It is not easy at all to review a smartphone whose operating software has been abandoned by its own creator. This is rather sad as the Nokia E7 as a smartphone that combines both the full QWERTY sliding key board as well as the touchscreen has indeed lot going for it. Though on hind sight, everything appears a lot easy to say and implement, Nokia would do well to somehow revive E7 with a few modifications and probably give it a more robust operating system like say the MeeGo. We really feel, the Finnish mobile phone giant should not allow such a wonderful smartphone to wither away from the market place only because of a sluggish OS.
But that is something that only time will tell. For the present, let us concentrate on what the Nokia E7 actually has to offer. If you ask us, the really bad moment came when after a few days of the launch of the E7, Nokia announced that it is withdrawing from the Symbian platform.
All the same, here is a detailed listing of the technical specifications of the Nokia E7 smartphone handset.
| Technical Specifications | Nokia E7 |
| Dimensions and Weight | 123.7 x 62.4 x 13.6mm and 176 gms |
| Display and Touchscreen | Four inches wide capacitive touchscreen with 16:9 nHD (640 x 360pixels) AMOLED Clear Black display |
| Operating system | Symbian^3 |
| Processor | 1 Ghz processor |
| Battery | BL-4D 1200mAh Li-Ion battery Talk time – Nine hours under GSM and five hours under WCDMA; Stand by – 430 hours under GSM and 40 hrs under WCDMA |
| Memory | Internal memory – 16 GB |
| Colour options | Dark Grey, Silver White, Blue, Orange and Green |
| Internet Connectivity | GPRS/EDGE Class B, Mutislot Class 33;
HSDPA Cat9, maximum speed up to 10.2Mbps, HSUPA Cat5 2.0Mbps; WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g/n and ability to serve as Modem; HDMI, Bluetooth 3.0; High speed USB 2.0(micro USB connector) ; eb browsing with touch control, : HTML, XHTML MP, WML, CSS; Flash Lie 4.0; Nokia Mobile Search, RSS Reader |
| Camera | Dual cameras. 8 MP camera with Fullscreen 16:9 viewfinder with easy-to-use touchscreen parame;
Face recognition; dual LED flash. Video recording at 720p HD; digital zoom 2x for still images and 3x for videos; Front facing VGA camera with 640 x 480pixels for video calling |
| Media Player | Nokia Music Player compatible playing MP3, WMA, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, E-AC-3, AC-3. Ovi Music Store;
Album Art DRM support WM DRM, OMA DRM 2.0; Bit rate up to 720 kpbs; FM stereo radio with RDS support |
Stylish Sliding Design Impresses
It is very difficult not to like the extremely well designed slider form factor of the Nokia E7. A gentle push at the edge of the four inch touchscreen will open to reveal the well laid out and placed keyboard. The touchscreen looks eminently lookable against the key board and in the closed position it does give the first time user the feeling that the E7 is actually only a classic touchscreen phone device. This, in essence, is the beauty of this slider form adopted by the smartphone handset.
Nokia has thought it fit to stick to the more conventional kind of key board and has not actually gone overboard in trying to fit in a more sophisticated key pad. This, we say, is the sensible thing to do as sometimes a more complex key board does not help actually in carrying out small activities like typing out a mail or a message that easily.
The Nokia E7 offers the 12 key alpha pneumeric key board rather than the full QWERTY. This actually helps as there is no other options like predictive text and correction of spelling errors fiddle with. Believe us the keys are one of the best you can get to use in any mobile phone. And the spelling errors will naturally be lot less with the E7.
Not a Weighty Issue at all!
The combination of the sliding key board along with the touchscreen meant that Nokia had to bring out a slightly on the heavier side 176 gms phone device. But all the same, the Nokia E7 is so compactly and intelligently designed that it sits rather comfortably in your hands and you do not feel the pressure of the weight at all.
Calling and Basic Phone Functions
The calling along with its ring tones and related aspects is well on par with the best in the world. You really will not be disappointed with it as there simply will be no occasion like call dropping or a buzzing sound at the background during the duration of a phone call.
Texting and E-mailing are also something that you would look forward to doing more often with the Nokia E7.
A Fine Business Phone!
