CellPhoneBurn

The initial euphoria and the rush that comes with long awaited product launches is finally over and after going through a lot of information on these new blue eyed boys of the Eseries lineup, I have decided to pen my own thoughts. The one thing I can say for sure that these are two of the most good looking devices ever made by Nokia and the White Steel colour/material combination is an absolute killer. However inspite of the fact that they have been released together, basically offer the same specifications and are targetted at the same group of people these are two completly different devices.

THE E66

The E66 is a classy slider, slim and comparatively light at a 121 grams considering the steel build. The 2.4″ screen and dedicated application buttons also do it no harm. A 1000 mAh battery should at least keep it going for a day without much of a problem. The interesting addition in this phone is the accelerometer, there is automatic screen rotation and full screen view. In addition to this, the E66 will be the first Nokia device to include Flip Silent functionality, turn the phone around and an incoming call gets silenced, nice.

As far as build quality goes Eseries always seems to deliver and the steel will help it go a long way in that direction. This device in my opinion, will attract a lot of women owing to its design, size and looks inspite of the fact that its in no way ‘girly’. On the multimedia side there is a 3.2 mpx camera with a dedicated button and the ability to capture QVGA video at 15 frames per second. The 2.5mm jack is there to play spoil sport again.

THE E71

The E71 on the other hand is the world’s slimmest QWERTY and this is a phone I am really looking forward to. The E71 will be the device that will make people *want* to  upgrade unlike the E66. The E61/E62 owners are definite candidates but so is anyone looking for a good Nokia QWERTY. The only other handset that has this functionality is the E90 and that for a lot of people it is simply too huge. If that is not an issue then the keyboard on it is simply to wide for a lot of people’s likings.

The 3.2 auto focus camera might also be barely enough to attract Nseries loyalists. However having said that, the E71 does not have a dedicated camera key and in order to make a picture you will need to press and ‘T’ button to focus and the D pad to then click the picture. Inconvenient. But when it will come to battery life, this boy will rule the roost, a 1500 mAh battery in a 2.4″ screen is divine, two days on heavy usage and you might still get home with some juice left.

THE COMMON ASPECTS

The Eseries people are generally slower to bring in newer features and practice caution rather than live on the edge. This explains why there is no FP2, but to be honest, I don’t see this as a big deal at all. The enhanced email support, the homescreen customisation, plugins and so on more than make up for it. There is also a nice security application that allows remote locking and wiping of the device to protect sensitive data.

Both devices will be available in Grey Steel or White Steel, are priced around the 350€ mark with the E66 being slightly cheaper and will be widely available in Q3.

BOTTOMLINE

There is little doubt that these devices will do well, both in the enterprise market and otherwise. If I could, I would run out and get myself a White Steel E71, NOW!

You have already tagged this post. Your tags: