Wednesday 13 July 2011

Nokia E6 review: The E spirit

Introduction

Don't let your E71/72 smartphone read this. No, it won't have a heart attack or anything. But you don't want it suddenly feeling sad and useless. You certainly realize the E71/E72 duo is getting old and rusty. Like it or not, it's time to move on.

The Nokia E6 will not take No for an answer. A super crisp VGA touchscreen, the finessed Symbian Anna, the strong messenger bloodline and the stainless steel armor are a tempting combination. The package will make long-time Eseries users feel right at home and cheer the upgrades.


Touchscreen or D-pad is not a decision you're forced to make. It will come naturally instead. Where the small screen won't allow the required level of touch precision, the D-pad will fill in. Five homescreen panes to fill with shortcuts and widgets will do better than the good old Active Standby with alternative setups for business and leisure.

Most importantly though, to even the most old-school of Eseries loyalists, touchscreen will be a fair price to pay for finally upping the screen resolution to acceptable levels.


Key features
 
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
Penta-band 3G with 10.2 Mbps HSDPA and 2 Mbps HSUPA
Symbian Anna OS
Messenger bar, stainless steel body, four-row QWERTY keyboard
2.46" 16M-color capacitive TFT touchscreen of 640 x 480 pixel resolution; Gorilla glass protection
680 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 256 MB RAM
8GB internal storage, 1GB ROM, microSD card slot
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free lifetime voice-guided navigation
Digital compass
8 megapixel fixed-focus camera with dual-LED flash, 720p video recording @ 25fps; geotagging, face detection, smart zoom in video
Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Stereo FM Radio with RDS
microUSB port, USB-on-the-go
Flash and Java support for the web browser
Stereo Bluetooth 3.0
Smart dialing and voice commands
DivX, XviD and Matroska video support
Social network integration
Office document viewer and editor
Excellent battery life
Excellent audio quality

Main disadvantages

Symbian Anna is still catching up with Android and iOS
The tiny touchscreen has no room for big fingers
Fixed-focus camera
Relatively limited 3rd party software availability

This phone seems to have almost everything - well, save for HDMI and an actual life-size touchscreen. But we're talking Eseries and the E6 is the business. It feels like Nokia really wanted to rekindle the magic. The E6 makes the E72 look like a routine, cursory attempt at an update. Where the E72 wanted quietly keep on cashing in, the E6 is keen to make a difference. A tall task indeed, considering the times.

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