Nokia E51 (2)

Nokia E51 review: Connecting business

Nokia offers a wide range of Eseries business handsets, including Communicators and enhanced messaging devices of different form factors. Each E series phone is optimized for different types of business users, but all feature the familiar and friendly S60 user interface over Symbian OS. The new Nokia E51 combines compact dimensions, rich communication skills, a comfortable keyboard and stylish design, aiming to be a classic and conservative all-round performer.

Official photos of Nokia E51

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/3G (with HSDPA 3.6 Mbps), EDGE and GPRS support
• Wi-Fi, VoIP over WLAN
• Symbian 9.2 OS Series 60 3rd edition UI with Feature Pack 1
• 12 mm slim, elegant design
• 130 MB onboard memory, expandable via microSD cards (up to 4 GB), hot swap
• Very comfortable keyboard and D-pad
• Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP and IrDA (115 kbps)
• New Symbian key icons
• Fast user interface

Main disadvantages

• 2 megapixel camera with no autofocus, nor flash
• Extremely hard-to-press volume rocker, power button and voice recorder key
• Stale multimedia interface
• Cannot edit office documents
• Doesn’t charge when connected via USB
• Voice dial works well only with English names

Nokia E51 all around

Another conservative and business-like handset fills in the ranks of the Nokia E-series. Metallic highlights and clean lines make the E51 emphatically the business-minded user’s choice. Subtlety and moderation in design are key in this solid and elegant phone. It’s not only the succession of numbers in the model name that call for a comparison with the forerunning Nokia E50. Although the two handsets have quite a lot in common in terms of design, the new E51 isn’t exactly a chip off the old block.

Nokia E51 takes functionality to a higher level than E50. The successor measures 114.8 x 46 mm, which is pretty much the same as the old Nokia E50, but its 12 mm slimness makes good sense in Nokia’s business line. The E51 is the thinnest Eseries squad member. The weight has gone up by only 4 grams to a total of 100 sharp, which is a great achievement, given the features this handset offers.

The build quality is commendable. Ergonomics are at a high level too, especially as far as the keyboard is concerned. Well, we could clearly state the new Nokia E51 is an improvement on all fronts. The only disadvantage we noticed is the fingerprint susceptibility of the shiny metallic rear panel, as well as the metal framing on the front.

Nokia E51 and E50 head-to-head: welcome improvements

What comes with it

The package contents of Nokia E51 are on par with most of the other non-multimedia Nokia phones. Having mentioned fingerprints, the piece of fine cloth that comes in the box is a good way to start exploring the retail package. Other than that, the box includes the small AC-5 DC charger, a mini USB connection cable (DKE-2), headset (HS-47), and the Eseries CD-ROM. Nokia E51 also comes with a Quickstart guide and User guide. Finally, let’s mention the Li-Ion Battery (BP-6MT) with capacity of 1050 mAh.

The retail package offers a standard set of accessories

Nokia E51 360-degree spin

//

 

The ambient light sensor and the earpiece are at the top of the front panel. Right below them is the 2″ QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) active TFT display that supports up to 16 million colors.

At the front – the light sensor, earpiece grill and display on focus

The main bank of controls under the display and the alphanumeric keypad, integrated nicely in one unbroken layout, are well distinguishable and offer a praiseworthy tactility. The set of control and navigation buttons include a large and comfortable D-pad, two selection keys, Menu key, Calendar key, Contacts key, Messaging keys and, finally, the Call and End keys. Right under the D-pad is the Clear key. There may be arguments in favor of accidental presses on the Clear key when dealing with the D-pad but we confirm that usability isn’t compromised a jot. The Menu key icon is now a house instead of the usual Symbian logo. The C key has changed too. Probably the reason behind all this is that Nokia are trying to attract non-smartphone users for their smartphone product lineup.

The main bank of controls are integrated nicely in one unbroken layout

Nokia E51 is yet another Symbian handset to miss the Edit (pencil) key; however its functionality is accommodated by the Hash key. All control and navigation keys are large enough and tactile to make wrong presses highly unlikely. The D-pad is very comfortable and responsive, and it gets appreciated even more should the questionable joystick in E50 come to mind. This set of keys is slightly elevated from the alphanumeric keypad, providing for a great typing experience and seamless control of the phone.

