You all know Nokia E61 – it’s been among the most popular Nokia smartphones ever since it was presented. Its fans have always been divided over it not having a camera. Taking that into account Nokia decided to release an updated version of the handset marked with “i”. Besides a camera, the new model features a number of small modifications, or otherwise upgrades, which would again reinstate it as a top-notch smartphone messenger.
So, as with previous iterative devices, there are some slight changes to the physical device, a few changes inside, and a general polishing of everything with an eye on the extensive user feedback that has been gathered. Appearance and design
117 x 70 x 13.9 mm; weight: 150g.
The most striking featuring of the E61i is the black trim around the edges of the device. Where the E61 was a solid uniform silver plastic colour, the E61 now runs some cool black plastic trim around half of the edges – it puts me in mind of a Ford Cortina GLX from the seventies adding some go faster stripes. Because while the underlying processor and specifications of the E61i is identical to the E61, it does look and feel much more business like. In terms of size the height and width of the two units are broadly similar; the main change is in the depth.
The E61i is a much flatter device compared to the E61, tapering from a 'thinner by a few millimetres' at the top to roughly the same at the base. Nokia have tightened up the internals of the device and used a slightly smaller battery compared to to the E61 to achieve this.
Keypad
Unlike the E61 where we can distinctively feel the menu keys above the keyboard, on the E61i, it's easier to press the wrong buttons because there's considerably less space between each key and the surface is slightly flushed. The joystick on the E61 has also been replaced with a four-way rectangular border with a central Enter key which, fortunately, is just as efficient.
The QWERTY keyboard, other than having more room between each key, remains largely similar to the earlier E61. What we don't quite fancy about the new buttons are the less pronounced. The rubbery surface also makes a squeaky sound when we run our fingers on it. However, it's a minor gripe and we soon got over it as we breeze though typing a full text message on the E61i.
Additional buttons
The left side of the device features a dual volume key and the voice key. A single press allows you to start an immediate recording of a voice note for example. A longer press takes you to the voice dial/voice command interface. The voice key is pretty well recessed so it isn’t probable that you would press it accidentally in your pocket – a flaw that Nokia E61 had. The right and top sides of the handset don’t accommodate any control elements
Sizes, Ports and Slots
On the left side you can also find loudspeaker grill – the sound it produces is nice – clear and loud. The loudspeaker position is well-thought of, as the sound doesn’t get muffled when you put down the handset on its back, as is the case with most current mobile phones.
The bottom part of the device features the charger port, the Pop port for connecting the data cable and the headset, as well as the Infrared port.
The charger port of the E61i can fit only the latest types of Nokia chargers – the ones with a thinner jack. Unlike N-series handsets the E61i doesn’t come with a charger adaptor included which would allow for using the older types of chargers with it.
Display
TFT, 240х320, 16.7 million colors
The Nokia E61i has an extremely large 16M color TFT display with a QVGA (320x240 pixels) resolution – it measures a good 2.8 inches in diagonal which is close to PocketPC displays.
ust as those, it looks pretty vulnerable in the beginning due to the large exposed surface. When it comes to performance under bright sunlight… Let’s just say that in this respect Nokia have been doing some really great work lately – their displays are among the best ones we’ve seen. 2 Mpx, Video
Into this smaller space though, Nokia have added a 2 megapixel camera, to give the E61i the ability for both still pictures (up to 1600x1200) and video (at 352x288 resolution). It’s an interesting decision, as the marketing for the E61 covered the lack of camera by pointing out a number of businesses would not buy camera phone enabled smartphones. With similar specifications between the E61 and E61i, it appears that IT departments and users are now getting a marketplace choice, assuming the E61 continues to be available. The camera is not fantastic, there’s no Carl Zeiss lens here, but for capturing the moment it does the job as well as any of the other Nokia S60 devices which use a 2 megapixel camera.
Menu
Nokia E61i runs on the third edition of the Series 60 UI. The Symbian operating system works very well on the phone and is quite fast. As regards the response of E61i over previous E-series devices (with the latest firmware installed) we found it to be exactly the same in terms of its speed.
The display contains information about the network coverage, the battery status, date, time, operator name. There is also the Active stand-by screen which shows a bar with 7 shortcuts plus several plug-ins and the inbox. The new My Own key that seems to appear on Nokia’s new smartphones is a customizable shortcut key that you can use for starting an application of your choice. It really comes in handy. The phone’s main menu can be viewed either as a matrix grid of 4 x 3 icons or in list view. Most of the submenus also allow changing the type of view.
