This, the Nokia E65, is what we've been waiting for.
Finally, a Symbian phone, that you're not embarrassed to pull out in front of a chick.
Finally, a Symbian phone, that is as quick as a series 40 phone.
Finally, a Symbian phone, that has all the Symbian glory, good battery life, nice keys, and a small form factor.
Finally.
The firmware version of the phone used for this review is the first out the gate. As such, lets just say, I'm anxiously waiting for newer firmware as there are some glaring bugs.
1.0633.18.01
11-01-07
RM-208
Made by Nokia (not the 'Finnish' version)
I'm going to rate this phone out of 5 stars on the following criteria. Feel free to state your objections accordingly.
THE PHONE FACTOR (5/5)
THE FEEL FACTOR (4.8/5)
THE FUN FACTOR (4/5)
THE BUSINESS FACTOR (5/5)
THE COOL FACTOR (4.5/5)
THE GEEK FACTOR (4.5/5)
THE OVERALL RATING (4.5/5)
Just as an FYI, some of this was cut and paste from my last Symbian V3 review (Nokia E70-2). Also, sorry for the length of it
THE PHONE FACTOR:
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First things first, how does the E65 perform as a phone?
RECEPTION:
Honestly, I'm not going to waste much time here. I've spent countless hours on the phone and had 1 dropped call; I'm not even sure if it was me, the network or the other person.
Reception is a non-issue as it's as good as the rest (namely, N73, E70-2, K790a etc)
BATTERY LIFE:
Battery life is surprisingly good. It uses a new type of battery (BL-5F) and promises 3-6 hrs of talk-time/7-11 days of standby. I haven't run out yet and I listen to about 1 hour of music on it / day, do alot of texting/emailing and calling after work. Additionally, my Blackberry Connect client is always connected to GPRS in idle mode.
TIPS & TRICKS: One of the first things you should do with this phone is go into the 'TOOLS' and 'SETTINGS' menu and disable the phone's search for a wCDMA network. Additionally, it's a good idea to disable the automatic WLAN/WiFi finder and bluetooth when not using them.
SOUND QUALITY & VOLUME:
Speaker (by ear): This is what I love Nokia for. The voices are always loud and clear. They've got to have the most pleasurable sounding phones...the E65 follows suit. Contrary to what others have reported, there are no abstract or random noises while having a conversation.
Loudspeaker: LOUD AND CLEAR!! Music playback is good enough to hear while in the shower, washing dishes, etc. (don't get it liquid damage ;-))
Mic: I've never had a caller complain about my sound quality.
IN-CALL CONTROLS:
With a dedicated mute key, you can't go wrong. Loudspeaker and the conversation record button are also always accessible. Press the menu key and you can go into any application.
Photo caller ID is still a small thumbnail.
There's one-touch button access to record the conversation for up to 1 minute. This is very handy if recording directions or other info.
Dedicated SEND/END keys make answering a call on the other line or ending a call universal, regardless of what menu you're in at the time.
THE FEEL FACTOR:
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HANDSET:
Size: 105 x 49 x 15.5 mm
This is where the phone shines bright. The size is perfect for a Symbian phone, in my opinion. It's length, width and height is ideal for my hands. Check out this imagehere for a comparison against the Motorola V3 RAZR and Nokia 6131 (excellent source I found from Treatz):
Weight: 115 g
The weight is perfect and well distributed whether the slide is opened or close. Using the phone in the closed-slide position is a cinch with all keys easily accessible by your thumb without having the feeling of the phone toppling out of your hand. Opened is even better.
Materials:
The materials used on this phone are excellent. The brown sides are a nice matte brushed plastic. The back battery cover is similar to that of the 6126/6131/6133 in that everyone I handed the phone too noticed it and thought it was leather. The keypad is surrounded by a metal plate with fine vertical ridges. Honestly, the phone feels great, better than those perfect skipping stones you occassionally find on the beach
BUTTONS:
Numeric Keypad: The numeric keypad on this phone is good. The keys are well spaced and each key ascends well in the middle to make it easy to dial/type without looking. The tactile feel on this keypad is a little different than those I'm used to. The keys are very smooth and don't click much when depressed. It almost feels a little too easy to type...