The keypad itself is yet another ground for praising the ergonomics of E51. The tactile feedback is simply superb and typing SMS and emails is sheer pleasure. The ambient light sensor is generally accurate, but it would sometimes switch the keyboard backlighting on prematurely.

Focus on the keyboard – just right

The soft and even white backlighting is a pleasure to use and look at. The display is, as usual, well above average with crisp and vivid colors. Legibility even under direct sunlight is spot on. The 2 inches display is with QVGA resolution makes system font tiny as it did with Nokia E50.

The phone in the dark – splendid to look at and use

  “…Nokia E51 is yet another Symbian handset to miss the Edit (pencil) key; however its functionality is accommodated by the Hash key. All control and navigation keys are large enough and tactile to make wrong presses highly unlikely…”

// <![CDATA[
if (!document.phpAds_used) document.phpAds_used = ‘,’;
phpAds_random = new String (Math.random()); phpAds_random = phpAds_random.substring(2,11);

document.write (“”);
// ]]>

We move on to the top of the handset to find the Power key. Its rubber-like finish is a nice touch, making it look sturdy and unlikely to press unintentionally. Indeed, we had a very hard time making it work. Regretfully, all the side keys are equally rigid and unyielding.

The top part houses only the Power key

On the right side of Nokia E51 we find the volume rocker with the voice command key in-between. Again, the keys suffer a tremendous lack of response. The left side houses the Voice recorder key only. The side keys have the same rubber-like finish.

The right and left sides with traditional keys

Bottomside is the miniUSB port, the variety we get to see more and more lately. The Pop-port we used to have in E50 is way past it, really. The charger plug and the mouthpiece are on the right with the neck/wrist strap eyelet completing the tally.

The bottom part features the charger plug, microphone pinhole, miniUSB port and lanyard eyelet

Flipping the phone over, the steel finish of the battery cover is quick to impress. The top part of the back is black plastic and it’s where the camera lens is nested. The loudspeaker and the Nokia logo over it are the only things to see. Simple and stylish, the back does bring back the conservative and solid feel of the old E50.

Real metal cover for the battery

The battery cover is easily opened (wish we could say that for E50, too) to reveal the Li-Ion Battery (BP-6MT) with a capacity of 1070 mAh. Obviously, Nokia have replaced the old battery to meet the new power requirements, now that we have Wi-Fi on board.

Probably the efficiency of the battery is its benefit. However, we are more concerned about the official standby and talk time values. The manufacturer promises up to 310 hours of standby time and up to 4 hours 20 min of talk time. Well, as the standby time is tangibly pepped up, the talk time is scaled down, compared to E50.

In reality the phone performs on average. Three days of moderate usage is pretty much an adequate estimation, while adding extra diversions like listening to music or working with wi-fi is sure to further reduce battery life.

Nokia E51 feels great to hold and operating it single-handedly is no problem at all. The only drawback is the rigid side keys, which take away some of the delight of using this exceptionally solid and user-friendly handset.

Nokia E51 feels great in hand

Telephony is fine as always

Signal reception in Nokia E51 takes us back to the good things in this handset. It is just what you would expect in a no-nuisance business device. The loudspeaker is also good, with vibration strong enough to make sure you never miss an incoming call or message. The phone offers excellent in-call voice quality, sound is very clear without any interference.

Calling Dexter on Nokia E51

The ringing volume of Nokia E51 is quite standard, judging by our lab tests, and offers almost the same loudness as Nokia E50. It’s worth noting though that the Nokia E51 ringtones do sound loud, crisp and rich, and with them the E51 seems to perform a lot better than with other ringtones. With them the E51 scores Very Good, instead of only Average. Subjectively, we really liked the mellow sound of the Nokia E51. It’s not a surprise that it doesn’t score much on the loudness test, however we really liked the mild and rich way it sounds in almost all scenarios.

With Nokia E51 any sound file can be used to indicate an incoming call, as long as it’s any of these formats: MP3, AAC, eAAC+, WMA, AMR-NB, and AMR-WB.

