Ideal Gadget

The talk of the town is here! A thousand apologies for not updating you guys about the Nokia E-Series launch on the 15th May. I was occupied with office work (and daydreaming of having the E90) and only manage to hit the blogging keyboard today. As some of you might know, the launching involved 3 latest models meant as business devices namely the E61i, E65 and E90. This review will be in a few series (quite a long one to lump together), so enjoy! Here goes the E61i first! I’m saving the best for last!

You might’ve guessed that the “i” at the end of the model name indicates an improved to the earlier version. Compared to the E61, the new E61i is built with a slimmer side profile and a 2.0 Mpixel camera. One of the best improvement Nokia had made is probably the change from joystick navigator to a D-pad (applause! applause!). As my usual style, let’s dive in into the keypad efficiency and design…

Keypad: A QWERTY keyboard… or rather keypad. Comparing to the earlier version where every button is slightly pronounced by its height, the keypad for the new version has a sleek feel to it that might cause you to press the wrong button, especially at the D-pad areas where there are more buttons than the E61. The material of the keypad is also different. Unlike most Nokia’s phones, the keypad for E61i is made of a rubbery substance that is somehow disturbing during typing. All in all I don’t particularly like much about the keyboard, except the superb D-pad.

Camera: Don’t expect much to be lumped all-in-one. The 2.0 Mpixels camera does not have any LED as a flash unit to it and the picture quality is on the borderline (I think a little bit better than my nokia 6230). But then again, I did not manage to download the picture for further scrutinisation.

Connectivity: The quadband (850/900/1800/1900MHz) handset is also 3G-enabled (UMTS 2100MHz) and is capable of hooking up to Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) networks. It’s just a pity it doesn’t come with HSDPA like the E90. Of course, there’s also the usual Bluetooth, infrared, USB and Nokia’s proprietary Pop-Port to connect via cable for some PC-to-phone synchronization with the PC Suite.

Programs: Did I mention that E61i is a smartphone? Well, I think you might’ve guessed it anyway. Like most smartphones, software is a must to have and for E61i as a useful business tool, there is QuickOffice (for reading and editing Word, Excel and PowerPoint (read-only) documents), BlackBerry Connect (does the design rings any bell?) and Mail-for-Exchange. The good news about all these additional programs is that they can be downloaded from the Nokia Web site. Oh, there is also a video player!

Other features: microSD, 60 MB shared memory, Symbian OS 9.1,.

Personal Last Words: To be honest I’ve never like a wide phone because I don’t like carrying phones or any other thing for that matter on my hand. I like to keep my gadgets in my pocket. So these last words might be of some bias ;p but pay close attention to it. All in all the E61i is a great tool especially to keep you connected whenever you are as it provides almost all (sadly not the faster HSDPA) connectivity options. Design-wise it may look a little bit ‘busy’, but application-wise the OS and the simplicity of the application provides a very stable and user-friendly option unlike some Nokia’s too-complicated models.

Retail Price: RM 1,799