Side Keys: The side keys are all located on the right side and you'll be pleased to know there are volume keys!. Additionally, the ABC (aka. EDIT or PENCIL) key and Voice Recorder key are also located here. I find the ABC key a little awkward to use simultaneously with other keys but I guess it's something I'll have to get used to.
TIPS & TRICKS: hold the ABC key while typing text to get 'one-touch' access to the characters on the top of a pc keyboard. (depends on firmware language). ie. holding ABC and depressing 9 displays an open parenthesis '(', holding ABC and 0 displays a closed parenthesis ')'
Soft Keys & DPad: The Soft keys & DPad buttons are very thin and take getting used to to hit them correctly 100% of the time. The Dpad is easy to locate and hard to mistake. The dedicated keys (address book, mute, conf. call & own key) are large and easily accessible. When they work (see BUNK factor below), they work wonders.
SLIDE MECHANISM:
I've come across alot of sliders in my time and the only one that ever stuck out in my mind was the Nokia 8800/8801.
I find that Samsungs always come off with a cheapy feeling; even Nokia's own 6265i, N80, 6270 and 6280 don't feel that hot. The Nokia E65 takes it back though. Takes it back to the 8801. The slide is just perfect. You know that whatever materials, springs and ball bearings they used to make this thing were well engineered and thought out. Congrats to Nokia for getting this one right!
THE FUN FACTOR:
When I say 'FUN', I don't mean how many games or applications you can run on it, I mean how enjoyable, easy and pleasant to use overall.
PERSONALIZATION:
Ringtones: You can set pretty much any kind of song as a ringtone, however, actually figuring out how to set it is not intuitive. Be sure that any mp3 song you want to use as a ringtone is saved in DIGITAL SOUNDS folder.
Wallpapers: Wallpapers suck on Symbian, you're better off using the theme's default wallpaper. Images never resize properly and it's impossible to set a wallpaper to fill the phone's display. 90% of the time your wallpaper is not going to match your theme so it's pathetic.
Themes: I've been spoiled by Sony Ericsson here. With SE, all you do is drag & drop your theme files from your PC and then set them on your phone. On Symbian, you have to 'install' the theme before you can set it....ridiculous. Once installed, themes are decent.
TIPS & TRICKS: visit this link and download Nokia's very own 'Theme Creator'. While actual theme customizations limited to setting a full-size wallpaper, fading/blurring it and altering the font colors, the beauty of it is that you create the themes right on your own phone. This is an excellent work-around to getting up full-size wallpapers! Click below for the full .sis file: http://nds1.nokia.com/files/support/...73_N80_N93.SIS
Here's one of my fav themes: | | |
(L-R: up to 12 custom themes, theme options, examples of 'fade' and 'purple font' effects)
MP3 PLAYER: Everytime you put new music on the memory card you have to wait minutes for the phone to 'refresh' and catalog the music. This is a non-issue on SE, stick a memory card into a Sony Ericsson, open the music app and all your new music is immediately accessible. Also, lord help you if you're, say listening to MP3s in the office, and your headphone jack comes out...the music will start blaring with no way to stop it unless you're conveniently in the app (who stays in the app?). MP3 controls are good, a remote on the headset helps a thousand fold (AD-41).
CAMERA: When I first heard about this phone and the '2 MEGA PIXEL CAMERA!' I yawned and thought about my E70-2. The camera shots are a little brighter and more colourful than the E70-2 but still grainy and leave me thinking about having an affair with SE again...
Fortunately, the video recorder produces amazing clips.
Here's a comparison shot between E65 (left) & E70-2 (right): |
Click on the thumbnail for actual pictures taken from the E65 in the highest quality:
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Web Browsing:
Originally Posted by JP on the E70-2
The powerful Symbian browser goes without saying really....it's almost PERFECT. So what's the hitch? Memory! The browser is SOOOO good that the phone literally can't handle it. 4-5 screens deep into a full HTML page and expect your browsing session to not be able to go any further or just close without warning. Pisses me off, especially when having to log in time after time. I can't use this for anything other than a 2-3 screen lookup most of the time. Wap pages usually have no issue (such as wap.howardforums.com) but ebay will cripple your browser by the time you log in.
