Nokia E63 (3)

Media

In this, part 2 of the review of the Nokia E63, I’m going to look at how multimedia is handled, followed by a look at the way Files on Ovi has been bundled. As explained in part 1, the E63 has been set up so that many users will never actually need to go into the main S60 menus (most apps and functions they need are available from the two mode switching standby screens). The ‘Personal’ mode includes Music player and Gallery, so that’s the very basics covered, but anyone with any sense will also delve into the menus to see what’s there. And, this being S60, there’s no reason not to pluck a favourite media application and put a shortcut to it on the standby screen as well, though this of course does rather qualify as ‘advanced’ S60 and will require a bit of tech awareness to accomplish.

Elevating Podcasting onto the standby screen

There’s the Nokia Music Store client – now apparently standard on Eseries devices – whatever next? Provided the user is OK with the DRM on each (WMA) track and doesn’t intend to switch devices too often in the near future, this is an acceptable way to buy music instantly, over the air. (Regular readers will know that I’m not big on DRM – I simply copied across a few Gigabytes of unDRMed music files from my (legally ripped) CD collection with the E63’s microSD card in ‘Mass Storage’ mode) With the world seemingly moving away from the madness of DRM (which only ever inconveniences the honest), maybe Nokia’s Music Stores will also drop it at some point? Let’s hope so.

Music playback is now acceptable without seriously encroaching on the audio quality found in the likes of the N78, the N95 or standalone digital music players. The inclusion of a proper Equaliser was useful and I liked keeping ‘Bass booster’ on in order to hear bass frequencies better. The mono speaker on the E63’s top is OK as a tinny radio replacement and does better than many non-Nokia phones in this regard, but it’s a lot quieter than the speakers on the E90 or N95, not surprisingly.

Media handling is slightly crippled by the use of USB 1.1, as on most other S60 3rd Edition FP1 (and earlier) devices, although slow file transfers (under 1MB/s) won’t be a huge issue for many typical Eseries users, who arguably tend not to swap their music and video collections around as often as, say, someone with an N95.

Gallery is the same tired old application as in S60 devices three years ago. Why, oh why, hasn’t Nokia’s Eseries team asked the Nseries team for the code to the slick Gallery featured in every Nseries device since the N93, over two years ago? Gallery works here, but it’s not pretty and it’s not pleasant.

One big multimedia surprise for the E63 and E71 – Podcasting’s preinstalled! One less app for the user to have to go off and download. I’ve really been getting into listening to podcasts while getting to sleep and the E63 does a good job here.

Yet another Nseries crossover – Share Online 3.0 is also preinstalled. Not that the photos from the E63 will be good enough to share most of the time and not that Nokia are pushing the service…. but, again, it’s one less thing for potential users to have to find out about and download at a later date.

And another…. Internet radio is present and correct and working beautifully on the E63… This wasn’t on the E71 when it was launched but has now been retrofitted to it in a firmware update. Again, I’m a big fan of Nokia’s Shoutcast-based Internet radio, it’s a great, free and portable way to get music, news and chat without worrying about other devices or reception.

Multimedia on ‘Enterprise’-aimed S60 devices has always lagged a little behind the cutting edge and the E63 (and E71) is no exception. Video playback does now include H.264 support, so most MP4 videos will play to some degree, as will FLV videos (Flash Video, e.g. saved from YouTube). Mind you, I did notice regular jerkiness (there are no fancy 3D graphics chips to help out here, as on the N95, for example) and suspect that there’s still some fine tuning to do under the hood for future firmwares, for both performance and stability – the E63 soft reset itself several times during video playback.

The average, non-focussing camera was mentioned earlier, in part 1: “For many people, the camera was the weak point of the E71, at 3 megapixels (with small sensor/aperture) and with a cumbersome way of focussing – the E63’s camera is worse, at 2mp and with no focussing, but for many people it will produce images just as good (or maybe that should be ‘average’) in most light conditions. The E71’s camera only pulls ahead in great light and when used wisely.”

Here are some sample photos taken yesterday in feeble winter sunshine in the UK, click on each to download or enlarge it, etc.

For video recording, capture is at the now humble QVGA at 15 frames per second (i.e. YouTube-friendly), although the optics are pretty good for this sort of work as long as there are no extremes of light (shooting in full sun isn’t recommended) – and the captured soundtrack is of much higher quality than similar video-recording phones and smartphones, though obviously some way short of the excellent video recorded on the likes of the N95 and N82. Interestingly, the LED flashlight comes on permanently while shooting video – it doesn’t help that much for lighting a subject, perhaps it’s more an indication to your subject that you’re filming?

