Nokia E51 is a Tough Phone that looks cool

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.

Hello, I am Arun Basil Lal. Thank you for reading!

I am a WordPress product developer and creator of Image Attributes Pro. I am passionate about solving problems and travelling the world.