Here is how Nokia E51 ranks among some of the other handsets we have measured in our loudspeaker test. You can find more information about the loudness test itself here.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overal score
Nokia E51	67.0	65.7	71.2	Average
HTC TyTN II	76.0	75.7	82.7	Excellent
Nokia N95	77.3	66.6	78.0	Very good
Sony Ericsson K850	71.0	75.7	75.7	Very good
Samsung G800	70.7	66.6	73.6	Good
Nokia E70	69.0	66.3	70.0	Average
Qtek 8500	65.7	65.7	66.2	Below average

 

The Nokia E51 runs on Symbian 9.2

Nokia E51 runs on the Symbian 9.2 OS with Series 60 3rd Edition user interface. The added Feature Pack 1 is no news for Nokia smartphones any more but still deserves mentioning.

The phone’s main menu has only two view modes, both well known: a 4 x 3 grid of icons and a list. As already mentioned, navigating the menus is fast, with instant response to key presses.

The two different main menu views

The blue circle next to the icon of a running application is a well known Symbian indication reminding users to quit unwanted applications that are still running in the background. Thanks to Feature Pack 1, the days when there was only a single alarm slot and the voice recorder was limited to a miserly minute are now long gone.

You can now set as many alarms as you like with Nokia E51 • Some of the alarm settings

The active stand-by display is a well-known feature of Symbian handsets. It’s a nice and convenient way to bring shortcuts to all your favorite applications to your home screen. You can even assign shortcuts to websites of your choice for quicker access.

  “…Subjectively, we really liked the mellow sound of the Nokia E51. It’s not a surprise that it doesn’t score much on the loudness test, however we really liked the mild and rich way it sounds in almost scenarios….”

// <![CDATA[
if (!document.phpAds_used) document.phpAds_used = ‘,’;
phpAds_random = new String (Math.random()); phpAds_random = phpAds_random.substring(2,11);

document.write (“”);
// ]]>

The two soft keys’ functions can also vary. Unfortunately, the current track is not shown on the active stand-by display which is a trademark feature of the N-series phones.

Default standby and the one with mail account displayed

The user available memory is 130MB, which is a substantial figure in all cases. Still, the microSD card slot is there to meet the higher storage requirements with up to 4GB cards supported.

As with any Symbian phone, there is a built-in voice command system. It is doing a good job for native English names, but it handles non-English names a lot less smoothly.

Voice recognition works on average

E-series support themes too

There are five preinstalled themes on Nokia E51. Their style is quite reserved and businesslike and if you are a person who loves colorful and entertaining themes, you should consider looking up third-party themes.

Four of the preinstalled themes

The Turquoise theme

 

The phonebook takes care of all your contacts

You know our opinion of smartphones phonebooks – they are simply spot on. The one on Nokia E51 makes no exception. It will store a virtually unlimited number of contacts and fields, all the available memory potentially usable for contacts. Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any of their names.

The phonebook completely lives up to the expectations

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 one. We personally find it difficult to think of something Nokia has missed here. 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.

These are only some of the available fields, which can be assigned to a contact

The Call logs application, although not exactly a part of the phonebook is also one of Nokia E51’s strengths. It can hold up to 20 call records in each of the tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls. These are all accessed with the Call key from the stand-by menu. If you open the Log application from the main menu, you’ll see a detailed list of all your communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers.

The call log application keeps track of all your communication for the past 30 days

Unlimited goes for the messaging as well

If you are the texting kind, Nokia E51 will give you no reason to grudge. With the very comfortable keypad, typing comes nice and easy and, not before long, you’ll be going at full speed with your messages. There are four different message editors – one for each type of available message: SMS, MMS, audio message and e-mail.

The messaging department • a dialog window for creating a mew message

The SMS editor is the well-know 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.

It goes without saying that a delivery report can be activated. The reports pop up on the standby screen when the keypad is unlocked, 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 deleting it.

The SMS editor is very intuitive and easy to use • some of the SMS options

The MMS editor is virtually the same as the one we just described, with the added subject line being the only difference at first sight. While creating a MMS, you are allowed to insert image, sound clip, video clip, or a predefined template.

Writing a MMS and some of the MMS options features

Now, the audio message is technically also an MMS but obviously it is more important to people at Nokia and they have created a separate editor for it. The software editor can either record the message right away or use a previously recorded sound clip. Unfortunately, adding text to it is impossible.

We doubt it the audio message editor will be put to frequent use, especially with no option to add text to it

The email client is the regular one too. It supports POP3, IMAP4, and SMTP protocols. The email client can download headers only, as well as the whole messages. There is also support for attachments, so Nokia E51 can meet almost any requirement as far as emailing goes.