In summary, media recording and playback is fine for occasional use but a user probably wouldn’t choose the device for these abilities.

N-Gage games compatibility is out of the question, though there are plenty of S60 games that work in landscape QVGA and which don’t require a fast graphics chip. Users shouldn’t get their hopes up too though, in this department.

120MB of flash memory makes up the internal (C:) disk and this will take some filling – it’s certainly ample for all uses I can think of. Not having a microSD card in the package is a slight nuisance, but cards are cheap these days.
Files on Ovi

Don’t forget about the free 1GB of space provided by Files on Ovi, which a user can make best use of if he/she has regular use of a Wi-Fi connection. Kicking off the sign-up on the E63 gives them a free account for a year (normal pricing is for 10GB and is £40 a year). As long as they haven’t got any stupidly large documents to move around (and with no 3.5G to access them that would probably be the case!), then 1GB is still a very useful bit of cloud storage, especially so since many people will get just as much use from the standard ‘Files connector’ functionality, in which you ‘see through’ to your (Windows) desktop PC’s hard disk to grab files directly.

This was my first chance to play with Files on Ovi in a ‘production’ environment and the E63 is something of a trailblazer in this regard, so I’m going to take my time and walk you right through how it works. By default, the Files on Ovi icon resides in ‘Installations’:

Sign-up is kicked off from the E63 itself, and this tells the Files on Ovi system to send you an email with the download link for the PC-hosted Files ‘connector’. Once installed, this starts up a window in Internet Explorer, showing the files on your hard disk which are available to your phone on-demand.

All very smooth. Back on the E63, hitting the File on Ovi icon brings up a sign-in screen (with details remembered), followed by a view of the customised mobile Files web site:

Browsing one’s hard disk on a QVGA screen, one file at a time, it becomes very evident that you have to keep things organised – it’s no good trying to scroll through a folder of 500 items on a small screen – use folders wherever possible, etc.

Once you’ve used the magic of Files on Ovi to browse to a file you want (e.g. a document or picture), you can view it in the Ovi viewer, zooming in or out and with the option to email it, download it (to your phone) or ‘Add to Anytime files’.

‘Anytime files’, as you might guess, are the contents of the aforementioned 1GB of free disk space in the ‘cloud’. You can signify which files you want copied onto Ovi with Anytime status from the main Files on Ovi web interface on your desktop, or via the mobile web version on your E63 (or other phone). The Files on Ovi ‘connector’, always running under Windows on your broadband PC, then copies that file up to the cloud – and keeps it up to date should you change the master on your PC hard disk.

Above, I’m browsing ‘My Documents’ on the E63 in the mobile web version of Files on Ovi. This then reaches down through the running Files connector and gives the system read access to my hard disk. Impressive? Scary? Bit of both, but it does largely work as advertised. Here an Excel spreadsheet is being viewed, but if I then clicked on ‘Download’ (for example), the original files would be transferred across the Internet and saved onto the E63’s internal disk, with the device prompting me to open it in Quickoffice.

Here I’ve chosen an Acrobat file, again viewing it as a zoomable web image in the mobile version of Files on Ovi. It’s easy to be a bit sceptical about a remote file access system like this, especially pointing out having to run the extra Files connector in the background on the PC, but when you see it all working a light goes on in your head. Essentially, you don’t need to worry about taking the right files out with you on the road ever again. Get an email at home requesting data that’s in a file at work? Just use Files on Ovi to email it directly or grab it for annotating. And with the Anytime files system, you don’t have to leave the PC on all the time – your most common files can all be stored online, ready for instant retrieval.

Interestingly, there’s a Contacts link at the bottom of each Files on Ovi page. This doesn’t seem to be linked yet to the main Ovi Contacts store – I suspect this is a switch that has yet to be turned on at Nokia. Also of note and shown above is that you’re not limited to just common folders that have been pre-ordained for sharing on Files on Ovi – you can choose to ‘Browse’ and dig deep into any obscure corner of your hard disk, retrieving anything to the E63 (or similar) as takes your fancy.

[Bonus link: See also Rafe’s own impressions of Files on Ovi, including access from a PC browser, etc.]

