Jul
02
The latest Eseries device, and subject of this review, is a perfect example of this. Nokia’s E51, spiritual successor to the E50, might not pack a super high-resolution camera and incredible multimedia functions, but it does include most everything business users will need in a smart device, and does so in a very thin and light package. The E51 is also herald to some changes in certain long-running traits for Nokia’s S60 smartphones, including the design of the look and functionality of the menu key, and the removal of the edit key.
To begin, the Nokia E51 is available in three color schemes: chrome, black, and rose. Don’t get the chrome scheme if you want any sort of subtlety in your phone. The chrome color scheme, which our review example is graced with, is far too loud for a business device. With mirror chrome trim around the front, and an almost total mirror chrome rear, it is simply not a good choice for those looking for a more practical device. The black scheme dulls this mirror down vastly, making it the tasteful alternative, and even the rose version brings its own level of style to the table.
Apart from the above gripe, the Nokia E51 is a great example of simple and smart phone design. Everything about the device feels solid and durable. This is a good thing, as the device measures up at just 12mm (0.47.) thick, meaning any less could have made it feel very flimsy. A weight of 100g (3.53oz), though high for such a slim device, feels just right in the hand. Its other measurements aren’t as impressive, at 114mm x 46mm (4.49″ x 1.81″), which is about average for a bar style device of this class.
Grasp the Nokia E51 in your hand and you’ll feel instantly familiar with the keypad. With the exception of the delete key, which has been placed directly underneath the d-pad as opposed to toward the right of the phone as on most other devices, the keypad is as close to perfect as I have seen on a phone in a very long time. The key travel and weight are spot on, and Nokia has shunned super-stylish keys for a basic design that just works. Big thumbs will feel right at home, as even the collection of quick access keys have a highly convex design, meaning it is hard to press more than one at a time. It is here in the collection of keys around the d-pad that we see our first interesting thing about the E51, as on top of access keys for the phone book, calendar, and messaging applications, which are totally customizable, we see a redesigned menu key that now sports a very Windows Mobile-like home icon. This key also behaves differently than in other S60 devices, but we’ll get to that later in the review. Nokia has finally thought to include an automatic keylock for the E51, complete with a customizable lock time.
Multimedia / Applications
While the Nokia E51’s obvious selling point is its business features, the manufacturer has still thought to include a selection of multimedia features to make the device as handy on the weekends as it is during the work week. To start with, the Nokia E51 includes a 2.0MP camera, which is pretty much the baseline for any device these days. While the camera is usable, it produces quite a harsh green hue over images, and a large amount of noise in anything but perfect outdoor lighting conditions. I didn’t expect much on the imaging front from a business device, but Nokia really could have put a little more effort into the camera. Despite these shortcomings, there is a surprising amount of tweakable options supported in the camera user interface. Features include a night mode, sequence shooting mode, a self timer, four white balance settings, and four color tone settings. The camera application includes a handy popup toolbar and several shortcuts that make navigation easier.
The E51 also includes the ability to record video at a maximum resolution of 240×320 pixels, though don’t expect a high frame rate while doing so. The same white balance, color tone, and night mode settings are available while recording video as when shooting stills, and video recording length is limited only to the available memory on the device or an inserted microSD card.
Though you wouldn’t expect the E51 would rival more multimedia-focused devices, it does prove to be a capable web browsing device, let down only by its screen size. Nokia has further tweaked the great browser that is included with the S60 UI, though many of these enhancements are simply visual. The same mini-map function that is seen in earlier devices is here, providing an overall birds-eye view of the current page, but now it fades in with a pleasant slow transition. Most modern website features are supported, and the browser even has a handy pop-up toolbar, options to rotate the screen, plus many keyboard shortcuts to control the look and feel of websites. RSS feed reading is natively supported by the browser, as well.
The Nokia E51, despite not including a 3.5mm headphone jack nor an adapter for one in the box, features a very capable music player that is very similar to that included with the Nseries multimedia devices. Nokia has designed a very iPod-like user interface, with a music library sorted by artists, albums, genres, composers, and custom playlists. The main playback screen maps the directions of the d-pad to common playback functions like play and skip track, on top of displaying the full details of the playing track. Sound quality from the bundled 2.5mm headset with an inline call answer button was somewhat harsh and lifeless, but even so the device could prove to be a handy distraction on a train ride between meetings.
