02 Mar 09 Review: Nokia E51 – For business and non business

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A perfect Business phone that came from the world’s largest mobile manufacturer, Nokia Corp. and the reason that it belongs to the E-series family makes it a perfect example for a business phone. Being a successor to E50 the phone comes with a very stylish and shiny design. Each of the E-series phone features a special enhancement but share one thing in common and that is the familiar and friendly S60 user interface over the symbian OS.

The phone has a very comfortable mode to handle and the can easily be handled with single-hand. But, the only problem here is the rigidity of the phone that the user would observe when using them.

What comes with it???? (In the box)

The contents of this phone’s package are on par with the other non-multimedia phones:

•    Nokia E51
•    AC 5-DC travel charger
•    A mini USB connection set (DKE-2
•    Headset (HS 47)
•    E51 CD ROM
•    All user and Manual guides
•    Cleaning cloth

And it would be unfair if we don’t mention the main part to use E51 “Li-Ion Battery (BP-6MT) with capacity of 1050 mAh”.

Design
On hearing the very word “Business phone”, we are prone to get to our own assumptions about the design. In simple words one will assume he phone to be a big fat one, to the surprise the phone poses a slim and sleek structure. Am sure it is worth calling the slimmest phone amongst the E-series. To be very simple design of the phone is simple, elegant and safe. Nokia has not tried any of its fancy fantasies either in design or on the look of the phone.

Front Display
The main screen is the right place to start with since the quality of the display is the same even in bright outdoors. This 2” active TFT display supports up to 16 million colors. But at the same time users have also reviewed that this FT display is also a disadvantage towards business phones. The coloration of the images is well saturated and highly contrasted. The brightness is also controlled by a sensor light depending on the environment.

Keypad
The main controls of the phone are banked under the display. Similar to E65 the phone offers some special quick access keys for calendar, contacts, mailbox and menu. A noticeable difference in the similarity is that the menu button bears a slightly different logo. The D-pad has raised edges to make it stand apart from the other keys in the keypad, but it’s the size of this button that makes it uncomfortable to handle it. In contrast to the navigation key, the number keypads are well spaced and appear to be roomy. However a common feature seen amongst the other E-series model is a “Edit” shortcut key with a pencil logo, but not to worry the same function is shared with ‘#’ (hash) key in the right edge corner of the keypad.

Despite its fragile look the keys located on the sides of the phone make us feel very uncomfortable and give us a hard feel when using them. Am sure we will want to refrain from using these keys. To be usual and join the trend of other phones the power button is placed on the upper portion of the phone and all the connectors are placed on the base of the phone.

The volume keys are sledged on the sides of the phone with a voice command key button in the middle, which suffers a tremendous lack of response.

Backlights
The soft and even backlighting is a pleasure to use and look at. The display is assuredly more than the average with crisp and vivid colors. The backlight is surely sensed to adjust the environment needs.

Back cover and Battery
Flipping the phone over, the steel cover reveals the phones battery protective cover a very metallic look. The upper part of the back side hosts the camera lens. The speaker portion is also concentrated on the back side near the camera lens. Then, comes the major portion of the phone the battery which can be seen by easily sliding open the back cover. At this time we must surely discuss about the capability of the battery, which gives a talking lifetime of 4 hours 20 minutes. The manufacturer promises a standby of 310 hours.

In reality the phone offers an adequate power up to three days. This count is subjected to the usage like listening to music and so on.

Multimedia and Camera
The music player though not of a similar kind of the other N-series Symbian 9.2 phone. The music can be sorted by Artists/Albums/Genres/Composers. The sounds through the speakers are really not up to the satisfaction, but this feature is acceptable as long as this phone is not a music phone. The built-in FM radio, though not very extra ordinary feature allows you to tune in to the various FM stations available within the range. MPEG4 H.263 encoded video clip with QVGA resolution appears to be bit too heavy and the video lags.

A 2 mega-pixel camera lens regrettably, has neither flash lights nor an auto focus. The camera is started in exactly 2.5 seconds and you’re faced with a highly unfriendly interface. This interface doesn’t even take up full display interface it occupies only one half of the display. Frankly speaking this feature can only be considered as a last resort, since shots are of a very low quality even in bright backgrounds.

Messaging
For a phone belonging to the business family, messaging appears to be a very important feature standing in the hit list amongst the most necessary features. The phone support the usual three ways of messaging and all the options appear to be well defined and arranged in the order that users are expected to use the most. Unlike the N-series the headings appears to be smaller font to fit the screen size. This is so because business phone receive lot of messages and this option makes it easier to read faster.
Phonebook and Organizer
Every phone must compulsorily have a well defined contacts, and especially if it happens to be a business phone. Contacts can be viewed with picture ID on the top left corner in a thumbnail view. E51’s voice commands works just fine without any training. By turning on the voice command key located between the volume buttons, the user can just call out the names which will be located in the contact list.

The alarm, clock and world calendar as the name goes all do their specific functions which support business process to a great extent. Apart from this the key feature is the support of Adobe PDF which helps you view the contents of the phone’s memory. Office files are often received through email and are in zipped format, hence the phone is embedded with a zip manager which makes it easier to use the document.

Disadvantages
• extremely hard-to-press volume rocker, power button and voice recorder key
• Stale multimedia interface
• cannot edit office documents
• doesn’t charge when connected via USB
• Voice dial works well only with English names

Quick Specs
•    General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
•    3G Network HSDPA 850 / 2100
•    Dimensions 114.8 x 46 x 12 mm, 61 cc
•    Weight 100 g
•    Display Type TFT, 16M colors (240 x 320 pixels, 2 inches)
•    Card slot micro SD (TransFlash), up to 8GB, – 130 MB user data memory
•    96 MB SDRAM memory – ARM 11 369 MHz processor
•    WiFi / Bluetooth (AD2P) / GPRS / HSPDA / IRD / USB 2.0
•    OS Symbian OS 9.2, Series 60 v3.1 UI
•    Colors Black, Silver
•    Camera 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels, video(QVGA@15fps)
•    Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 1070 mA ( BP-6MT)

Also read the OnlyGizmos review of the Nokia E51

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