Minimizing the browser is a hit or miss. Sometimes the browser will stay up when you want to send a SMS or do something else, othertimes it'll close itself without warning.
I am so pleased to say that this time around, the browser doesn't have these issues such as those I expressed earlier. The browser can handle pages A LOT better than any Symbian V3 device I've used before (namely E70, N73 & N80). The browser closed on me once and I have to admit that I was overdoing it. The WLAN finder / HotSpot finder is a sweet feature but if left on, can have a negative affect on your battery life.
GAMES & APPLICATION HANDLING: Symbian games & applications run/play well. I've tried Snakes 3D (fun) and vNES with the Mario 3 rom (can't run and jump at the same time...). The java engine is slow and can't handle half of my favourite .jar games.
MESSAGING:
T9: T9 on this is just 'ok'. It's the same T9 platform as the Nokia 7610 I used years ago. The problem with T9 on Symbian is that you can't edit your dictionary so if you misspell a word when you're entering it into your T9 dictionary, it'll show up forever when you're trying to select the right word. Anyone who's experienced this knows how annoying it can be. I miss my E70-2's QWERTY big-time...
MMS / Multi-Media Messaging: MMS is decent in that you can create presentations to format the background, font size & font colour. I love MMS on the SE K790a and honestly, the whole SMS/MMS application seems to be a little better on Sony Ericsson.
Email: The email client is fully integrated into the phone and makes sending any type of file (non-copyright protected) via email a breeze. Vista, MS Exchange and BES/BIS support doesn't hurt either. I've got Blackberry Connect running on mine and honestly, getting personal emails via BBC on this device is just pimp. Unfortunately composing long emails is time-consuming with this primitive T9 implementation.
Other Messaging Features: This phone lacks a 'recent' list of recipients to whom you've recently sent messages to. Even Nokia Series 40 has this feature not to mention many other brands. Sending to group distribution lists or multiple people from your address book is a boon though because it's so much easier than anything I've seen on any other phone.
THE BUSINESS FACTOR:
CORPORATE EMAIL: The email functionality on this phone is limitless. I've used MS Exchange, Vista/Rogers MyMail, and Blackberry Connect. My favorite is BBC as it's proven to be full push on the Blackberry Internet Service and it can display all of my 3 BIS/POP3 accounts on my E70 as separate mailboxes. The one drawback of the BBC app is that I can't open image attachments (I can open documents and excel files) and I can't send an email with an attachment. A workaround is to configure your POP3 account on your phone's native Email application and send through that.
I can't comment on any IT/Enterprise related questions or concerns because I'm not an IT Administrator. Sorry
DOCUMENT HANDLING: The document viewer on this device is solid. It's good in the sense that it's there and pretty capable of handling smaller files well (under 1mb). Powerpoint, Word, Excel and Adobe all work....if you're dealing with a small file like a resume or something. When it comes to a real spreadsheet or pdf file, the phone buckles. Overall impression is that it's better to have it than not and again, when it works, it works well.
WEB BROWSER: read in the 'FUN FACTOR' section for coverage on this. The browser is extremely robust and capable of handling most webpages.
APPLICATION SUPPORT: There's a lot of applications available for this to handle things such as managing business expenses and what not. Unfortunately Symbian V3 is not backwards compatible so anything you were using on your 6600, 6620, 668X etc will not work on this one. Time to find and buy everything all over again or ask the supplier for a new registration key if they have a version that supports the new Symbian v3.
I don't want to get into apps because there's so many good ones but Symella and MSN Live Messenger are a couple of my favourites. See here for some excellent apps: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1016492
THE COOL FACTOR:
This phone will help you pick-up chicks and impress friends, no doubt about it.