The Nokia E7, all said and done, is undoubtedly a fine smartphone handset that gives a good run for its money to many of the Blackberry smartphone. Its QuickOffice feature, for instance, enables you to create, edit and process documents made in Word, Excel or PowerPoint. What is more. You can even transfer all your effort on to the personal computer via the micro HDMI port. And in this way, even a presentation is possible that has been made entirely using the phone device only.
Nokia has even taken care of other small but important situations like the auto lock when your handset is lost. The person who is trying to misuse your SIM, hence, will not be able to do so.
The phone device also helps you in saving some money by allowing for VOIP calls over wi-fi for less than regular voice calls.
The availability of the voice recognition application called Vlingo that makes dictations of E-mails, drafts and messages a simple and easy affair also goes a long way in solving lot of your task related needs.
Internet Connectivity
The 3G and Wi-fi are good. You can browse through and work on multiple web sites without so much as a whimper and the downloading time is also very less. The presence of Flash Lite 4.0 means that you can load flash heavy web pages like those from the BBC without much botheration either.
Your E-mailing has been made very easy as the setting up process itself is lot less complicated and takes hardy any time. The Mail for Exchange also works beautifully. All your multiple E-mail accounts all appear in a systematic manner in one place.
Battery
The battery life extended is remarkable and you can jolly well carry on using the phone for well over a day. Though beyond 24 hours it is better to have your phone handset charged.
Memory
The on board memory space given is good at 16 GB. But, we thought, Nokia could have done a little better by providing for an expandable memory slot as well. After all, you do need to keep up with the competition. The Nokia E7 is also targeted at the extremely busy corporate clientele who obviously could do with as much storage space as is realistically possible.
The on board memory space given is good at 16 GB. But, we thought, Nokia could have done a little better by providing for an expandable memory slot as well. After all, you do need to keep up with the competition. The Nokia E7 is also targeted at the extremely busy corporate clientele who obviously could do with as much storage space as is realistically possible.
The big let down is the Symbian OS
Taking into consideration all the above mentioned positives it really saddens you to find that the device falters the most where it matters. An extremely sluggish and insensitive user interface that is extremely confusing, slow and tends to get stalled is something one wishes was not there. But that is the reality. Even the most accommodative of users do get pissed of with situations when the phone refuses to close down when you close down the slider and when multiple options appear for accomplishing a simple task of going to your favourite number and play it. It is really something that Nokia has acknowledged and addressed now.
Camera & Video
Nokia has given the Nokia E7 a fine eight mega pixel camera that does a 720p high definition video recording. Believe us. The quality of still images taken as well as the video clips shot in HD are superlative. Though you need to be patient. As the images and the video footage may not appear that pristine when it comes to clarity. But the moment you see them on your personal computer the whole scenario changes for the good. The camera has quite a bit of options supporting it as well. The dual LED flash means that images that are taken even in dim light is bright enough. Then, there is face recognition, auto focus and geo tagging as well. All in all, the camera is something that you would be proud of.. The quality of both the still images as well as the videos are, it can safely be stated, on par with many of the competition.
The VGA camera is a basic snapper and does manage to give you reasonable quality videos while doing video calling.
Media Player
Nokia has always had a good record when it comes to music and video clips. And we are not talking about only smartphones like the XpressMusic series here. The Nokia music player along with its access to the Ovi store indeed is right there at the top. Both in terms of the audio and video quality as well as the choice of tracks and video clips. The good four inches wide Clear Black touchscreen also enhances your viewing experience. You do have the accompanying control options like the volume keys, the graphic equaliser, the bass, etc
GPS and Navigation
The in-built GPS and the Ovi Maps does the job adequately for you. There is no roaming fee as well.
Price is very much attractive
What it has lost through a not so good OS, Nokia has made up with the highly lucrative prices that the Nokia E7 carries. The network service providers like O2, 3 Mobile, T-Mobile, Vodafone and Orange offer the E7 smartphone for free under their £15 per month to £30 per month contracts. The SIM free price starts at £450. find best deals at bestcontractdeal.co.uk
Conclusion
Given the nature of how quickly updations take place, we really would recommend the Nokia E7. As the moment a more robust operating software takes over the Symbian, the Nokia E7 Deals would immediately climb several ladders and find itself right at the top of higher end smartphones.
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