Even if Nokia hasn’t been too excited about every other manufacturer’s fancy for Android, you can’t ignore the decent QWERTY keypad enabled smartphones it manages to belt out, like the recent Nokia E5 smartphone. And while the debate between a Nokia v/s BlackBerry QWERTY phone may also seem limitless, there’s one thing for sure, Nokia hits the note right almost every time as far as affordability in this domain is considered. The company seems to have a firm grip over like-able smartphones that somehow don’t burn a hole in your pocket. The Nokia E5 smartphone had the C3 and C6 for company at launch last year? It was released in quite a few colors of the palette too like carbon black, chalk white, sky blue, copper brown and silver gray. It’s sitting on our desks in a black shade and here’s a comprehensive review.
The Nokia E5 phone trotted our quarters in an unceremonious blue box that wrapped in a charger, user documentation, headphones and USB cable. Considering Nokia and BlackBerry can comfortably claim to vie for the attention of almost every QWERTY handset lover, the E5’s uncanny resemblance to the BlackBerry Curve didn’t go down well with us. It’s nearly the same dimensions as other smartphones in the E-series lineup too with just about 2mm of extra stoutness. The phone felt considerable light in our hands though. In terms of figures its 115 x 58.9 x 12.8 mm in size while hitting the weighing scale at a mere 126g with battery. In the sober shade our review unit was dressed in, we’re assuming business users on the go to instantly like the appearance of the phone. Despite the plastic treatment given to the chassis, the all-matte finishing makes it attractive.
This Nokia device reveals a 2.4” screen with committed buttons in a silver colored area right below it. The shortcut knobs include a couple for homescreen and messaging alongside the call dial/answer and end buttons. There’s a 5-way navigation keypad in the middle locale while the volume rocker is seated on the right edge. The upper rim has been implanted with a 3.5mm headphone and charging ports. Turn the phone over and the back cover has a neat silver shine with Nokia and E5-00 inscribed clearly. Right here is also the 5MP camera and the speaker mesh. In totality the construct and build of the phone doesn’t shy away from having taken a leaf from the E71 and E72 Nokia smartphones. The overall look and feel of the device left us on a positive note.
The E5 phone is powered up almost as soon as you’ve hit the power button with the 3rd edition of S60 running the show. The handset is open to user customizations no sooner you get it started. We tweaked the homescreen to suit our preferences after scanning through 6 themes for the same. Adding applications and shortcuts of your choice to the homescreen is also effortless. What’s more, the left and right selection keys can be plucked so that it includes desired functions as well. And that doesn’t seem to be all – the dedicated Messaging key’s long and short press functions can further be altered to suit your liking. A strip lowly set in the homescreen lets you spruce things up with a maximum of 6 shortcuts. The only pitfall appears to be the fact that the application list is stagnant and you have to settle upon the Calendar, WLAN, Contacts on Ovi and Contacts bar options only.
Right away, we had the Nokia E5 hooked up to a Wi-Fi connection. The smartphone is clearly a winner with regards to the enhanced experience it had to offer us on the internet connectivity front. Despite its small and modest size, the screen has been perfectly honed to cough up nifty web navigation. The display is wide enough to allow comfortable navigation and not once did the phone lag when we were testing this feature. We got our hands on a couple of installed social applications such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Loading up pages at a consistent pace, the phone’s display was crisp at rendering web pages appropriately. The fact that we could multitask seamlessly whilst we voyaged through the web and yet didn’t face any dodged connections only made this feature all the more pleasing.
The handset’s full QWERTY keypad is another nicety worth mentioning. The affixed keys measure up optimally to lend extensive support for those who spend most of their time texting and conversing via emails. With just the right space in between, the typing experience was superlative. The keys are pretty responsive and the tactile feedback says a gentle push should suffice. Nokia’s added some signatory shortcuts to the Sym and Ctrl keys which when long pressed open up Bluetooth and the Silent profile respectively. The phone features a 5MP camera that’s loaded with a host of editing options. Various attributes can be customized minus much effort in the simple camera interface. If only Nokia had worked on offering better still image and video qualities. Despite the wide options and 5MP worth of camera resolution, the phone won’t satiate the taste buds of even budding photographers.
Nevertheless, business users on the move will find solace in the easy way of getting around things. There are a plethora of applications that fill up the handset for a truly intuitive and smart affair on this front. QuickOffice, Email, support for PDF and Traveler along with Notes and File Mgr are just some of the interesting attributes on offer. Save for setting up our email account, all other features were easy to reach out too. For some reason, getting our email configured took much longer than we’d expected it to. In addition to this, multimedia users will also find the Ovi store right at their beck and call. Nokia Ovi Maps, Vlingo Voice and Font Magnifier are the other applications available. The E5 does well with the audio quality too; both as far as the bundled earphones and onboard speaker are concerned. We went for more than a day without having to juice the phone up, which says Nokia has done well with the battery life of the phone as well.
Pros:
The QWERTY keypad is comfortable to use and very handy.
The phone’s battery life is worth mention.
Despite the small screen, web navigation doesn’t disappoint on the phone.
Cons:
The phone looks pretty plain Jane and Nokia could give it a design overhaul.
The screen boasts of a rather low resolution.
Synonymous with Nokia, the interface is slouchy in bits and parts.
In the current scenario where tablets seem to be hogging most of the limelight, Nokia manages to mark its presence with a modest smartphone. The sheer emphasis on QWERTY in an affordable smartphone, albeit decently should see a lot of mobile enthusiasts nodding in to the handset. Business users in particular may want to look in detail at the goodness on offer with this phone. We’re marking the Nokia E5 at 8.5 out of 10 while its Rs. 12,699 price tag seems fine too.