphanumeric keypad and also handwriting recognition.
Internal memory is doubled from the N96. It is now 32 GB and High Capacity SD cards are also supported.
Tri-band HSDPA and quad-band GSM will enable you to use the phone anywhere on our planet at least. Wi-Fi and GPS also come in the phone. An accelerometer for auto screen rotation and a proximity sensor for auto screen turn-off during calls. Theres also the digital compass seen in Nokia 6210 Navigator.
Of course all the basics are covered too - with stereo Bluetooth, 3.5mm audio jack, TV-out and FM radio with RDS.
With so many features it is prone to eat up on the power, but Nokia has not repeated the mistakes of N95 and N96. The phone comes with 1500mAh power packed battery which should allow you to use the phone to its full capability without running out of charge.
This powerhouse should be available in market by Q2 of 2009.
The future is here, it has begun with the Nokia 5800, and will lead to some great devices in 2009.
And Nokia might force us to wonder... Is this what computers have become??


Check out these amazing official videos.A must watch.

E63 : Messenger Looses Its Armour

There are gadgets all over. But there's still time we find one gadget that would make our life better if not perfect. Because perfect is still a far fetched word. Thus we end up with many devices which help us in different jobs.
One such invention, by some people not known to me, is the Mobile Phone. It has slowly become a very important part of our lives. It has become more than a gadget. Its the extension of one's personality. And as everyone of us is unique, our gadgets also differ from each other. I hate when people ask me which is the best cell phone or which is the best car!! No such best thing exists! Its all relativity.Different gadgets are best for different people. But lets not go deep into that and stay on to read about the device that i have found to be perfect for me.
Although its too early to decide as the Nokia E63 has not yet been launched. But I feel this might be the perfect phone for me, after trying out E71, which is quite similar to this newbie.

The front face is similar to the E71. And the dimensions (113mm x 59mm x 13 mm) are also quite similar, with the new E-series gaining a few millimetres, perhaps due to the plastic cladding instead of the metal clothing that the elder brother E71 had. So this messenger gets a new plastic wardrobe in Ruby Red and Aquamarine Blue, which although look good, are no match for the messenger of steel, the E71. But this was a step to be taken for price reduction of the new budget messenger. The back has also been made of a soft material similar to the original N95 for better grip. The weight (126gm) has also dropped by just 1gm. Which is negligible.Other cost reduction measures have led to removal of the GPS receiver from the E63. And also the camera spec has come down to 2 mp. E63 also lost HSDPA connectivity which the older Nokia had.
So then what makes this phone special for me? Well for starters the E63 now sports a 3.5mm jack as opposed to the 2.5mm on E71. This is a great inclusion for reducing the gap between the E-series and its multimedia brothers better known as N-series.
Even the keyboard has some changes. The space bar is smaller now, giving space for two more keys. Important one being the Ctrl key, so now the Ctrl and Chr are on different keys.
A simple yet helpful innovation is the ability of using the Flash as a torch. By simply pressing the Fn key and the Space bar.
Rest of the features remain the same as on the E71. The OS is the same S60 3rd edition FP1 (with some tweaks as seen earlier in the E71). That includes the new and improved contacts and calender applications. It also has the same mammoth battery (1500mAh) of the E71, which gives you enough power to work for two days before running out of juice. The screen is the same (2.36 inch) displaying 16 million colors. A nice touch which was also found on the E71 is the LED in the D-pad which blinks like its breathing when there is any missed call or new message.
For detailed specifications head to the official Nokia E63 page.
Final verdict can only be drawn after the device hits the stores. But if Nokia gets the pricing right on this one, this might outdo the success of the E71. It is being said that E63 will be launched at the lowest price for a S60 phone till now. Nokia has stated USD250 before taxes and subsidies. So we will have to wait and watch how does the new messenger fair without the metal armour of the E71.

[update][January 2009] Nokia E63 is available in India for Rs.14300.

NOKIA 6800 : Old Age Messenger

Yes that’s right. Review of a four year old Nokia 6800. Nothing to write home about but I’ve just discovered it’s a fun phone, so decided to write about it.
After a long wait (of 4 years) I’ve finally got my hands on my brother’s 6800. I had been waiting for this day since the past 4 years. So when finally my brother decided to sell off the phone, I knew I had to grab the opportunity of using the phone. I decided to keep for some months and after using it for just a week I’m sold on the phone and I’m keeping this phone forever {or till it lasted ;)}
The 6800 is not power packed as today’s N-series or E-series but for a phone costing just Rs.5000/- four years back and having not only color screen and polyphonic ringtones but also a QWERTY keypad and an E-mail application, I feel it’s a pretty cool device. GPRS and infrared are the connectivity options. The unique fold away keyboard (like the E70) is something I like the most about it. I have also used some newer QWERTY keypads (like the E90, E61i, E71i, HTC S710, Moto Q, i-mate Kjam, etc.) and I feel this 4 year old keyboard is on par with the performance of even today’s competition. The keys both inside and outside are well spaced and work well with my large fingers also. Although the split QWERTY needs some getting used to, so there is a learning curve to it. Tactile and feedback of the keys is good with just the right amount of travel.
Although after heavy usage, my phone is showing signs of aging, as sometimes the numeric keypad doesn’t respond as required. But otherwise the phone is still working well, considering its age.

Hats off to Nokia for their superior quality products. (Although recently Nokia has lost the robust build quality that the earlier Nokia phones had, but that’s again for just making the phones looking good, sleek and making them lighter in pocket and on pocket.)
The looks of the phone arouse somewhat mixed emotions. Those who like tiny, petite phones won’t like this phone, particularly for its huge dimensions. (119mm x 55mm x 23mm) But I’ve always loved big phones. They give me a sense of sturdiness. So I’m in love with this beauty..err..beast...err…whatever you feel it is. ;D Talking about looks, it looks the best when it’s open with the keypad lights on.

This is an e-mailing device of the era of 3315, 3310 and such lik

e phones, the time when even a color screen was a novelty; forget alone GPRS and polyphonic ringtones. Although the scenario has changed today, with budget cell phones packing in more punch than before, as the technology has become cheaper now. But the price depreciation of the technology will go on as better and effective technology will precede.
After using S60 operated phones for years, it was a fresh change using this S40 operated phone. The menu is classic and simple. User interface is intuitive and well drafted. This is a feature I love about Nokia phones.
The screen shifts from portrait to landscape mode as soon as the QWERTY keypad is opened, and shifts back to portrait on closing of the QWERTY keypad. If the phone is opened during a call, the audio is automatically routed to the loudspeaker, which is loud and clear.
List of multimedia features is short and restricted to only MIDI playback, FM Radio and a photo gallery. Other features include the calculator, stopwatch, countdown timer and Wallet. Additional apps include Converter II and Portfolio II. Notes can also be saved. Internal memory is a meager 4mb and there are no expansion slots. But as there are no multimedia features supported like music or video playback, 4mb of memory is sufficient for PIM functions. Another feature that I like about the phone is, that the profiles can be timed, a feature that can be rarely found in phones today.
Battery life is another point where this phone wins my vote. This has been Nokia’s forte. The battery hasn’t been changed since the time of purchase, and yet a full charge lasts for 2-3 days with normal usage.
I have always been S60 fan for the sheer power it packs in. But this phone is fun and now I’ll be looking forward to try out some more S40 phones for their sheer simplicity in use. This phone is a great messaging device. Sometimes I do miss the menu key of the S60 phones for multitasking but the QWERTY keypad makes up for it. Every time I switch on the backlight of the QWERTY keypad, at night, while lying on my bed and messaging my friends, it brings a big smile to my face. :)