Today, I got a chance to put my hands on a Nokia E51 Mobile Phone. The phone felt cozy in my hands and instantly I started to like it. The phone has all the cool features one would look for in a smart phone; it was light (just about 100 grams) enough to carry around and looked cute. Nokia E51 is a tough phone for urban use.

What makes Nokia E51 tough?

• E51 has a dotted stylish metallic back cover and a metallic rim.
• The Navi-Wheel is sturdy and tough.
• The Memory card (Micro SD, up to 4GB) is protected inside the metallic back cover (unlike the rubber flap on some phones), but you can change a memory card without turning the phone off.
• The Keypad gives good feedback and can survive constant text messaging.
• The keys on the side of the phone are well covered and the moment you touch it you will know that they are durable.
• E51 comes with a Camera free version, so you need not worry about a scratched camera as with other topless camera phones.

If you are someone like me who doesn’t like carrying around your phone in a leather pouch, then this phone is good for you.

Inside the E51 Smartphone

The Nokia E51 is yet another Symbian S60 (Symbian 9.2) model. It follows the same menu software structure as in other similar smartphones like the N series phones, so if you have used any other Nokia phone, then you don’t have to read the user guide to start using it.

Something new in E51 (apart from 3G) is the VoIP support which is not common in every other Nokia. The keypad has 4 additional shortcut keys. This when combined with the shortcuts on the standby desktop will be able to launch all the applications that you are likely to use without accessing the menu.

On the soft part, Nokia E51 supports Java 2.0 based applications so you can always download tons of free software online and enhance the functionality of the phone. A pdf reader, slideshow viewer and other office readers is included, so business guys can save time hunting down software. Visual radio, voice recording and other multimedia features are standard these days, so I thought of skipping that part.

The text to speech engine in the phone is amazing. I tried with some non English words, and still the results were amazing and sometimes funny. But when it comes to reading out the caller’s name (when receiving a call) the virtual speech engine sucks. This is the same with my Nokia N78 too.

Something else which I didn’t like about the E51 is that, both the camera version and the non camera version come in the same case. The back of the non camera version will appear to miss something on its back. Just the hole for the camera is covered up, the slot still exists there. Maybe the Nokia guys figured out that it’s not economical to design a separate case for the Non Camera version of the phone.

Read the official product sheet of Nokia E51 to know more about the phone. Trust me; it has all that you need in a smartphone.

The phone is priced at Rs 11000 ($230, about $30 saving on a non camera version) which is quite reasonable for what you get. For a phone that is rich in functionality, cute to see, robust and sturdy and priced just right I give a 4.5 / 5 rating.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: Nokia E51 is a Tough Phone that looks cool

Guest Article by Rishi Kumar from RK-home

Some hold a device as elegant in appearance and functional in usage as the iPhone / iPhone 3G to be a token from technology-heaven. Plus, with that Apple logo, there’s an aura of “coolness” about it. Others like me, however, believe that as good as the iPhone 3G is, it’s still a cell phone – and what’s a cell phone without good coverage? With AT&T/ Cingular’s exclusivity contract with Apple for the next year or so, customers who trust in Verizon’s superior network must turn elsewhere.

Before starting medical school, I needed a smartphone which was capable of running all the healthcare software (Epocrates, Merck, etc.) which I’ll need during my education and clinical rounds. I turned to the new Samsung Omnia i910 for Verizon Wireless to hopefully meet and / or exceed my preferences. Here’s a concise review of my findings after a week of playing around with the phone.

Price

$200 with a new two-year contract makes the Samsung Omnia directly comparable to the iPhone 3G (AT&T / Cingular) and Blackberry Storm (Verizon). All three phones require a data contract, which in my experience, is far faster on the Verizon network. Hooray old-school CDMA!

Appearance / Design

Like the iPhone, the Samsung Omnia is all about the touch-screen. It has a large 240 x 400 pixel resolution screen, but only supports 65,536 color viewing (16 bit). I’m a huge fan of SPB Mobile Shell and am pleased with the way it runs on the Omnia as my main user interface. The optical mouse also comes in handy when browsing the web and clicking those tiny hyperlinks with your finger is too difficult. All in all, here are the pros and cons of the design:

Pros: 5 MP camera with LED flash, optical mouse, accelerometer, simple button layout, wifi (rare on a Verizon phone), GPS (will be unlocked in the first half of 2009 by Verizon)

Cons: Accelerometer and touch screen aren’t as responsive as the iPhone’s.

On, and on another note, I ordered an Invisible Shield and found great difficulty in applying it to this phone for some reason. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t done it in a while, but applying the shield to the Omnia took longer than shielding a MacBook, an iPod Touch, or an LG Voyager combined.

Functionality

Being a Windows Mobile device, there are numerous applications out there to install. Everything from utilities to games and user interfaces to demos, WM 6.1 Professional supports a lot of software. Also, with Skymarket (Windows’ answer to the “App Stores” run by Apple, Blackberry, and Google), the Windows Mobile software community will be far more structured and accessible to all smartphone users.

