Nokia E66 Review

Nokia WOMWorld sent me a Nokia E66 to review (read other reviews on E66 here) and after a lot of hick-ups and delays, here is the review. And with the advantage of hindsight, the review is all the more pertinent now since E66 been launched in India recently and lots of users would be looking for reviews on this handset.

Nokia E66 is yet one of those sliders from the E series family. The E-series is known for its ease of use and intuitive interface. E66 offers full multimedia and Internet experience with its wide display and high-resolution screen. It is a true office use phone with support for popular file formats like pdf, doc and xls etc.

Coming down to positives and negatives,

Positives

1. Looks. It looks really impressive. In any meeting, people noticed the device and were actually curious about it. The display is brilliant. The metallic finish is awesome. Further, I loved the grip on the handset. It fitted perfectly in my palm and I dint have to clasp it too hard or too loose. It felt like an extension of my hand. Very comfortable to hold.


2. Office Applications. Has all the applications one might need for productivity preloaded on the phone. Obviously you could download more from the Internet and use one of the many connectivity options (Bluetooth, wifi, 3G, infrared).


3. Integration and Memory Usage. Love the way applications install with one click. It is easy to update them, remove them and then again reinstall them. In fact if you run more than 5 applications at the same time, the phone still works fine. This is in contrast with other phones that I have used in past.


4. Long battery life. It easily had more than 24 hours of standby time and about 10 hours of talk time. I did not measure it with a stopwatch but I don’t charge my phone very often and in the entire month I used it, I never ran out of battery.

Negatives

1. Bad camera. Although the phone boasts of a 3 MP camera, the image quality is surprisingly bad. I expected the camera to be better.


2. Keypad. Although ergonomics dont permit a QWERTY keypad, the regular keypad becomes a hindrance for an office phone. There are times when I wanted to write emails but could not because its too cumbersome and time consuming to write emails on a regular keypad.


3. Accelerometer is buggy. There are quite a few times when you rotate the phone and the display freezes. It takes good 3-4 seconds to come back to normal and by that time you are almost frustrated.


4. Snooze time is 5 mins. I hated this bit. I am used to snooze time of 10 mins and getting up is a long process. But with this device, I missed quite a few meetings because I would simply turn the alarm off (rather than get pissed off at a 5 min snooze).


5. Too expensive for Indian market?

Price

• I don’t know about the MRP on this phone but most of the retail outlets are selling this phone for about 20K in India. I find this price point for a Nokia E66 really steep. For 20 grand you can actually go for a Nokia E71. E71 has a CandyBar form factor and has a full QWERTY keypad with almost identical features. And personally I love CandyBars more than Sliders or ClamShells.

Ending Notes
In the end I would give this phone 3 on 5. Although it has lots of features and is probably the best slider available in India right now, the phone lacks a decent camera and is probably priced on the bit higher side. I would recommend it to someone who wants a powerful business phone and does not need a camera.

P.S.: Cant do a technical analysis. If someone wants to write about it, lemme know. Will update the post.