Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Nokia E5 Phone Review




Just before my birthday last December, WOMWorld was gracious enough to send me a Chalk White Nokia E5 for review. On the onset, I already know that the E-Series is the business phone series of Nokia, so it makes me wonder what sets this phone different from others.


The package came in with the basics I need -- the unit, a charger, battery, short microUSB cable, one-piece headset and some manuals. I asked myself, "why does Nokia keep on changing its charger size?" The one with this package is not as compact as the old one I have.


The Nokia E5 looks elegant and simple built with an all matte-plastic body, except the back battery case which is made of metal. What's nice about the phone's material is that it doesn't attract much grease and smudges, unlike the other E-series phones where metal makes the most parts of the body.


In front, you'd see a 2.36” landscape display, large controls (soft keys, call keys, etc.), and a spacious four-row QWERTY. The back has a 5MP fixed focus camera with LED flash, which can be turned into a flashlight by holding down the space bar.


The sides of the Nokia E5 are almost bare with only volume buttons on the right side and nothing more. The back's case can be opened using the two latches found on the sides, which you'd think is a camera button at first. The top part of the phone allows the connection of the charger, a 3.5mm headset, and a microUSB port that can also be used for charging when connected to the computer.


Planning to expand the phone's memory? There's a microSD card slot underneath the battery, which supports upto 32GB. The phone's battery can last about two days depending on use.


Enough of the physical descriptions. What's under the hood of this phone?
  • Quad-band GSM/EDGE
  • Tri-band 3G with 10.2Mbps HSDPA and 2Mbps HSUPA
  • Symbian S60 UI, 3rd edition FP2
  • 600MHz processor, 256MB RAM; 250MB user-accessible storage
  • 2.36" 256K-color QVGA display of excellent sunlight legibility
  • VGA video recording at 15fps
  • Wi-Fi b/g; DLNA and UPnP support
  • GPS receiver; Ovi Maps 3.0 with free life-time voice guided navigation
  • Stereo FM radio with RDS, Internet radio
  • Bluetooth (with A2DP)
  • 3.5mm audio jack
  • Email and social networking support
  • Office document editor; PDF viewer; ZIP file support
  • Good audio quality
  • Microsoft Office Messenger support
  • Quick Business and Personal homescreen toggle
The key features list above is pretty straight forward, so I'll just comment on my experience of the phone.

(1) Even if Nokia tries to push the use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, they still haven't gone the extra mile to create an app that is native to the phone. What seems to be apps are just bookmarks that open sites once you select on them.

(2) What may seem to be a small bug at first turned out to be quite a problem in the long run for me. I always encountered messages in my Inbox that don't open at all, even if I restart the phone. It happens randomly. I had no choice but to ask the sender to send the message again.

(3) Since this is not Nokia N8, do not expect good quality photos from this phone's camera. Although for the price point, you can really only have so much.

(4) One of the features I love is the allowing of change in Font Size. This is the first Nokia phone I've encountered that allows such feature. When you change the size, you'd be asked to reboot the phone to see the changes.

(5) I realized I'm not a touchscreen type of guy. After using my first QWERTY phone ever, I told myself that it's definitely my next option if given a choice between a touch or qwerty phone.

Overall, the phone is a a good buy because it looks like a Nokia E71 or E72, but with a more reasonable price. With the right data plan, who says you still need a Blackberry to get Push Email and Messenger features?

Available in the Philippines since October 2010 for Php10,900, colors Carbon Black or Chalk White.

1 comments:

That's quite impressive phone!! As technology changes day by day. I always look for the the most functional and coolest phones and Nokia is one of them.

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