Additionally, there is support for a wide variety of third-party solutions, including Mail for Exchange, Visto Mobile, and Seven Always-on. Business people who need a good mail client will appreciate the E51, while the SU-8W Nokia Wireless Keyboard sure adds value to its messaging capabilities.

The email client is a great application • Writing Dexter an email

Music player gets low priority in E-series

The music player is one of the few departments where Nokia E51 lacks in both functionality and interface. The music player interface is quite dull, with no option to change its appearance. Controlling it with the D-pad is odd too, as up and down on the D-pad are used for browsing tracks, while the volume is controlled by the left and right, which is not intuitive at all.

 

 

 

 “…Our audio quality test showed that Å51 performs well, managing better marks compared to the Nokia 7500 prism, but still lagging behind the music-centered Nokia N81, to randomly name some of handsets we’ve compared…”

 

 

// <![CDATA[
if (!document.phpAds_used) document.phpAds_used = ‘,’;
phpAds_random = new String (Math.random()); phpAds_random = phpAds_random.substring(2,11);

document.write (“”);
// ]]>

The supported formats are the usual MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. The Music library is good enough and sorts songs by artist, album, genre and composer automatically, while searching tracks is done by gradual typing. A convenient feature is Track lists, containing the “Most played tracks”, “Recent tracks” and “Recent additions”. Downloading tracks via Internet is supported as well.

Upon completing a USB transfer, the phone automatically prompts scanning for new music tracks and, if allowed to do so, adds the new ones to the music library.

The music player is average but Music library makes up for it

The player comes with five equalizer presets. If it still seems insufficient, you can create new ones in a matter of seconds. When the player gets minimized, the only way to access it in the middle of doing something else is via the task manager window that is invoked upon a long press of the home key (menu key).

Available equalizer presets and the new one we’ve just created

Bluetooth supports the A2DP profile, which allows listening to your music on a wireless stereo headset. We had no problem connecting any of the tested headsets.

Audio quality is at its average

Our audio quality test showed that Е51 performs well, managing better marks compared to the Nokia 7500 prism, but still lagging behind the music-centered Nokia N81, to randomly name some of handsets we’ve compared. Nobody expects stunning music performance in a business phone, so we can safely assume that the overall result is just fine. The first generation of E-series smartphones was even worse. You can find more information about our audio quality test here.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Nokia E51	+0.78, -1.36	-76.4	76.2	0.015	0.096	-74.8
Nokia N95	+1.17, -2.68	-74.9	74.9	0.019	0.186	-75.3
Nokia N81	+0.39, -1.13	-86.6	85.8	0.041	0.040	-69.9
LG KU990 Viewty	+0.29, -2.07	-86.8	83.8	0.020	0.0124	-86.6
Samsung U600	+0.41, -1.12	-89.2	86.5	0.0040	0.019	-86.9

 

Nokia E51 and Nokia 7500 prism have almost the same frequency response graphs at max volume • Nokia E51 and Nokia N81 compared

At the movies

Nokia E51 features a Real player for playing your video clips. The video player can be displayed in both portrait and landscape mode and can be switched to fullscreen.

Watching a video clip on a small screen like this is not an earthshaking experience at all. When in full screen, the softkey functions are hidden so that they don’t spoil the viewing experience and only pop up when a key is pressed.

Forwarding and rewinding are not among the available options of the player. It’s high time those basic functions were included in every Nokia phone’s player.

Watching clips in the Real player is OK in Landscape mode only

The Nokia E51 is equipped with FM radio with support for the Visual Radio internet service. It can store up to 50 radio stations.

The Visual radio application can download the radio stations in your area and save them to the handset with their names if an internet connection is present. We would have preferred RDS support, though not having it isn’t really that much of a disappointment.

The Visual radio and some of its options

Gallery boring

The gallery of Nokia E51 is as modest as in any other E series phone. It offers few options and is not intended for intensive image handling.

Image viewer is not ample at all

Otherwise, no changes are to be seen here in terms of features – pictures can be viewed in both portrait and landscape mode and zoomed in up to 2x.

Zooming in a photo

The gallery’s functionality is basically doubled by the file manager, which is at hand too. There is an application manager to take care of the installed applications on Nokia E51. Its functionality boils down to providing details about installed applications, removing them and keeping a log of movements in both directions.

