The AAS E61 review - it's finally here!

slitchfield · #1 11-05-2006, 12:42 PM

Ewan's battled firmware updates, Internet outages and hard disk failures to bring you this huge Nokia E61 review. He's been living with this device on and off for quite a while and finds plenty to like and err... not like quite so much.

Read on in the full article.

JuhaN · #2 11-05-2006, 02:23 PM

E61 has EDGE communication in addition to GPRS, 3G and wifi. So in my mind communication capabilities are perfect!

Copied from Nokia.com:
"EGPRS (Class B, MSC 11)"

=)juha

Dr, Who? · #3 11-05-2006, 02:47 PM

Nice review, Steve.

Guess whether you want one or not depends whether you can stand the format/layout of the phone and whether looking like a berk holding one to your head when making a call is important.

slitchfield · #4 11-05-2006, 04:03 PM

Eh? It was Ewan's review!!!

And the text isn't the final text - the system's mangled it all. 8-(

Steve

Dr, Who? · #5 11-05-2006, 04:28 PM

Apologies, obviously confused by the sun today.

elp · #6 11-05-2006, 05:10 PM

Ewan, judging from your review it seems that you're right in saying that the screen layout and the keyboard are not being used at their full potential in every application. But to be fair to Nokia, it's still great to see that they have at last abandonned those ridiculously huge title bars and buttons that used to take up one third of the screen in previous S60 devices and that the vast majority of the display area is now available to the applications. I give it only a few months before third party applications using the full potential of the screen start to ship. And at that point, the E61 is really going to be an amazing piece of smartphone.

A few more screenshots would be nice though. In particular of the email client and of the music player (how easy is it to browse through dozens of albums and hundreds of songs?). Also, you didn't say much about the speed of the device. Do applications still takes seconds to launch (as they do on my Sendo X) or do most "normal" apps launch instantly? How fast is it to delete a text message or to display a text message by clicking "Show" just after it's been received? On my X, these things take ages.

langdona · #7 11-05-2006, 07:49 PM

Its a shame to hear about the shortcommings of the keyboard and navigation. I look foward to seeing how well the E70 does in comparison as that is the device I'm leaning based on specification only. Anyway the E61 still sounds like a good device and I suspect it will do quite well.

I cant see why they dont include a spellchecker when the free Openoffice and Thunderbird email are 2 examples of open source software that have them.

slitchfield · #8 11-05-2006, 09:25 PM

Agree about the spellchecker. And the reason Ewan hasn't done screenshots is because none of the existing screen capture programs will install on the E61 8-(

Once that hurdle's been overcome, expect a 'version 2' of the review, with tweaked text from Ewan (and hopefully myself, once I've had a play) and screens aplenty.

Steve Litchfield

My-Symbian.com · #9 12-05-2006, 09:03 PM

"Screenshot 2" by Antony Pranata installs and works flawlessly on the E61

http://my-symbian.com/s60v3/software...aq=1&fldAuto=4

slitchfield · #10 13-05-2006, 06:06 AM

Not on Ewan's device 8-(

Maybe non-production firmware? I'll try fiddling once Ewan's passed it on to me...

Steve

tester · #11 19-05-2006, 05:38 PM

Thks for the review.

Three updates as of May 19:

- pdf reader LE is now downloadable from Tools/Catalogs and works.

- Seven has issues with the E Series for their alwayson push email solution. Seven supports states quote

Components

Product: Enterprise Edition, Professional Edition, Internet Edition
Component: Push Client
Device: E60, E61, N71, N80, N91, Nokia 3250

Description

Nokia has started commercial shipments of N-series and E-Series devices based on the S60 v3 platform. Current ROM versions (May 2006) include known issues in the Symbian OS core that prevent SEVEN clients from working reliably on the devices. SEVEN and Nokia are jointly investigating the issues, but a device ROM upgrade will be required to provide fully working solution.

Additional information

For more information, please contact your Nokia representative.

Keywords

ROM upgrade, Series 60 version 3.0, S60 3rd generation
Changed on May 09, 2006

unquote

- If you are unhappy with the rendering of the pre-installed browser, try opera mini. IMHO the much better solution - rendering to fit the screen - and fortunately free of charge at www.opera.com

best regards

yoenuts · #12 23-05-2006, 04:12 PM

Has anyone seen a bible application for the E61?
Thanks in advance!

FRiC · #13 31-05-2006, 06:09 PM

How many different E61 English keyboard layouts are there? In this review, the & is on the same key as P. But I've seen other English layouts where the & is on the W key, and my personal favorite where & and @ have their own keys to the left of the space key. (While the comma and period are to the right of M, where they're supposed to be.)