As should perhaps be expected from a device with early firmware (despite the maturity of the underlying platform), I did encounter a few glitches and application lockups. Shown below are some of the errors I experienced in my short time with Files on Ovi:

Wrap up

This being both 2009 and also show season (CES, MWC, etc), we’re used to being bombarded with products with flagship specifications, designed to amaze with ultra convergence (e.g. the N97 and Palm Pre) and, looked at in the light of these, the E63 is rather limited and downright boring. At most turns it will disappoint a power user and some of the cost-cutting measures (3.5G and GPS) just seem bizarre in light of modern economies of scale. Is the E63 a budget version of the E71? Not exactly, but it does fill that niche.

In both physical and online shops, individual customers who have seen the E71 and can stretch the extra £100 or so will undoubtedly go for it instead, it’s by far the superior device. However, the E63 remains a solid email-and-work-focussed choice, with the intense integration of the new Nokia Email Service and Files on Ovi. While it’s probably not for the typical tech-savvy All About Symbian reader, it may still do well as a workhorse for company bulk purchases (all those £100 savings add up!) and on the High Street as a (relatively) low cost QWERTY phone.

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_E63_Review-Part_2_Multimedia_Files_on_Ovi_and_Wrap-up.php 

Nokia E63 (2)

Nokia E63 is the next QWERTY messenger by Nokia, set on the glorious path of the E71. Only this time it slips off the high heels to walk it in plain straight and simple boots instead. And the matching price tag leaves little doubt of what this Working Joe here is all about.

No fancy spoils, the Nokia E63 means business and brings connectivity and messaging together in a sharp and reliable package. Certainly a no-thrills mobile, the E63 does its jobs with no fuss and at a fair wage. Well, who would frown at that?

Nokia E63 official photos

Now, comparisons to E71 are clearly inevitable and maybe we know better than expect Nokia E63 to impress us as much. But who says it can’t persuade through common sense.
Key features:
Quad-band GSM support
3G support
Landscape 2.36″ 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
Symbian 9.2 OS, S60 UI with FP1 (sprinkled with some FP2)
369 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB of SDRAM
Wi-Fi
2 megapixel fixed focus camera with LED flash
120 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion
Standard 3.5mm audio jack
Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP support
microUSB v2.0
FM radio
Comfortable full QWERTY keypad
Convenient shortcut keys
Provider-independent VoIP support
Office document editor
Nokia Maps
User-friendly Mode Switch for swapping two homescreen setups
Great battery life
Remote Lock and Wipe feature
One-year free subscription for Files on Ovi
Main disadvantages:
Poor camera performance
Video recording maxes out at QVGA@15fps
No GPS
No RDS in the FM radio
3.5mm jack protective bud is not attached to the body
No USB cable in the retail package
No preinstalled games at all

Nokia E63 is undoubtedly a trimmed-down version of the E71 and almost a return to the E61i roots – with a 2 megapixel camera and no built-in GPS receiver. Well, the camera of the E71 was largely disappointing in the first place plus, an external Bluetooth GPS receiver is always an option, so we hardly count these as serious drawbacks.

Nokia E63 at ours

The styling of the E63 is where the difference is most significant. Nokia E63 still looks OK and feels sturdy, but it sure lacks the solid metal charm of the E71. Anyway, the mild price tag may as well make you forgive the cost-effective approach to the exterior.

The potential market rivals of the E63 aren’t that many but there are still a few affordable QWERTY smartphones out there.

Before we get to the actual competition, let’s briefly look at the ageing Nokia E61i. It’s got a pretty much identical spec sheet to E63 and boasts some really nice metallic accents. But Nokia E61i keeps the price quite high even 2 years now since its debut and it’s got half the RAM and a slower CPU than the E63. Probably the biggest selling point of Nokia E63 is that it’s relatively compact for a QWERTY device and Nokia E61i is no match here.

Nokia E61i

Then there’s Samsung C6620, which runs on the WinMo smartphone (no touch) platform and trades Wi-Fi connectivity for GPS. In case you have a subscription plan that covers a sufficient amount of data you might just find it a viable option.

Samsung C6620

The good old Samsung i600 can also come in handy. Its Windows interface isn’t nearly as snappy as Symbian on the E63 but the i600 is a neat QWERTY-enabled handset with Wi-Fi that does really great.