File manager and application manager are the same well known applications

The useful “Search” application is also present in Nokia E51. The application itself finds almost every item in your Nokia containing a given keyword. From messages to settings, every bit of data is checked and all results are then shown. If you have a vast base of files, located on both the built-in memory, and the memory card, this application will get much appreciated.

The search application sifts through every bit of data on your phone

 

 

 

 “…The two megapixel camera in Nokia E51 has no autofocus, nor flash. There isn’t even a mirror for self portraits though 4x digital zoom is available. You won’t find a dedicated key, either. The camera can apply some basic settings including night mode, sequence mode, self timer, white balance and color tone…”

 

 

// <![CDATA[
if (!document.phpAds_used) document.phpAds_used = ‘,’;
phpAds_random = new String (Math.random()); phpAds_random = phpAds_random.substring(2,11);

document.write (“”);
// ]]>

It’s equipped with a 2 megapixel camera

Nokia E51 is meant for business, and its 2 megapixel camera is more of an accessory than a main feature. It can still do a job for you in case you need to take some shots.

The camera main view with the options menu

The two megapixel camera in Nokia E51 has no autofocus, nor flash. There isn’t even a mirror for self portraits though 4x digital zoom is available. You won’t find a dedicated key, either. The camera can apply some basic settings including night mode, sequence mode, self timer, white balance and color tone.

Image quality is defined in three steps – normal, basic and high. Users can choose between two image resolutions – 640×480 and 1600×1200 pixels. Apart from the quite usual camera settings, a nice touch is the optional toolbar. It provides three shortcuts for quick access to video, night and sequence modes, while the last key is responsible for closing the toolbar.

Some of the available settings and camera options

The images captured with the camera look undoubtedly greenish, which is unusual for Nokia cameras. It sticks out a mile, when compared to another two megapixel unit, or in our case the not quite deservingly bashed iPhone camera.

Again, as the EXIF data is very scarce, we can only interpret the results relying on our experience with phone cameras. So, looking at details the first thing to stand out is the excessive sharpness. This is a recurring problem of phone cameras – in an attempt to capture fine detail, the extreme sharpening actually distorts it, though the slight improvement in contours makes people believe the images look better than they would have with moderate sharpening.

That’s what you get with the iPhone camera, where detail is smoother. Intense sharpening has other disadvantages, such as artifacts and high noise level, as you can see in the E51 images, especially in the clouds and sky.

Nokia E51 camera photos

Have a look at the sample shots taken with Nokia E51 and iPhone.

Quick 2 megapixel camera test: Nokia E51 vs. iPhone cameras

The video camera of E51 is capable of capturing video in MPEG-4 format and in QVGA resolution at 15 fps only. Zooming while recording is possible, but that doesn’t give any boost to the overall low camera scoring.

Connectivity is a strong side of E-series

Transferring data is what Nokia E51 really likes to do. Just name the data transfer medium and you can be certain that this handset supports it. MiniUSB v2.0 and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP profile support and IrDA (115 kbps) just start the count. All kinds of network connectivity are also supported – from GPRS and EDGE to 3G with HSDPA support – Nokia E51 has it all. To complete the wireless communication tally, Wi-Fi 802.11g with VoIP over WLAN support is also on board. Even the card slot for microSD cards (up to 4GB supported) is here.

MiniUSB, Bluetooth, IrDA, Wi-Fi and microSD card support in E51

Browsing away

Browsing the internet with Nokia E51 is a pleasure. No matter how elaborate the web page, it fits perfectly on the screen and looks almost 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. Additionally, when you scroll a bit more, a preloaded semitransparent image overlays the page. The zoom level is also adjustable at the expense of only a few key presses.

Normal and landscape views • mini-map and semi-transparent map

The history pages are revealed in 3D like view with the current pick displayed at the center.

The visited pages history has some 3D effects

Organizer

The time-management skills of Nokia Е51 are really top-notch. We start the exploration of the large application package with the calendar. It has three different types of view – monthly, weekly and daily, and four types of events available for setting up – Meeting, Memo, Anniversary and To-do. 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.

Different calendar views and the events available

The mobile office is presented moderately, with preinstalled applications able to open Word and Excel files seamlessly. Unluckily editing documents is not supported by the included version of the Quickoffice. If you would like to be able to edit these files you will have to purchase the complete application at the Nokia Download center.

