Powerful business tool

Jun 20, 2008 13:27 GMT  ·  By

One of the latest Nokia Eseries' handsets available on the market, Nokia E51 is the perfect successor of the older E50. Furthermore, Nokia E51 comprises all the E90 Communicator's technical features in a slim candy-bar design. Based on Symbian operating system, Nokia E51 is the perfect tool for businessmen, as it features rich communications skills, perfectly completed by a stylish design. Nokia developed a wide range of Eseries handsets, which targeted different customers that had various needs: enhanced messaging, mobile office, Communicators and high-end business devices. The last were and still are the best choice for the 'ultimate businessman' on the go.

Announced in September 2007, Nokia E51 was made available on the market two months later, in November 2007. Nokia also launched a camera-free version of the E51 in February 2008. Anyway, Nokia E51 can be bought for around USD 350$, depending on the location and plan.

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Design

Instead of searching for a design that will make the handset stand out from the crowd, Nokia decided to center upon the sturdiness of the device. The stainless steel that covers the edges of the front faceplate and the entire back cover makes the phone feel compact and durable. Size-wise (114.8 x 46 x 12 mm), Nokia E51 is neither too large, nor too heavy (100g, including battery) to carry. These traits make it a perfect fit for almost any pocket or hand. Nokia took care of the ergonomics of the device, thus the business candy-bar is very comfortable to use. The sturdiness of the phone is fully reflected onto the few external keys that are placed on different sides of the handset. All of these are too rigid to use, but not impossible.

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The Power key is again present on the top side of Nokia E51, while on the right side of the phone, there's a voice command button flanked by the two volume keys. All external keys have been covered by a rubber-like finish, which makes them even more unyielding. On the bottom side, there are miniUSB, 2.5mm jack and charger ports. The left side of the device integrates a small Infrared port that is barely visible. Above the screen, there is a small ambient light sensor and the in-call speaker. The keypad layout looks pretty standard for a Symbian device with few exceptions. One of these is the lack of the 'Pencil' key and the replacement of the S60 icon with another one that looks like a house.

Besides the usual numeric keys, the keypad also contains some specific buttons such as: D-pad, two selection keys, Menu key, Calendar key, Contacts key, Messaging keys and, Call and End keys. Right under the D-pad, there is the Clear key, which also changed the logo from 'C' to one that looks like that on the Backspace keys of every PC. The keypad is extremely responsive and the tactile feedback is at the highest. It has been a real pleasure to text SMS or emails, even tough it doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard. In fact, Nokia E51 features so many shortcuts and dedicated keys that users won't even feel the need of a touchscreen or QWERTY keyboard. Any important function or menu can be accessed with only one hand and at first touch.

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The back of the phone includes a 2 Megapixel camera that lacks autofocus and flash, but instead has 4x digital zoom and the capability to record clips. Above the camera, on the plastic part of the back cover, there are the Nokia logo and a small loudspeaker. The stainless steel part of the phone is surely a fingerprint magnet, but a swipe on the surface will solve this issue. Overall, I believe Nokia kept the same standard bar design that has been a main characteristic for its business phones, but with the addition of the stainless steel and rounded sides transformed the E51 into a stylish, compact and solid business mobile phone.

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Display and Camera

At first glance, I was a little bit disappointed by the size of the screen (only 2 inches), but when I started using the phone to browse the Web or the menu, I was amazed by its image quality and forgot all about size. The TFT display supports 16 Million colors and 240x320 pixels resolution, and is one of the best on the market. The screen is well protected against scratches by a special glass and it is perfectly visible outdoors in strong sunlight. The old benchmarks used revealed almost maximum performance, which says it all, even if the Finnish-manufacturer over-optimized its device against these tests.

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I'm not sure why the 2 Megapixel camera has been included but since it's there, let's see what it can do and what it lacks. Well, it can take pictures and record movies, but it doesn't have any flash, autofocus or macro capabilities.

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The camera can take pictures with a maximum resolution of 1600x1200 pixels and record clips in QVGA standard (MPEG-4 format) at 15fps (320x240 pixels resolution). The quality of the pictures is average, which was expected, as we're talking about a business phone.

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The snapshots taken are extremely sharpened and a little bit low on color contrast. Sharpening the pictures to the extreme loses some of the vividness of colors and makes the pictures look a little bit 'dull'. White balance (Sunny, Incandescent, Fluorescent), Colour tone (Sepia, Black & white, Negative) and Night Mode can be accessed from the camera interface, but they won't help improve the quality of the pictures.

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Still, users that don't care too much about the camera can choose to buy themselves the free-camera version of this handset. The samples below reflect clearly the quality of the pictures in good light conditions.

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Menu and Software

Nokia E51 candy-bar runs Symbian operating system version 9.2 and is based on S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. The Feature Pack 1 provides 3D graphics hardware support, over-the-air (OTA) firmware support, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR support, Flash Lite 2.0, screen turning feature that permits the user to turn the screen to landscape or portrait mode (very useful for browsing the Internet), as well as a better organization of the file cache.

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Nokia E51 bar is one of the fastest and most stable phones that come with a Symbian operating system. If you are a Symbian-freak, you'll be happy to find that Nokia E51 won't freeze or lag behind. For business purposes, Nokia included the QuickOffice application, Adobe PDF, File manager, Organizer, Active notes, Calculator, Converter, Zip Manager, Printers. The handset also features a Search tool which searches the files on the phone's memory (Messages, ToDo's, e-mails, calendar events, notes, contacts) and returns results very fast. QuickOffice package will only let users read documents, but you won't be able to start your own documents unless you upgrade the application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

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The phonebook has almost an unlimited number of entries as all the contacts can be saved onto the phone's memory. Symbian OS and Java compatible third-party applications can be installed with ease on the phone through the USB connection, just check the requirements. Navigation on the Web can be a real joy because of the high-quality display and HSDPA and WiFi connections. The business phone even supports four pre-installed themes, which can change its look entirely.

