• Technology

In the last issue, we had talked about how an entrepreneur could get mobility on the cheap i.e., gadgets that let you get mobile and not break your bank. In the smartphone bit, to the surprise of many, we went with the Nokia E5. Strange choice, many told us, hinting that the BlackBerry is the epitome of mobility when it comes to smartphones. No, I say.

It is for precisely this reason that we had promised a follow-up review with the E5, and I have held good to that. First up, though, we would like to set something straight. I had mentioned in the last issue that the E5 retails at close to Rs.12,000. It seems that figure is a grand too high. The E5 is, in fact, cheaper at Rs.11,000. Not that it would hurt any entrepreneur to hear that. If you have used the Nokia E71 or E72 before and are a fan, it won’t take much to tip you in the E5’s favor. But if you are an ‘ENovice,’ a glide through the latest of Nokia’s E Series is necessary. While the E5 mostly stays true to the legacy formed by other E Series phones, it has developed a character of its own when it comes to form factor. The E5, I dare say, takes as much from the BlackBerry smartphone range as it does from its successors.

What we have now is a rounded, curved phone that’s much more comfortable to hold than the E71 and E72. The build quality is terrific, too, with a sturdy plastic frame and stainless steel front inlay and battery cover. There is one goofy thing in the external design, though. On the right-hand side, there are buttons for volume adjustment; these are almost impossible to use, unless you want a sore thumb. Design fail.

I absolutely dig the E5’s QWERTY keyboard. I have reviewed other E Series phones, and none of them have come close to the benchmark for QWERTY keyboards in my book: the Palm Treo’s one-handed function. The E5, though, comes pretty close (thanks largely to its curved design) and is great for people who go single-handed when typing messages. The screen, however, is a big disappointment. Unlike the other E Series phones, we have a regular TFT screen with 320×240 pixels resolution here. It works fine indoors, but becomes a whiteboard out in the sun. I suspect this is one of the ways Nokia has kept the price low for the E5. But whatever the reason may be, it is one of the biggest downers for me.

The camera is another negative. While there’s a 5-megapixel camera in the E5, its video mode is strictly under par. VGA and picture taking at nighttime is just about okay. Also, the glass on the camera at the back is, funnily, too far out of the body. It could get scratched quite a bit. The picture quality, though, is decent for a casual snapper.

The FM and music function on the E5 are best not used extensively. The sound quality is quite unbearable and damaging enough to the ear for you to seriously considering carrying that iPod as well.

Inside, the E5 keeps things to what its price would indicate. It has 250MB of internal memory, 256MB of RAM and a microSD card slot. There is also an ARM processor that can clock about 600 Mhz. Not the most impressive, you would think, but during our period of review, the phone hardly ever hung or ran extremely slow. In comparison to the other E Series phones, it was much less glitchy. Is it the software? Maybe.

The E5 runs on one of the OSs that must now see the end of the light, but since Nokia insists on running on it, we must look at the Symbian 9.3 OS with the S60 3rd Edition and Feature Pack 2 Interface. This interface is pretty standard across all Nokia phones. Which means that if you have used others from the Nokia stable, you will be right at home with this.

Though it is decidedly ancient when compared to the Androids of the world, the Symbian does let you tinker a lot with the interface. It lets you customize almost every screen to your requirements. One of the best improvements I saw was that you can now add your favorite contacts on the new contacts bar that appears on top of the screen.

Here, every contact gets displayed as a small avatar chosen from the gallery or by taking a picture with the camera. Click on the avatar, and you will get a list of options that will enable you to edit the contact, send a message, call or add feed. That is sweet. In addition, there is a pretty E Series-like customizable bar that usually shows your e-mails, a row that contains shortcuts like camera, message, maps, etc.

Applications-wise, the E5 is nothing to write home about. On the face of it, it does offer the entire social networking package of Facebook, Friendster, YouTube, etc. But does it really hit the bull’s eye? I don’t think so.

Deconstructing it, you will find out that Facebook is better visited via the browser than the app, the Twitter app is basically a bookmark that takes you to the browser version of Twitter, and that you really do not need Hi5, MySpace or Friendster anymore. Somebody at the research team should have done his homework better.

For the entrepreneur
The E5 works well for the mobile entrepreneur as well as for the business owner looking for an inexpensive enterprise mobile solution for his employees. And there are a number of reasons for that.

First up, the battery is simply unbelievable. In the brochure lingo, it is given that the 1,200 mAh Li-Ion battery has a life expectancy of 635 hours in standby (670 hours for 3G) and of about 12 hours and 10 minutes in talk time mode (five hours and 30 minutes for 3G)—numbers that the company claims and most journalists look at skeptically.

But I was pleasantly surprised to note that the E5 can really rock that battery. As I got four days with the phone, I used it for talking (four hours roughly), web browsing on Facebook (30 minutes at a maximum), and accessing mail with the Gmail app (30 minutes). That battery is made for mobility.

Secondly, the connectivity on the E5 is bang on. This is a quad-band handset, with HSDPA, HSUPA, GPRS/EDGE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, and microUSB 2.0. There is also a built-in GPS receiver that supports A-GPS function and works brilliantly with the new Ovi Maps 3.0.

Finally, the Nokia messaging and e-mail services are cheaper and just as good as any other in its class. You can use the phone’s chat client to access a variety of chat services, including Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger. Also, Nokia’s messaging service for push e-mail does not ask you to take a separate data plan for the push e-mail service, unlike its Canadian counterpart.

Combine that with the unbeatable price, and you know that the E5 can groove with a business owner.

©Entrepreneur February 2011 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Tags:
Nokia E5, smartphone