Samsung i600

And finally, as UIQ is waltzing off the stage, you might find the last UIQ devices getting quite affordable too. The Sony Ericsson P1 has a QW-ER-TY keyboard (that some find usable), Wi-Fi, a large screen and a decent camera but it is way bulkier than the E63. Still, for the price it currently retails at it’s definitely worth checking out.

Sony Ericsson P1

Now that we’ve covered some of the main competitors, join us on the next page, as we set Nokia E63 loose. Boy, there’s quite a bunch of buttons we need to press on this one.

Retail package – no way to start

Unboxing the Nokia E63, we stumble upon an unsettling discovery. A memory card would’ve been too much to ask, we know. But the lack of a data cable is just hard to swallow. We’re surprised to only find a stereo headset in the box. And that`s it. We guess when Nokia go budget, they really mean it. At least the headset looks OK and has a 3.5mm audio plug.

Nokia E63 has a modest retail package

The retail package also holds a user manual, quick start guide and a travel charger (bigger than the Nokia E71 variety, though).
Nokia E63 360-degree spin

Nokia E63 stands 113 x 59 x 13 mm, which adds to a volume of 87 cc. That makes it just a tad wider and thicker than the Nokia E71, which however has a notably reduced volume of 66cc and measures 114 x 57 x 10 mm.

Nokia E63 is still among the slimmest QWERTY handsets on the market but its rounded edges and bright colors make it look and feel way chubbier than the graceful Nokia E71.

Design and construction

The success of the QWERTY business tool E71 is a good enough motivation for Nokia to aim at the mass market with the lower-end E63 twin brother (obviously a case of two-egg twins though).

The E63 is trying hard to set itself apart from the steel E71 and the red and blue paintjobs do give the newbie some identity, even if the choice of color is questionable. The all-plastic outfit is quite alright – after all, affordability is key here.

The earpiece of Nokia E71 is placed dead center at the top of the front panel. A little to the right is the ambient light sensor.

The ambient light sensor is right next ot the earpiece

Below is the 2.36″ display, followed by the main bank of control and navigation keys and the QWERTY keyboard. The screen, keyboard and controls will get their due coverage in a short while.

There’s nothing on the right hand-side of the handset – nope, no volume rocker this time. The D-pad will do just fine of course during calls and in media players, but it still means a few extra clicks to turn the volume up or down when the music player is playing in the background. Another thing gone is the infrared port – but it doesn’t feel like it will be badly missed.

It’s pretty plain at the right

On the left you’ll find the standard microUSB port and the microSD card slot. Both apertures are sealed with plastic caps to hold off dirt and dust, and keep the contour of the handset intact.

The microUSB port and microSD are at the right side of Nokia E63

The microSD slot is said to support cards of up to 8GB, and this was as far as went testing it. The handset handled even a full 16GB microSD card problem-free.

At the top are the loudspeaker and the 3.5 mm audio jack. Delighted as we are to see no sign of the unsightly red power knob of Nokia E71, the 3.5 mm AV connector is the real treat here – one thing the newbie has over its high-end sibling.

The top of the phone hosts the 3.5mm audio jack and the loudspeaker

The audio jack is sealed but we actually doubt it the protective cap will last long enough: it’s not attached to the body and can be easily misplaced.

The bottom of Nokia’s latest messenger features the mouthpiece and the charger plug on the left and the lanyard eyelet on the right.

The mouthpiece and the charger plug are at the bottom • the lanyard eyelet is also here

The front frame that encloses the keypad and the screen is made of glossy plastic. It gets no visible smudges – another benefit over E71 – but it does get greasy and slippery after a while of use. It’s quite easy to clean though.

The Nokia E63 rear – though hardly as classy as the E71 – is truly fingerprint-proof. It’s made of matt plastic and the soft rubbery finish makes the handset a pleasure to handle.

Rearside Nokia E63 features the 2 megapixel camera lens, with LED flash and a self-portrait mirror. The whole combo (except for the LED flash) is covered by a transparent layer, which in turn has no protection whatsoever from scratches, except that it is a tiny bit recessed.

The two megapixel camera is accompanied by a LED flash and a self-portrait mirror

To remove the battery cover you only need to gently slide the latch at the bottom of the rear and lift the cover. Fitting it back is easy as pie – just repeat the same steps backwards.

The battery cover also has a locking mechanism

What’s under the cover is truly worth cheers: the 1500 mAh BP-4L Li-Ion battery is the same unit we saw – and loved – in Nokia E71). With a power plant like this one, seems like there’s no stopping Nokia E63. It is quoted at 432 hours of stand-by time and 11 and a half hours of talk time and that’s more than impressive.

