The other day I had the opportunity to have a quick look at the Nokia E61 which most people would categorise as a Blackberry type smartphone. I only spent an hour with the E61 which probably doesn’t do it justice so we’ll just stick to the facts and let the pictures do the talking.
The E61 has a lot going for it with the full keyboard being the most noticeable feature of the phone. For short e-mails this is a godsend, particularly for those people, like myself, will find SMS-ing not the fastest way to communicate. By necessity the keys are small and can lead to typing mistakes especially because the Delete and the Enter key are rather close together. I found the backlit keys excellent to work with.
The 2.8-inch landscape screen which runs at 240 x 320 pixels is huge compared to normal phones but nothing like my iPAQ 4700 which has spoiled me forever… It is certainly adequate for the task of reading and writing e-mails and other short documents. And because communication is what this unit is all about you will find Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPRS and all the 3G connectivity you would want. For good measure infrared is also present.
One of the interesting “features” is the lack of on-board camera. This is probably a good move for a unit touted as a business phone but also slightly surprising in that limited video calling is supported. Undoubtedly Nokia will come out with another model sporting a built-in camera.
My initial impressions: a very capable business tool with all the connectivity you would want. If you like the form factor you are more than half way to wanting to own this phone.
Specifications
– 2.8-inch high resolution landscape display
– Music player with MP3 and WMA support
– MP3 ringtones
– Speaker independent voice dialing
– Voice over IP
– 64 MB of onboard memory
– miniSD memory card expansion, 64 MB card bundled
– Wi-Fi 802.11g
– Bluetooth dial-up networking, headset, keyboard and printing support
– USB 2.0 connectivity
– Microsoft Outlook synchronization via Bluetooth or USB
– 3G with limited video calling
– Quad-band GSM with EDGE support
– 117 x 70 x 14 mm, 144 g
– 4 hours of talk time, 10 days of standby
