The lean and mean series...

Nokia E series.

Feel disconnected when you read that? Feel like saying "they have lousy cameras"? Feel that they're too big?

I've recently been using the E51 and I find myself falling deeper in love with it each day. It's fast, it can do most things people need a phone to do and more, it's extremely well-made with no cheap feeling plastic bits on it, it's handsome, it's slim, it's perfectly sized, it's got one of the best hardware interfaces of any Symbian phone...etc.


The way I see it, this E51 is a very important phone. It bridges the gap between the different camps of Nokia mobile phone users. Firstly, its the size and form factor. It's a well-accepted and well-proven candy bar design. It's also very slim and pocketable, another nod by most users regardless of camp. It also has hands down the best-feeling alpha numeric keypad I have ever laid hands on.

Shallow it may be, but I think those factors alone will grab a lot of attention from many people on the market for a phone. Look at the E65 for example. I have some friends who bought one simply because of the form factor and how well-made it feels when compared to any phone on the market in that price range.

But is that all they're buying? They actually don't really care. They don't have push mail or VoIP setup on it. Nor do they even know they can do cool stuff like install google maps on it and look at aerial views of their own houses.


But I'll bet, once they use something else they're gonna miss it.

Yesterday, I decided to switch over to using my E90 which I have neglected for a while. As soon as I did, I was hit in the face with why I used it for months with pleasure despite its size.

It simply got the business done with minimal effort.

I hear some people saying "bah, whatever the E Series phone can do, the N series can do too". Well, true to a certain extent. They basically run the same Symbian S60 OS. But as they say, God is in the details.

The statement should be: "bah, whatever the N series can do, the E series can to too. But there are things that you can do on an E series that the N series can't".

The first thing that strikes you about an E series phone is how well-made it is. They feel solid. They are always made of high quality materials. It makes you feel good everytime you hold it, which is more than I can say for the other series of phones from Nokia. This alone may already make or break the deal for some people.


The next thing you will notice is extra buttons to get to most commonly used menus in a single step. I don't know about you, but this is a big deal to me. There are so many applications that I frequently use and having hardware buttons means more space for soft shortcuts for other applications. This is something I always long for on N series phones.




Then it's the user interface. Little details like email headers preview without launching the email application, extra options in the standby mode to further customise how you want your desktop to look like, excellent setup wizards, the most up to date cellular communication protocols, the high quality of text entry whether it's QWERTY or alpha numeric...




Running the Symbian S60 platform pretty much ensures a whole range of application available for the E series, much like the N series. Media capabilities are pretty up there too. Again, whatever the N series can do, so can the E.








If you're a mobile phone user who is not caught up with camera pixel count or playing Ngage games, I suggest you take a closer look at the E series. Although it's marketed as an "enterprise" range meant for business users, and its got serious software solutions to prove it, I think it's relevant to most mobile phone users. It would be a shame to skip over it as there is so much on offer...

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