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| Nokia E61 Review |
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The first look at the E61 makes you think that its Nokia's move to take on the RIM Blackberrys and the Palms. A big phone or a small PDA? Which ever way you see it, the E61 is brilliant in use and thanks to a clever design, much thinner and less wider than many PDAs. The phone weighs just 144 grams and measures 117 x 69.7 x 14 mm.
The E61 is the first S60 device to feature a full QWERTY keyboard and a BIG display (320 x 240 pixels at 56 x 42 mm - thats wider than any S60 screen). Being a business phone, there are no extra frills like a camera or an FM radio for the gadget geeks. The features and the price put this phone at the top of the competition in this segment. With a host of connectivity options including GPRS, IrDA, Wi-Fi 802.11i/e/g, 3G, EDGE and Bluetooth, let's find out how it stacks up.
The Keyboard
The best feature of this phone has to be its QWERTY keyboard. The keys are very well arranged and large enough to feel comfortable in use. Although the keyboard requires getting used to, theres nothing to complain about for even the chubbiest of fingers. We found the soft keys and call/end keys that are placed above the keyboard a little too slim and wide but the 5-way navigation pad is just about perfect.
Display
The screen deserves a special mention. It is a 2.8" 320x240 landscape QVGA non-touchscreen LCD that sets itself apart from the rest by being a true 16 million color screen. This comes with a light sensor that adjusts the brightness depending on the lighting conditions making the display readable even under direct sunlight.
OS Features and Applications
The phone runs on the Symbian S60 v9.1 3rd Edition OS. The OS is pretty fast and responsive unlike the N-Series or other older S60 phones.
The E61 boasts lots of useful business software: printer management, presentation support (via USB), spreadsheet and word processing via QuickOffice's goodness, a zip application, WorldMate (view the weather/time on 3 cities at the same time), voicemail, notes, calculator, a units converter, speed dial, GPS support (via an external bluetooth GPS module or via GSM triangulation), a Macromedia Flash player (no browser plugin though) and voice command.
The OS itself supports themes, profiles, and lots of third party applications. More and more applicaitons are being ported to this new platform everyday and this is one feature that really puts the E61 on top of the other PDAs.