The battery lifetime of Nokia E63 is really impressive

Considering the excellent battery life of the E71, we are more than sure the E63 won’t let you down. And this time around the power-hungry GPS is not even in the picture.

The build quality of Nokia E63 is commendable even if this is not the kind of handset to turn heads like the flashy E71. Nokia E63 handles nicely and ergonomics haven’t been sacrificed. It even dares to challenge the haughty original with a 3.5 mm audio jack placed at the top and fingerprint resistance. It only feels the E63 could’ve been notably lighter than the steel-clad E71. That would’ve been another definite asset.

The Nokia E63 demonstrates commendable ergonomics

Phonebook

The phonebook of Nokia E63 isn’t any different from other Symbian handsets. We aren’t really surprised by the lack of change, as it can hardly mean any more business. It is simply great – offering storage space for a virtually unlimited number of contacts and fields, with all the available memory potentially usable for the purpose. We can hardly imagine anyone filling that up.

Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name, and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any name.

The phonebook offers searching by gradual typing of the name

Editing a contact offers an enormous variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like. You can also create new fields if you happen to be able to think of any. Personal ringtones and video are also available for assigning. If you prefer, you may group your contacts and give a specific ringtone to each group.

An enormous number of fields is available when creating editing a contact

The Call log application, although not exactly a part of the phonebook, is also one of the Symbian elements. It can hold up to 20 call records in each of the tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls. These are all accessed by pressing the Call key in standby.

The call log can give you detailed information for your recent communications

If you access the Log application from the main menu, you’ll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers. You can even filter the entries (by contact or by type), a useful feature if you’re looking for a specific call.
Telephony

With Nokia E63 you are extremely unlikely to experience any reception issues. Sound during calls is very clear and free of any interferences. The vibration is also strong enough to make sure you never miss an incoming call or message.

Nokia E63 features the really nice smart dialing feature, which helps you quickly find a contact straight from the standby screen. All you need to do is punch in a few letters and all contacts with names (first or last) containing them get displayed.

The smart dial is very convenient

Unfortunately Nokia E63 is short of the advanced call manager Nokia E71 has preinstalled. Anyway, it’s available via the Download section in the main menu. The Advanced call manager is powerful tool for filtering your incoming calls.

You can opt for various settings – accepting only calls from your contacts, from all non-private numbers or from anyone. In addition you can set up different ringing profiles that can be scheduled to activate at a certain time (hour and day).

Finally, you can also set the behavior of the phone when rejecting a call – busy tone, reject with SMS or answering machine are some of the options.

The advanced call manager application

The Nokia E63 also has support for VoIP calls – you just enter your account details and you are all set.

We conducted our traditional speakerphone test with Nokia E63. Here is how it ranked among a few of the other handsets we have tested. You can find information on the actual testing process, along with the full list of tested devices here.
Speakerphone test Voice, dB Pink noise/ Music, dB Ringing phone, dB Overal score
Nokia E63 64.6 62.1 69.0 Below Average
Nokia E51 67.0 65.7 71.2 Average
Nokia E71 68.0 66.5 76.2 Good
Sony Ericsson W960 72.3 73.5 76.7 Very Good
Samsung i8510 INNOV8 78.9 75.7 77.5 Excellent

Messaging in its prime

What we have here is Eseries, Symbian and QWERTY, end of story. The full-fledged keyboard and the software support make for a great messenger. From a nice and intuitive editor to advanced predictive input and error correction – it’s all there.

There are four message editors aboard: SMS, MMS, audio and e-mail. The SMS editor is the well known intuitive application for all Symbian S60 smartphones. It has a counter of the characters left to the limit of 160. There is also an indicator in brackets showing the number of separate parts the message will be divided into for sending.

The SMS editor is really nice to use

It goes without saying that a delivery report can be activated. The reports pop up on screen, once the message reaches the addressee and are subsequently saved in a separate folder in the messaging sub-menu. When you are exiting the message editor without having sent the message, the editor prompts saving it to the Drafts folder or discarding it.

The MMS editor has virtually the same interface as the one we just described, with the added subject line being the only difference.

The MMS editor is identical to the SMS one if it wasn’t for the added subject line

The audio message, albeit technically a type of MMS, was obviously deemed important enough. There is a separate editor, which can either record the message on the spot or use a previously recorded sound clip.