It's not a pansy phone like the LG Chocolate, or a pure sex phone like a RAZR (when it first came out). It's a phone that screams 'smart, sleek & professional' and most chicks will feel that. Just whip it out and you're set...
THE GEEK FACTOR:
This phone doesn't look at all like a geek's toy because nobody is going to care 'what it can do', despite the fact that it's fully loaded.
Regardless, it has the whole gammut: WiFi, Camera, and a bunch of geeky Symbian applications will keep you busy for as long as new applications are released for it.
The Smartmovie/DivX player is great for those who like to watch something they've already seen on a smaller screen. I recommend stacking it with portable porn and a few comical clips that you've seen come and go via email like me
WiFi: With free internet, you can't go wrong. VOiP support is even better!
WLan Finder: aka. HotSpot Finder; this handy app tells you whenever you're in a hotspot/wifi zone
Compact form: slips nicely into a case or pocket without sticking out like breasts.
Ergonomically Pleasant: feels wonderful in the hand...not as good as ^^ though -_-
Loudspeaker: anyone remember how loud the SE w600i was? I don't.
24bit / QVGA screen: Pure. Color. Nuff. Said.
Dedicated address book, own key and mute key: Good for doing any of the aforementioned from any menu in the phone at any time.
THE BUNK FACTOR (summary):
Camera: The camera is lame relative to today's standards. No flash and a basic lens make this camera only worthwhile using outdoors with good sunlight.
Uncustomizable Keys: I don't know about you but I never make conference calls which makes the dedicated button on this phone a complete waste. Even people who make conf calls all the time shouldn't need a dedicated key. How about giving users the option to customize all 4 keys as they see fit? I'm sure we'll get there....
Classic Buggy 1st release firmware: Here's a list of some that I've experienced and why I await the next firmware:
Shutter lag: Which means that when you're taking a picture, you have to hold the phone steady until the image shows up like it's 2003 when camera phones were first introduced.
Unresponsive keys: there are times when you'll press a button and nothing happens. Then you press it again and it responds.
Unresponsive Dedicated keys: now this is sad but true. There are times when I'll press "MUTE" to mute the mic, "Address Book" to see it or "OWN KEY" to access my music player (my preset) and they don't work.
Can't master clear: Phone doesn't master clear when you ask it to (via *#7370# or startup sequence). Consequentially, you can't customize the security code after trying to do this.
Hopefully the next firmware addresses these issues.
PICTURE GALLERY:
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OUTRO:
Overall rating in my opinion is 4.5 out of 5 stars, assuming that the bugs are bugs and will eventually be fixed.
Hope you liked my review. Please mention anything you'd like me to address below and I'll try to get back to you. Thx for reading!
This phone will help you pick-up chicks and impress friends, no doubt about it.
It's not a pansy phone like the LG Chocolate, or a pure sex phone like a RAZR (when it first came out). It's a phone that screams 'smart, sleek & professional' and most chicks will feel that. Just whip it out and you're set...
Hahaha... I enjoyed reading this review. Not boring at all like *cough*cough* my-symbian reviews
Man, thanks for proper review
Do you have any sampes of video clips?
And since 'handy keylock' doesn't work on E65, do keys get pressed occasionally while phone is in pocket?
Maybe you should consider getting a Vertu, if you are having problems picking up chicks with your other geeky looking phones.
I'm actually settled with my girl but lets face it, there are phones that guys like to show off in front of girls and there are phones that are best left in the pocket.
I'm new to all of this S60 stuff, but one quick question, to get the firmware updated on this phone, would it be available through Nokia's website or would you have to send it in or something? Thanks!
HUSHMobile
Past Phones:
Sony CMB-3200, ZUMA
Qualcomm 2700, 2700F
Nokia 6185, 6188, 5190, 3390, 8890, 7210
Motorola 650e, V60c, V3
Samsung A460
SE T68i
Apple 2G (8GB)
Strange how JP sings nothing but praise for the E65 but utterly hated the N73.
The early firmware was pretty poor on the N73, but I think the E65 is pretty ugly compared to it.
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Originally Posted by JP on the E70-2
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You seem like a cool guy
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