Nokia e61i review

I’d say it’s probably just about the best phone I’ve owned. I got it because of its qwerty keyboard and its wireless internet as principal features for purchasing. But battery life, easy to navigate operating system, VoIP, Fring, and email client, were all things that I realized after buying it, and all made this phone excellent. It was the successor of the Apple iPhone in my life.

So, I had just sold my iPhone when I picked this up. It looked exactly as I thought it would – wider design to accommodate the qwerty keyboard, nice, big screen, connected via wifi, and typing was rather easy on it. I paid $300 for it, put my sim card inside, did a test call, and took it home.

I immediately connected it to the wireless internet. Its browsing was very similar to that of the N95’s or the N81’s – standard issue symbian. Can’t say it’s nothing special – but it’s nothing I haven’t experienced yet. What was really beneficial was the large screen, so web pages were much less condensed. However, the directional pad being rather sharp (as in having a narrow edge, vertically higher than the select button), my thumb started to hurt after prolonged web browsing. It made me really miss the iPhone’s web browsing.

It took a 2GB microSD card at the maximum, so I went downtown and got one. Then I realized – I can’t listen to music without earbuds, and mine didn’t work, as there was no 3.5mm audio port. So I had to order an adapter. Great. Three weeks later, it arrives, and I get a very limited audio experience, with slow transition, no equalizer effects, and overall, a very badly laid out multimedia UI.

What really surprised me was the battery life. It lasted me a good 3-4 days on regular usage, with frequent talking. Most phones (including the iPhone) didn’t even get 2 days’ worth of battery life. I had to keep it on (in offline mode) at night, however, because turning it on uses a substantial amount of power.

The 2 megapixel camera was decent. I’ll give you that. Decent. Not excellent like the N95’s 5 megapixel camera, and I believe gave grainier shots than the iPhone’s camera did. Nothing will EVER be worse than the n81’s camera though. End of story. Either way, it didn’t have flash, nor a video calling camera – which surprised me for a new generation Nokia phone, particularly an enterprise one.

I also liked the panel of buttons between the screen and the keyboard. Allowed me to access my contacts, my menu, my messages (leads directly to email) and the “own” key. The “own” key allowed me to select one application to have one-touch access to. I used it back and forth for Fring, and the MP3 player. Similar to the dock at the bottom of the iPhone for one touch access to any four of your favorite applications.
I found the big screen to be beneficial, because I’m the kind of guy who needs to have several applications ready to go at any time, without having to go through the menu. I had seven (that’s right, seven) standby applications as a result of the larger screen. It was really beneficial.

The speaker may have been mono, but it was loud. Loud and clear. Much better than the iPhones’ speakers. I’ve been told the Motorola q9h had the best speakers on the market – but I’m not really one to worry about speakers (although I’d love to try the q9h).

Keyboard was easy to use – very comprehensive. It had somewhat of a “shift” key for the more advanced characters such as ampersands and semicolons. Keys such as the question mark and @ sign were non-shifted, so you could type them in one touch, as if they were an alphabetic character – making typing really easy.
I found Fring to be easy to use – both with respect to typing and navigation. I also found Truphone, which isn’t compatible with many other phones, to be very good for calling, using the symbian UI, as opposed to having to go into an application to make a VOIP call, as you would in Fring. It’s a phone with functions expanded past GSM – which I found extremely unique. It used the phone’s SIP client so that when I dial a number at the home screen, as if I was to use the GSM network, I’m given an option to make an Internet call, as opposed to a GSM call.

Email use – well laid out, and easy to use – but no push email was limiting. I may be using only IMAP, but that’s not the point. It was rather useful, however – and one of my favorite features, accented by the qwerty keyboard to make typing a breeze. I also loved how easy it was to attach files, especially photos. I had to send a picture to somebody of something, but didn’t have the picture taken yet – so instead of taking the picture with my phone, hooking it up to my computer, saving it to my desktop, and attaching it to an email, I could just take the picture with my phone, and attach it immediately to an email.

There was also a vast array of applications available (most of them cost, though). The one that stood out the most for me, though, was being able to run Youtube natively. Yes, that’s right, just like the iPhone, instead of opening up the browser and going to the Youtube website, there’s a dedicated application for it. You could even upload video directly from your phone. That’s one thing the iPhone can’t do, as a result of its lack of video capture.

My reason for getting rid of it was because of the UI in the music. I don’t like to have to carry around a separate music device, so I prefer to have it in my phone, which was what I loved about the iPhone. It took a few seconds to switch from one song to another, and it was really awkward to go through menus of songs. Not half as good looking as the iPhone’s music UI with cover flow and what have you. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed, and I stand without it now.

What also annoyed me about it was the limited amount of RAM. You know what it was? All of 64 megabytes. WTF? That’s double what a PSP has – and with the use of the symbian OS, then email here, instant messaging there, and music elsewhere, you’re going to have a very, very laggy phone. It didn’t take long for me to get ticked off by this, severely.

My overall rating: 4.5/5.

Wired: Qwerty keyboard easy to use. Applications easy to get to on panel of one touch buttons, and seven active standby applications. Wifi allows you to browse the web, and use VoIP and instant messaging. Excellent speaker. Outstanding battery life.
Tired: Very limited multimedia capabilities. Grainy camera with no flash. Limited amount of RAM limits your application usage. I wish it wouldn’t take so much battery to power up the phone, so I could turn the thing off at night.

Next steps: I feel that stereo speakers and a 3.5mm earbud jack will be a major breakthrough in multimedia capabilities. They should include earbuds that have a built in microphone and next song/pause button built into it like the iPhone did. Flash may help – but will make the phone moderately thicker. I wouldn’t call it a priority. Add more RAM – I mean seriously, this is an enterprise phone. Shouldn’t you be able to multitask? An office suite would be nice (next step for Nokia software developers to create one for all Nokia phones?), and I may be complaining about the battery life – but just to take it out of offline mode when you wake up in the morning – if that’s the price of excellence – I’m not complaining.

Bottom line: If you’re an emailer and/or texter, and a Wifi user, this phone is for you. This phone is directed at a Niche market and will only work for the right people. I wasn’t one of those people, having multimedia needs, but hey, we’re all different.