Audio message editor allows recording the audio clip on the spot

Email is the highlight in the Nokia E63, as it supports a wide range of personal and corporate email standards such as Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email solution, along with System Seven and Visto Mobile. Encryption is also available, as well as mobile VPN support for connecting to secure corporate Intranets.

It seems Nokia have got everything covered except for Blackberry Connect support. The company has said that since they are offering a push email service similar to that of Blackberry Connect, they would no longer offer Blackberry Connect support starting with Nokia E71 and E66.

It’s a really odd decision and it clearly shows that selling their email service to end customers is more important to Nokia than selling their handsets. While this may sound perfectly reasonable to Nokia marketing, it might turn out as a deal-breaker to some potential E-series buyers.

The email client is truly great

Anyways, Nokia have added some features, which are a benefit over competing devices. First of all, it’s the ultra easy email setup. If you are using any public email service (it has to be among the over 1000 supported providers), all you have to do is enter your email address and password to start enjoying email-on-the-go. Nokia E63 takes care of downloading all the relevant settings to get you going in no time.

Composing an email on the Nokia E63

The client can download headers only or entire messages, and can be set to automatically check mail at a given interval. There is also support for attachments, signatures and basically everything you can think of. Push email support is also on board, so we can hardly think of anything the E63 lacks in this department – except for the BlackBerry connectivity.

As a whole, Nokia E63 is a dream texting device as is its bigger brother Nokia E71. It might not be the best but it sure is among the most pocketable messengers out there.

2 megapixel snapper: shouldn’t have bothered

The Nokia E63 – is equipped with a 2 megapixel camera with fixed focus, LED flash and self-portrait mirror. You can’t really expect much from a 2 megapixel snapper especially given the Nokia E71 3-megapixel unit was quite disappointing.

Much like the Nokia E71, the E63 camera lens lacks any lens protection. This means that the glass above the camera lens will get scratched in no time unless you use a carrying case at all times. The lack of a dedicated camera key is also a downer.

The camera user interface is very simple and strange in the same time mainly because the viewfinder window does not fit fullscreen. The camera interface is the basic Nokia one (as seen on Nokia 6210 Navigator or Nokia 5320 XpressMusic) and even has fewer options than the one on the Navigator. For example – there’s no Panorama mode and the options toolbar hosts fewer shortcuts.

The scarce additional options allow for setting the white balance or adding four different color tones to your images. Also there are a self timer, night and sequence mode, but we hardly believe you will use them more than once.

The interface is the best part of the camera

The Nokia E63 image quality is below average. Pictures lack detail and noise levels are high. The colors are also far from being precise and as a whole there is hardly anything good we can say.

It seems ditching the camera altogether could’ve been an option to consider, granted especially that the E71 still lacks a camless version along the lines of E50 and E51. Anyway, you can check out the sample photos made with the E63 camera.

Nokia E63 sample photos

Video recording is another let down with the E63 camera. The business-minded handset only manages QVGA videos at 15 fps, which has MMS written all over. As a whole, the camera is the one feature of E63 yelling business-comes-first. It’s understandable though, given the price tag.
E-series: connecting people like no other

With the shameful camera performance behind us, it’s time to check out the connectivity options. This is a great chance for the messenger to repair its damaged reputation.

Nokia E63 almost has it all: from Bluetooth v2.0 and USB v2.0 to quad-band GSM, Wi-Fi and dual-band UMTS. HSDPA support however is lacking and there’s no Infrared port as on Nokia E71 (not a big loss anyway).

A hot-swappable microSD card slot is also on board. It might just be the quickest way of transferring data and quite convenient too. According to the manufacturer, it should support capacities up to 8GB, and it does. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a 16GB card handy to test it beyond that.

Nokia E63 is also currently the only Nokia smartphone to come with a free one-year subscription to the new Files on Ovi service. The service seamlessly syncs chosen folders on your desktop PC to the Ovi web cloud using a small desktop utility and then you can access those files straight from the phone hassle-free no matter whether your PC is on or off.

Nokia E63 has no built-in GPS receiver. If you need one, your only option is to connect external one via Bluetooth.
Web browser

Browsing the internet on a Symbian smartphone is always a pleasure. With the E63 and its landscape screen it’s all the better. Reading is much more convenient and, thanks to the great page rendering, content fits perfectly on screen and looks exactly like on a PC.