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Communication

Nokia E51 features HSDPA connectivity for those in need of fast data transfer speeds, but also EDGE and GPRS class 32 technologies as a cheaper version of the HSDPA. Users won't have any problems with either of the connectivities as data transfer speeds are way over the charts: 1051 Kbit/s download and 305 Kbit/s upload with HSDPA and 144 Kbit/s download and 79 Kbit/s upload with EDGE. These are the highest results that we managed to attain with a Nokia handset, after having used Nokia N95 and N95 8GB devices.

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Wi-Fi 802.11g with VoIP over WLAN support is also on board and works even better as a free option for Web browsing instead of the HSDPA connectivity. Furthermore, Nokia E51 features miniUSB v2.0 and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP and EDR profile support and IrDA (115 kbps), which makes it the ultimate communication tool.

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Impressive to the last, Nokia E51 includes an Internet browser that displays webpages perfectly. No matter the size, webpages fit into the small screen and look amazing. The virtual mouse cursor makes the browsing experience even better. A mini-map can be activated to help navigating around complex websites where lots of scrolling down/up or left/right is required. Users also have the possibility to adjust the zoom level to their needs.

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Nokia features four different message editors, one for each of these types: SMS, MMS, audio message and e-mail. The phone is fully compatible with POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP accounts. Also as mobile email, the E51 supports various solutions including Mail for Exchange, Visto mobile and Seven Always-on.

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The quad-band phone has worldwide coverage and is GSM900 / GSM1800 / GSM1900 / GSM850 / HSDPA network compatible. This will simply enlarge the market of the phone and will attract consumers all over the world. Nokia E51 has a mediocre in-call sound, but is extremely good on signal reception.

Processor and Memory

Nokia's E51 smartphone runs a very good ARM11 family processor working at speeds up to 369 Mhz. Practically, this is the same CPU that was embedded in Nokia N93 model and Nokia 6290 a little while ago. And that's another reason to believe that Nokia E51 approaches the high-end series through its performance.

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The business phone comes with 130 MB internal memory (96 MB SDRAM memory), which can be expanded through the microSD slot card up to 8GB.

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I have tested the phone with a 4GB card by transferring some data through miniUSB cable and everything worked fine. This should be more than enough for a businessman who wants to carry all his documents into a pocket-sized device.

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Multimedia

This is the only department where Nokia E51 lacks consistency. Even if it hasn't been developed as a multimedia tool, Nokia E51 provides a limited multimedia experience. The mediocre sound quality and the poor music player interface don't recommend the device as an MP3 player.

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The music player is compatible with MP3, AAC, WMA, AMR-NB and AMR-WB formats and features five pre-defined Equalizer settings: Bass booster, Classical, Jazz, Pop and Rock. If these are not enough, the phone offers the possibility of adding new customized settings. Music library is automatically scanned after each USB synchronization with the PC and new music files are added. Users can sort the files by artist, song or album and can define playlists. Nokia E51 supports Bluetooth with A2DP profile, which allows listening to music on a wireless stereo headset.

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Other multimedia offerings include Visual Radio that can store up to 50 base stations, video streaming and playback in H.264 (MPEG-4), 3gpp and Real codecs. Videos are played using the integrated RealPlayer and can be watched in portrait, landscape or full screen.

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Battery

The handset includes a Li-Polymer (1050 mAh) BL-5F battery. The talk time that I found on Nokia's site says that it should last about 4 hours and 20 minutes in talk time mode (only GSM) and about 13 days in standby mode (GSM only). For a heavy user, this phone will need recharging every two days, while for a medium user, one recharge in 4-5 days will be enough. The phone has great functionality, and features a big screen and HSDPA, which will both kill the battery even faster. Nokia E51 is a low "battery drainer", which means that it's even more fitted for business use.

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Impressions

The only thing that impresses at first glance is the stainless steel material that covers most of the phone. That's because 'slim size' has become a standard for these days' handsets, and E51 cannot stand out from the crowd just because it's slim. Anyway, for a business phone, Nokia E51 really looks stylish and will probably attract more buyers than its Eseries predecessors. Only after actual use, owners will understand what this little piece of technology can really do. Nokia E51 is a well-balanced phone that has been 'stuffed' with only the best technical features, which makes it one of the most powerful communication tools available.

The Good

There are many key features that Nokia E51 embeds, such as: HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, fast user interface, powerful CPU, microSD card, Symbian 9.2 OS Series 60 3rd edition UI with Feature Pack 1. Also, the fact that the phone doesn't freeze at all and is very fast makes it even better. Let's not forget about the low price (only 350 USD).

The Bad

Maybe the phone should've been launched without a module camera or, at least, a better one could've made a difference. A longer talk time is also needed to maximize E51's functionality. Some small improvements should've been added, such as: possibility of editing documents, charge via miniUSB and a better multimedia interface.

Sales package

Nokia E51 handset 1050 mAh Li-Polymer Battery (BP-6MT) Nokia AC-5 DC charger miniUSB connection cable (DKE-2) Wired stereo headset (HS-47) Eseries CD-ROM Quickstart guide and User guide

Photo: Tudor Raiciu for Softpedia.com