Where the Nokia E51 really shines, however, is in PIM functionality. Going beyond the standard contacts application, the E51 includes an arsenal of applications to help you get your life or business on track. The applications tour begins with the Calendar, which will be quite familiar to anyone that uses a desktop PIM application. The calendar application includes the standard day, week, and month views, as well as a tasks view to show your to-do list. As well as the to-do type, entries in the calendar can take the form of meetings, memos, or anniversaries. Each type can store a name, a date, and have an alarm, and in the case of memos and meetings, a location and options for repeating daily, weekly, monthly, fortnightly, or yearly. Unfortunately, custom repetitions are not supported, but if an appointment is created on your desktop computer with a custom repetition it can be flawlessly synchronized to the device. The standby screen even has a plugin for the calendar, making it easy to check your upcoming appointments at a glance.
While the Nokia E51 has a regular Notes application, Nokia has taken the concept a step further with a handy new application called Active Notes. With active notes, you cannot only leave yourself text notes, but also add a range of media to each note as well. Media includes images, sounds, videos, business cards, web bookmarks, and other generic file types. This is a really great idea, and can come in handy for adding notes to photos, for example.
Nokia has included a read-only version of the Quickoffice suite with the E51, which does an admirable job of displaying Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files while on the go. The suite can be upgraded to allow file editing and creation abilities, but even then only limited formatting features and functions are available. Despite this, it is very handy for viewing email attachments while mobile.
An army of less notable applications are also featured on the Nokia E51, including a world clock, unit converter, zip file extraction utility, and Adobe’s PDF viewer. The Nokia Maps application is even installed to provide GPS navigation abilities, though without an internal GPS module, an extra purchase is necessary to make this application worthwhile. As always, the true capabilities of Nokia’s S60 system shine through when you add third-party applications, of which there are literally thousands available.
Nokia’s S60 user interface has long been one of the best ways to navigate your way around a phone. In this latest incarnation, S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1, several welcome enhancements have found their way into a very solid core, and I am pleased to say that during my time with the E51, I did not suffer a single crash from the device.
The same basic UI from previous versions of S60 is still here, including the fantastic Active Standby home screen that is shown when no applications or menus are active on the device. This screen is capable of displaying a host of information stored on the device in an easy to read and access way. In the Feature Pack 1 of S60 3rd Edition, the Active Standby screen is controlled with an array of plug-ins that can be easily turned on and off, though, sadly, not reordered. Plug-ins include a row of application shortcuts, a missed call notifier, message notifier, upcoming calendar entries and to-dos, and a wireless network notifier, among others. This plug-in behavior brings S60 much closer to the system seen in Windows Mobile. Plug-ins that are active but don’t currently have any information to display will be hidden, further simplifying the system.
The E51’s user interface is quite well structured and includes a range of UI elements to make applications easy to use. The device’s main menu can be shown in either a grid or list form, and supports a single level of folders. The default applications have been reorganized for the Nokia E51, and while certain applications are now more logically placed, some folders, like the Tools folder, are now quite over crowded.
Applications running on the Nokia E51 generally use pages of tabs to display information. The left and right directions on the d-pad switch between these tabs, while the up and down buttons move between the application options. The left soft key always brings up a popup menu of additional options, the right soft key always backs out of the current menu or quits the currently running application, and the middle button of the d-pad selects the currently highlighted option. It is this consistency that really makes S60 a very user-friendly system, and makes the E51 suitable for both power users and smartphone beginners alike.
Where traditionally Nokia smartphones have featured a swirly menu icon that didn’t have any meaning at all to new users, the Nokia E51 has replaced this with a key that sports a picture of a house, signifying the home key. This again somewhat mimics the Windows Mobile way of doing things, but certainly does make a lot more sense. The old menu key would open the device’s main menu regardless of where the user was in the system, but this new key has two separate behaviors: from the standby screen, pressing the key will open the main menu, but if an application is currently open, the key will return the user to the standby screen. This makes a lot more sense, and as always, a long press on the key will open a list of all the currently running applications, allowing easy multitasking.
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