Quickoffice is a quick remedy for your daily documents

 

 

 

 “…Each of Nokia’s Enterprise devices has its strengths, but usually at the expense of a few compromises. The stylish Nokia E51 proves to be a well-balanced performer that will certainly meet the contemporary business requirements. Fine looks are just an added gain…”

 

 

// <![CDATA[
if (!document.phpAds_used) document.phpAds_used = ‘,’;
phpAds_random = new String (Math.random()); phpAds_random = phpAds_random.substring(2,11);

document.write (“”);
// ]]>//

Adobe Reader LE is also included and a ZIP manager allows extracting archived files straight from your phone.

Adobe reader and ZIP manager are flawless

The other included organizing and time-management applications are: a feature-rich unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as a Notes application. We are not going to get into detail with them, as their functionality and performance are familiar enough.

Converter, calculator and notes also at hand

Active notes enable users to create notes containing rich text and multimedia items (e.g. pictures, voice clips, video clips). Notes can be synchronized with PC and browsed from your desktop via any XHTML compatible web browser.

Active notes: a notes application on steroids

Another interesting application is the Nokia Team Suite. It provides easy-to-use UI for organizing and facilitating group conference calls, email messages, or text messages.

Team suite offers extended group functions

Conclusion

Each of Nokia’s Enterprise devices has its strengths, but usually at the expense of a few compromises. The stylish Nokia E51 proves to be a well-balanced performer that will certainly meet the contemporary business requirements. Fine looks are just an added gain.

Nokia E51 might be the right bestseller stuff not only for business, but for regular users too, for its all-purpose applicability. The 350 USD price tag sure adds to that excitement. With E51 there’s one more pro on offer.

Source :  http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_e51-review-193p6.php

Nokia E51

First impressions of the Nokia E51 are of its diminutive size. Although slightly heavier than the 6120 Classic, it’s quite a bit thinner, at only 12mm and seems perfectly formed for its target market, businessmen and women and the companies they work for. Putting it side by side with the E90, the other extreme in Nokia’s ‘Enterprise’ range shows the E51’s dimensions vividly:

And yet within the case lies an almost identical device, at least in terms of OS, memory and software. S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 (this is the second Eseries device to feature it, after the E90) is now pretty mature and most of the applications and interface will be well known to you:

 

I’ll come to any additions and differences later, but for now let’s return to the hardware, finished in black and silver and styled very much like the E90. And like the E90, the E51’s case is mainly made of metal, with the front surround and battery cover chromed – a fingerprint magnet it’s true, but if you’re going to have a fingerprint magnet then it might as well be a quality metal one rather than a cheap plastic version. The E51 feels like it could take a lot of knocks without damage, important if it’s to survive the life of a busy road warrior.

The screen dimensions, contrast and reflectivity seem identical to that on the outer screen of the E90, by the way, should you need a comparison, and I want to publically congratulate Nokia’s Eseries team for using transflective screens which work well outside in bright natural light – while your Nokia N81 and N76-using friends are squinting at their displays trying to see what they’re doing, your E51 (or E90 or E70 or E61 etc) will remain extremely readable, even in the very brightest sunlight.

The side buttons (voice recording, voice tag, volume) are rubberised and easy to find, although they’re each quite hard to press – I’m hoping that this firmness is unique to the prototype that we were sent for review and that production hardware has buttons which are easier on the fingers. Ditto for the power button on the E51’s top, which was even firmer.

It’s better news for the d-pad key cluster and main keypad, all of which is a joy to use. The d-pad’s clicky and positive to use, while the presence of no less than three application shortcut (‘one touch’) keys mean that PIM use (by default) is even easier to access than usual. There are buttons for Contacts, Calendar and Messaging, with extra launch options for a long press on each. The defaults are sensible (e.g. ‘Create new contact’), but you can configure any button or long press to launch or kick off any app or common action.

Which brings me to the fourth button in the main cluster and one of the KEY improvements made for the E51. Changing the old, confusing ‘S60’ key with the ‘swirly thing’ logo to a simple ‘Home’ icon is a masterstroke and instantly simplifies the interface and makes things obvious for new users, especially in an iPhone world where the idea of a prominent home button to bring up the main app menu is familiar. Well done, Nokia – now make this the standard on all future devices!