The virtual mouse cursor takes browsing another level up. It is easy to control and generally works great. A mini-map can be activated to help navigating your way around large sites where lots of scrolling is required. The zoom level is also easily adjustable at the expense of only a few key presses. The web browser also offers fullscreen view mode.

The web browser is really good

The large amount of RAM is another thing that improves the browser performance. The web browser is one of the most RAM-hungry applications. With the E63 you are extremely unlikely to run out of RAM even if you load very heavy web pages and have a few applications running in the background. The ample 2.36″ display is another welcome boost to browsing.

The final touches to the Nokia E63 browser are the built-in full Java and Flash support. Having surfed quite frequently for the past week, we didn’t manage to stumble upon any flash content the E63 was unable to handle.

Flash video is also not a problem for the E63 web browser – you can watch video on the full-featured versions of YouTube and the likes.

Organizer

Time-management is another business phone virtue. Little wonder, Nokia E63 has one of the most elaborate organizer packages we’ve seen. There are a lot of nice applications, all very user-friendly and functional.

Nokia E63 is currently the only Nokia smartphone to come with a free one-year subscription to the new Files on Ovi service. The service seamlessly syncs chosen folders on your desktop PC to the Ovi web cloud using a small desktop utility and then you can access those files straight from the phone hassle-free no matter whether your PC is on or off.

The organizer trip however starts with the calendar. It has four different types of view – to-do, weekly, daily and agenda as well as four types of events available for setting up – Meeting, Memo, Anniversary and To-do. The agenda view modes is new to Nokia handsets and is really nice – it allows the dates of the month and the events for the selected day to appear simultaneously on the screen. Every event has its own unique fields, some of which allow an alarm to be activated at a preset time to act as a reminder.

The calendar view modes and the events available for setting up

Mobile office is also duly covered, with seamless handling of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Furthermore, unlike most other Nokia handsets out there, editing documents is supported right out of the box. With Nokia E63 you won’t need to pay extra for editing your office documents.

There is still a number of updates for the Quickoffice that come for a price but most users can do just fine without them. The ones that use MS Office 2007 documents however won’t be so lucky as the support for those doesn’t come included and they will have to purchase the next version of the application.

Editing a doc and an xls file with the built-in Quickoffice

A PDF reader is also part of the Nokia E63 preinstalled content and a ZIP manager allows extracting archived files straight from your phone.

The PDF reader is also here

The other pre-bundled organizing and time-management applications are: a great unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as the Notes application. We are not going to get into detail with them, as their functionality and performance are familiar enough. The ActiveNotes application is also on board allowing multimedia content to be added to your notes.

The calculator, converter and ActiveNotes applications

The Nokia E63 alarm clock application is also very nice. It allows a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own name, set-off time and repeat pattern.

The alarm clock gives a lot of room for customization

The printer application enables printing content straight from your Nokia E63.

You don’t need a computer to pair your E63 with a printer

The useful “Search” application is also present in Nokia E63. Its reserved line in the active stand-by menu no longer comes as a surprise. After all, an application this useful really deserves to be conveniently placed. The application itself finds almost every item in your Nokia based on a given keyword. From messages to settings, every bit of data is checked and results are then listed.

The Search application

GPS or not, you can always make use of the preinstalled Nokia Maps 2.0 application. It has really detailed map coverage of a huge number of countries and a lot of extras such as traffic information, voice-guided navigation and so on. Unluckily, the extra features need to be purchased separately. Without connected GPS device you can still use the software to browse the maps.

Finally, Nokia E63 features a dictionary. English comes pre-installed but you can also download dozens of other languages for free from the Nokia website.

The built-in dictionary

Unfortunately, the Nokia E63 doesn’t have any games preinstalled probably to keep the price down.
Final words

Whether you call Nokia E63 the economy package – or stimulus package, in the jargon of the day – you’re looking at a capable business device. It brings the essential skills of the E71, and only sacrifices looks to round off that sweetly trimmed price tag. The lacking GPS comes closest to but still can’t be a definite no-go. Even without it, the E63 is a strong enough offer to consider.

Besides, the E63 is not all about downgrading the E71. Whether Nokia want to expand the reach of their Enterprise lineup just like they do with the Nseries, or try to secure some mass demand for a truly elaborate and capable device like the E71, the result looks worth it and we are sure it will get as popular as E51.

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_e63-review-305p7.php