Let us start with the conclusions! The e61i is a solid phone, with a solid operating system. So far I have had to reboot the phone just a couple of times to fix problems with some applications, but not by taking out the battery as I had to do each other day with the TyTN; only third-party applications was locked up and the phone was still functional. So reboot have only been a convenience thing. Other things on the positive side is good messaging functionality, easy access to, and well-functioning wifi system, and great selection of software due to the S60 system. So all in all I am satisfied, and will probably keep it for a while. But read on, there are quite a few things on the negative side as well. For instance, the camera is totally crap.
The S60 system
In the past I have used Windows mobile 5, Sony Ericssons Symbian/UIQ (P800i and M600i), as well as the more regular Sony Ericsson system. While these systems are quite different, the Symbian S60 can be compared to the first two. It is obvious that the S60 have been around for a while, with a lot more bugs nailed out. It feels more solid. Maybe not super-fast all the time, but it does the job. On the negative side, though, there are often too many steps to go through to complete an action. If I want to send an SMS, for instance, I have to go through 5 steps (depending on how you count) on the S60, while on the Sony Ericsson UIQ there are only about 3 steps if you want to send to someone you send to regularly. I haven't done a scientific comparison as I should as a researcher, but in general I feel I have to use more time to perform the same action on the S60 compared to the other two.
On the positive side, you can't get past the large selection of software available for the S60. Maybe comparable to WM5, and far more than what's available for the UIQ. The putty ssh-client is very usable. I also use Fring for Skype/MSN/GTalk and the Gmail application. All work very well. Also, S60 is generally better supported when it comes to sync/desktop access than the other two. While the situation in general is good for all the systems if you use Windows on your computer, the S60 is far better if you are either a linux or osx user like me.
The E61i hardware
The E61i is light, and it is slim. While the form factor is a bit unusual, it is easy to carry around either in a shirt pocket or in your jacket. I even stick it in the back of my jeans if I have to. But generally I carry it in a Krusell pouch with a belt-clip. As the weight is so low, I hardly recognize it's there.
The display is very good. It's bright in almost any light condition and have better colors than I have had on any phone in the past (and as you know, I have tested quite a few...). While the resolution is not extremely high considering the size of the screen, I have find it to be sufficient for all my needs.
When it comes to the keys, I have to say they are good. The feedback is nice - when I type messages I rarely mistype. As there are many keys on the phone, there are also room for a few shortcuts which helps out with problem I have with to many steps to perform certain actions in the S60 system. But, there is a big downside for me here. It is not comfortable typing on the phone. While the phone is wide for a phone, it is still to small to hold and thumbtype comfortable with my not so very big hands. The TyTN have the keyboard as a slide-out in "landscape" orientation. Hence the keyboard is wider, and much more comfortable. My hands starts aching even when I type moderate sized emails on the E61i, so I rarly do that. Still, if I have to type a message, the system is very capable, and works all the time. So compared to the other smartphones I have used, I have to rate this above them.
I will make the story on the camera supplied in this phone very short. Nokia had some left overs on the shelf. They put it into the E61i. Period. It's too crappy. To be honest, though, I am not sure whether it is the camera it self, or the totally crappy, horrible post processing done in the phone after a picture is captured. It seems that they sharpen every image beyond any reasonable imagination, and bump the saturation as well. Does not look good at all.
Other thoughts
The Nokia E61i is equipped with Wifi, Bluetooth, 3G/UMTS, Edge, gprs. A lot of connectivity. From time to time I am not sure which one of these is being used. Probably this is just some details in the S60 symbian system I have to figure out. An example: I open the E-mail application, and connect to my IMAP account on wireless lan in my house. I leave this running in the background, and open the webbrowser to check something. In this case I have recognized that the webbrowser from time to time use either the UMTS or the Edge connection instead of the wifi, althought wifi is already connected. I can not explain what is going on, and whether the fault is mine or Nokias. Maybe I am even mistaken... At least, there are things to be sorted out here.
The conclusion was already given above, so I stop here.
In other news, I have start looking for a replacement for my Fujitsu Siemens P1510 (which I write this on). I am looking at either the oqo O2, or some of the newer UMPCs. Fujitsu Siemens is also out with a small thingy. But I'm not in a hurry on this.
Also, I will travel to WWDC'07 and then USENIX'07 (in San Francisco and Santa Clara, respectively) in mid-june. If someone want to meet up and discuss Qtpfsgui on Mac, small devices, have a flickr-meetup, or something else - please drop me a comment!
Take care.
4 comments:
Since you are a MAC OS X user, can you please give us more info about isync and E61i . For example does it handels to-do notes (tasks) from ical
with the note (full description) or only the subject (small text ) is getting sync .
Hi! I checked the issue on note/description on events and todos. iSync will not put the not on the E61i. I got a tip from someone else (see comments on the previous E61i post here) that there is a product called Papyrus that maybe handles this better. I'll check that out and report back.
hi mandus... i have imac intel 2.0 and nokia e61i, but i have a problem connecting wlan to airport. i don't want to use mobile connection since it's way more costly than home internet.
i keep getting failure message like "unable to connect. shared key invalid. please check wep key" something like that, don't remember precisely.
i'm pretty sure i have both wep key on imac and e61i the same. please help. thanks a lot.
@manurpatria: First, I don't use the e61i any more, so this may not be entirely correct. Your mac does not enter the picture here, your phone should talk directly to the airport. You should check out what kind of settings you have on the airport, using Airport utility. If it sees 'wep', you probably have some mistyping in the wep-key as I have used wep wifi's with several Nokia phones without any problem.
If you have set up the Airport with something else than wep, for instance wpa or some of the other more secure options, you might have to change to wep, as early e-phones as the 61i have trouble with that. (At work we had to set up a wep wifi just for phones, the wpa with peap and the full she-bang was impossible to use on the phones...).
But then, you haven't given much to go with here - check this out and maybe come back with more specific questions?
Take care,
Mandus
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