Samsung Omnia already comes with some neat software. The basic Office applications (PowerPoint, Excel, Word) as well as the Opera Mobile browser, RSS Reader, FM Radio, etc. This was probably the first device where I spent more than an hour tinkering around with all the pre-loaded software before getting bored.

Usability

Being an ex-LG-Voyager user, it was difficult for me to get used to not having a physical QWERTY keyboard at my disposal. Text messaging with the Omnia is no where near as quick and efficient as with the Voyager, but hey, handset designers couldn’t make things *too* easy, now could they? Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional tends to be a little sluggish at times, especially if you’re running numerous programs in the background which are all hogging CPU cycles and RAM. Turning off some of the eye candy (Samsung widgets, elaborate themes, etc.) ended up resolving the problem in my case. But being an iPod Touch owner, I naturally draw comparisons between it and the Omnia. In the end, Apple really did a fantastic job in making everything run “smoothly” (from the accelerometer to scrolling through contacts), but Windows has the large user base and will be releasing Windows Mobile 6.5 sometime next month.

Overall

If you’re a Verizon customer who is looking for a device beyond the conventional cell phone, I strongly recommend the Samsung Omnia i910. It has plenty of features which will appeal to hardcore business users, to the light consumer user… and dare I say it… even us medical students out there. As far as Verizon phones go, this one probably has all the features one could desire in a phone. To make things even more convincing, the best is yet to come with Verizon unlocking its GPS software (so you can use Google Maps and other proprietary software) and Windows establishing SkyMarket.

This article was written by medical student Rishi Kumar. Check out his blog, RK-home where he writes about controversial topics in medicine and politics as well as some sci / tech stuff. If you wish to write a Guest Article, you can do so here.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: Samsung Omnia i910 (Verizon Wireless) Smartphone Review

Nokia N78. It’s a 3G phone; it looks cool; its feature rich and it’s a Nokia. Google for it and you will get a million pages, all in praise of the all new Nokia N78. I read those pages and got the phone. Now I know what its like. So if you are thinking of getting one, listen to this. (Nokia guys are going to be very cross with me )

Why You Shouldn’t Buy Nokia N78

Poor Keypad Ergonomics – The keypad looks cool. But is really tough to type in ‘long SMS’s’ because all the keys are really close. Moreover the keys are tiny (and cute). So if you got thick fingers, you need to do a real test-drive before you get on N78. Another issue with the keypad is the answer key. A set of 5 keys is placed on a single plate. It’s a bit difficult to handle the keys on that plate, especially the answer button. You will have to press the answer button too hard to say “hello” (another security feature..?)

Outdated Software – Nokia purchased the Symbian recently, but the software department is still old-school. For a phone from the N-series family, we cannot expect to have duplicate contacts or inappropriate options. You can create any number of copies of the same contact. Then the phone does not show who is calling (when a call from that contact comes) since the phone is confused between the copies of the available contacts.

Disappearing Memory Card – A 2 GB Memory card comes bundled with the set. At times, the memory card simply disappeared from the phone. A simple restart will bring it back online. Does that show that N 78 can’t handle 2 GB…?

Bluetooth Issue – The phone couldn’t find my Nokia 7610 kept just near to it. Initially I thought is with the 7610, so I restarted that phone. Results were negative. I restarted N78 and the problem was solved. This is not what is expected out of a premium phone.

Camera is topless – The 3.2 Mega pixel camera does not have a cover. Okay, that’s not Nokia’s problem, but I am getting scratches on the glass cover of the lens.  It should have had a neat lens cover as in Nokia N73.

Cannot Stand on its own – The phone switches to the landscape mode while watching videos. But, out of the body design, the phone cannot stand on a surface without support. This is a serious issue if you are someone who watch whole length movies on your phone (which is not unheard these days). You will hurt your hand before the movie is complete.

Money Matters – Nokia N-series phones are not cheap, then why should you say this..? N78 has lots of things, like GPS, Maps, Transmitter and more stuff that you need. What is the use of having a gold coin in your wallet which you are never gonna use? Before you make the choice of this phone, make sure that you are paying for what you actually need.

Now don’t start saying that my phone is not real. It has got a Nokia original warranty and all such stuff. Maybe I need some software upgrade when one is available.

If you have not stopped thinking of getting N78, go ahead. Get one for yourself and do let me know your experience.

For the Nokia guys: When we shell out hard cash, we need some real quality both in hardware and software. Your hardware is good, work on the other half.

Update: A new issue has arrived. The Camera is going crazy. It is now storing the photos in random places. The only good thing is that, I am not missing any photos. Each photo is somewhere there in the memory; just its location cannot be predicted. Also the gallery displays random images instead of displaying the last taken images. Something is seriously wrong.

Update 2: Another issue is here. The left speaker is dead. I googled this issue and there are many out there with the same problem. Now that is something serious. A hardware failure cannot be compromised.

My dad just rated the phone as: I just liked the way it look, everything else is bull shit.

Update 3: Now, the whole sound system of the phone is down. It’s permanently muted and it’s going into the service station soon.

Hey, I did not drop the phone in water, it has been handled well and still this is the case. Don’t get this phone, it sucks

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: Thinking of purchasing a Nokia N78? 7 Reasons to Stop Thinking