The manufacturer uses the Dots theme as default in most of its latest smartphones. If you wish you can use the standard blue Nokia theme. The themes don’t seem to make significant changes to the user interface. They only change the wallpaper and the color scheme. While the hardware changes are not what one would call revolutionary, Nokia makes up for this by having several programs preinstalled on the E61i. One of those we like most is WidSets. If you're familiar with the desktop widgets on the Mac OS dashboard, think of WidSets as the mobile version. In a nutshell, WidSets is able to download byte-sized information from the Internet to the E61i. Of course, you'll need to be connected to the Internet for that to happen. But the strength of WidSets is really its ease of use, simplified user interface and ever-growing list of widgets available.
Another program I find interesting, but don't use quite as frequently, is the Message Reader that reads out our text messages. English is the default language, though Nokia representatives we spoke to said support for other languages could be available in the near future. There's also Team Suite, which is like a souped-up version of Groups under Contacts. We can set up "teams" for mass text messages or holding conference calls.
The phone has various organizer applications and features. The Calendar has Monthly, Weekly and Daily view. You can assign Meeting, Anniversary, Memo and To-do tasks in the Calendar. You can also put alarms on those assignments. When it comes to applications, the E61i surely has a lot of them. There is the Quickoffice, the Notes application, the Converter, the Calculator, Recorder, the PDF viewer, the ZIP manager, and the Printers applications. The Converter converts Currencies, Area, Energy, Length, Mass, Power, Pressure, Temperature, Time, Velocity and Volume. The calculator is very simple and easy to use. Regrettably, the Recorder has a one minute limit for voice records. This seems quite illogical since the phone has such powerful features, enough internal memory and a memory card slot.
The Quickoffice opens and edits various office files such as ones created by MS Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint. They can be viewed seamlessly. Zooming, Scrolling, Resizing are supported as well. The PDF viewer works quicker than most other similar application we’ve seen around. There is also a Data Transfer application in the Tools submenu. It is used to transfer contacts and organizer items from one Nokia phone to another.
Further on, the phone has an excellent Tutorial tool which describes in a very user-friendly way the main functions of the phone.
Screen
2.8 Inch 16 Million Colour QVGA Screen (320 x 240 Pixels)
Imaging
2 Megapixel Camera
Video Recorder
Video Streaming
Video Player
Wallpapers
Messaging
SMS (Text Messaging)
MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
Instant Messaging
Email (POP3, IMAP & SMTP)
Intellisync Wireless Email
Email with Attachment
Email Attachment (Quickoffice, ZIP Manager & Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Email Key & LED Indicator
Text to Speech Message Reader
Sound
Music Player (MP3 & AAC)
Nokia Headset
Voice Dialling
Voice Commands
Voice Recording
Entertainment
Java™ Games
Downloadable Games
Embedded Games
Organiser
Phone Book
Calendar
Notepad
Alarm Clock
To Do List
Calculator
World Clock
Nokia Team Suite
Voice Over IP Internet Call
Conference Call
Push to Talk
Handsfree Speaker
Symbian Operating System
S60 Software on Symbian OS
Keypad Display Lighting Control
QWERTY Keyboard with Backlight
Connectivity
3G
WCDMA
Pop-Port™
USB
Infra Red
Bluetooth®
WLAN
HSCSD
Network
Quad Band (GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800 & GSM 1900)
WCDMA
Internet
HTML Browser
XHTML Browser
Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map
Memory & Talk Time
60 Mbytes Memory plus MicroSD™ Memory Card Option
5 Hours Talk Time
312 Hours Standby
Weight & Size
150 g
117 x 70 x 13.9 mm
Pluses
Rich connectivity options
2 megapixel camera
Solid, metallic body
Minuses
Hefty weight
No HSDPA support
No secondary camera for video calls
Conclusion
If you're thinking of migrating from your current E61 to the E61i, you'll have to switch from the miniSD to microSD memory card format. After all that's said and done, the E61i looks like a worthy successor to the E61. The only underlying issue is whether you got to have a camera or not. The E61i surely offers some really nice upgrades over E61, but considering the probable cost of dumping your used E61 and getting the E61i really doesn’t makes sense.
