The E5 continues the Nokia E series of business phones. The device has inherited a similar form factor and retains the functionality of earlier devices within the E series. So what has changed? Read on to find out.

Design
Sporting a standard candybar design, the device is fitted with a 2.36 inch 16 million colour TFT LCD display. The Nokia E5 stands 113 x 59 x 13 mm, and weighs 126g. Its wide body and weight will deter you from carrying the phone in your hands. The phone’s design is reminiscent of the E63 and E72.

The E5 has the call/end call buttons and along with the standard Nokia function keys and two shortcut keys to the home screen and messaging. The D-pad is located here as well.

At the bottom, there is a full QWERTY keyboard. The keys are rather small, with there is no space between the keys and will require a bit of dexterity to type quickly. But heavy email users and texters will appreciate it.

The top of the phone has the microUSB port, charger port and the 3.5mm headphone jack. The left spine has the volume rocker which requires some strength to work.

The E5 comes with 250MB internal memory, bundled with a 2GB MicroSD card. The MicroSD slot is able to support cards up to 32GB. The back has a safety catch, unclasp it and you’ll see the large battery pack with a SIM slot as well as the MicroSD (which is not hot-swappable).

Features

The Symbian OS v9.3, Series 60 rel. 3.2 powers the E5 and it’s relatively unchanged from earlier versions. The UI retains similar functions, featuring a customisable home menu, which allows shortcut icons, horizontal tabs which show off emails and Wi-Fi shortcuts to name a few. Or you can leave the home screen blank, should you choose to do so.

The 3.2 release has Nokia’s tried and true grid icons, which users can customise. Expect the usual fare of accessing your contacts, messaging, emails and music. Nokia users should have no trouble at all in using the phone.

The Nokia E5 has a switch mode which allows you to balance work and play. The Switch Mode allows you to set and switch between 2 different home screens, for example User can set a ‘Work’ home screen work weekdays and switch to ‘Personal’ home screen on weekends, so you do not have to look at all your email notification or meeting alerts on your screen when you are spending leisure time with family.

Multimedia
Symbian’s Internet browser retains the mouse and mini map combination. Zoom options allow for smaller text and Flash compatibility is available for YouTube and video streaming.

Nokia E5 features Real player for playing your video clips. The video player can be displayed in both normal and fullscreen modes. The S60 music player platform performs quite well, users can expect the usual fare from Nokia’s music player. Sorting, adding and creating new playlists are all a breeze to do. Audio quality is good for the E5, though we have heard louder speakers from Nokia.

There are plenty of social networking programmes here - Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, and more.

The FM radio on Nokia E5 has a nice simple interface and can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. RDS comes in the form of an app called Shazam, it is included for free but you’ll have to register. Visual radio is also onboard.

Onboard GPS is available in the E5, with A-GPS and Ovi Maps navigation preinstalled. The features are spread out into individual icons. For example, the walk and drive navigation options are two separate features, which we felt made it easier to use. There are options to bookmark locations, and geotagging is supported.

Nokia Ovi is where you can grab Nokia applications. There are plenty free and paid apps to whet any appetite.

PIM
The office function will feature, Adobe PDF reader, Zip, Calculator and Quickoffice which also requires registration. There also built-in Microsoft Communicator, which allows Nokia to Nokia Instant Mesaging over a data network.

Connectivity
The E5 sports a pretty good array of connectivity options, with quad-band functionality (850 /900 /1800 /1900 MHz) with 10.2 Mbps HSDPA, EDGE, GPRS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0.

Camera
The E5 has a 5 megapixel camera that comes with a LED flash and auto-focus. The E5 shoots at 2592 x 1944 pixels. The capture quality looks grainy, and the lack of and a dedicated camera button which is a downer. Picture quality is a little subpar, and there’s plenty of tweaking options available. There’s a call camera which shoots photos as well.

Verdict
The E5 is a fully functional business phone, with a medley of business and entertainment features. The QWERTY keyboard coupled with data connection will ensure emails and text to be sent and received on the go.

However, we feel the E5 has strayed from a business device into a feature phone. There are plenty of business elements, but at the same it has a social networking element and entertainment features built right in. The business edge feels less of a priority, as Nokia tries to cater the phone to everyone.

At RM 795, the E5 caters to Nokia users who are used to the Symbian platform. We also recommend it to users who graduate from their basic phones to higher end features.http://www.trade2me.com/






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