The main 12-key pad is superb in feel, again similar to that on the E90, with separate physical keys and positive ‘clicky’ feel – despite the size, texting should be pretty quick on the E51. Ten out of ten. Or should that be twelve out of twelve?

The rear mounted camera’s a standard Nokia 2 megapixel affair with QVGA video recording, nothing special to see here. Good to have, but not a main focus of the device.

Switching the E51 on for the first time reveals the first of several tweaks to the standard Eseries package. Extending what they did for the E90, Nokia has put direct shortcuts to ‘Set up Voice mail’, ‘Set up Email’ and ‘Set up Internet telephony’ on the standby screen, leading users to the appropriate dialog, wizards, or downloads respectively. After set up is complete, the shortcuts (actually temporary standby plugins) disappear. The standard set of Eseries plugins is available of course. Once you get set up, it’s easy to add missed call notifiers, voice message notifiers, email notifiers, to-do items and half a dozen other optional plugins, all configurable in ‘Settings’. Flexible and powerful.

Also new, as far as I can tell, are ‘audio themes’, sets of sound effects for common events (think of these as a superset of the standard profile-based tone settings). So for example the default is an authentic rimshot when you switch back to the standby screen and a simple popping sample for the main app menu. As someone who perpertually turns such audio feedback off on every device, I found audio themes a bit pointless, but they may appeal to some. The fact that the digital samples don’t actually play until a second or so after the event itself doesn’t help the overall sense of pointlessness.

      

Also configurable, as on most other Eseries models, is a ‘notification LED’, which can be set to flash on a variety of common occurences, from missed calls to incoming emails.

There are few surprises in the Eseries software suite. Newcomers like Active notes, Search and Teams are all present and correct, though I was slightly surprised to see that the version of Quickoffice in the firmware was the viewer only – editing is a pay-for upgrade. Mind you, trying to edit documents on such a small screen wouldn’t be much fun, even if you did use a Bluetooth keyboard for input. Those wanting to do serious Office work will go for the much bigger E90, with its keyboard and 800 pixel wide screen.

  

Media is well catered for, including an FM radio, again just as on the E90, and with RealPlayer having access to H.264 codecs – as with the E90, video playback isn’t perfect – there can be the odd stutter – but at least most MP4 content can be consumed without difficulty. Gallery is the usual plain Eseries version, adequate but a pain for large image collections. Note the WLAN wizard – as an Eseries device, the E51 has got Wi-Fi, not always a given in a device so small, and a real boon if you’re planning to use one of the many VoIP solutions now on offer for S60.    

It’s good too, to see Nokia Maps in the firmware, this seems to be part of the S60 furniture now, with the usual Bluetooth connectivity to a GPS to stop you getting lost.

The E51, like the rest of the Eseries range, has fabulous battery life, in this case a 1050mAh BP-6MT. With no auto-focus, power hungry camera to supply and (presumably) with limited music and media use, this battery is fine for keeping the E51 up and running for days on end – with light use, it’ll last a full week without recharge, which is impressive. There’s 48MB free RAM after booting, enough for browsing the largest web pages over the fast Wi-Fi or 3.5G (HSDPA) connections, plus 137MB free flash memory (disk C, in addition to whatever microSD card you use) for installing extra applications and documents.

One can’t help returning to the E90 comparison when handling the E51, though. Not only is the styling so similar, it’s striking how much of the E90’s power is contained within the incredibly, astoundingly small body of the E51. We all know that Nokia likes to refer to is smartphones as ‘computers’ and as such we’re used to a little thickness and general bulk, excusing it because we know there’s a lot of computing grunt under the good. But Nokia’s 6120 Classic and now this, the E51, both prove how diminutive S60 smartphones can be, including a decent keypad and a decent battery. Very impressive.

The E50 and E60 (last year) were competent devices without really excelling in any way. The E51 rolls in kick-ass styling, a metal chassis, a thinner form factor, S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1, latest media codecs, 3.5G, a better and tweaked key layout and a decent (if not great) camera. It’s quite a list, and should be one of Nokia’s mainstays, certainly in the business world, going into the period when all Nokia’s phone divisions are being merged. I don’t think the E51’s in any danger of being axed!

Steve Litchfield, AllAboutSymbian, 12th November 2007

---

 

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/S60_3rd_Edition/