The Nokia E51 is definitely a step in the right direction. My last 2 phones from Nokia(6270 and E50) were disappointing to say the least however after a fair amount of research the E51 seemed a great option.
Pre-purchase issues:
The white steel(in my opinion the nicest colour on offer for this model) was very difficult to get a hold of. Apparently less 1% of the handsets are produced in this colour which make Black Steel or Rose Steel your only options.
Barring that initial pre-purchase colour issue the phone impresses considerably.
Size - beautifully slim and compact
Battery life - GPRS usage(basic email) and bluetooth makes it so that a charge once a day is necessary
Memory - With over a 100 MB of internal memory it’s definitely a lot faster than it’s predecessor the e51(512 MB was included in the box)
Usage
Home Menu key has been replaced with a house symbol instead of the previous confusing arrows - a welcome change
Single presses to toggle bluetooth and silent mode are welcome changes although silent mode toggle was there with the E50
The on/off and side buttons are slightly hard to press but not a deal breaker
Keys are a little slow on response time which can make fast usage of T9 a little tiresome, however you get use to slowing down for the phone - again not a deal breaker
The clear or delete or x key has been placed too close to the keypad often resulting in deleting messages partially when typing
*Connectivity
* WLAN and a great GPRS connection allow for great
browsing experiences. The inbuilt browser is very average to say the
least. Opera Mini which can be downloaded for free greatly improves the browsing experience but startup and shutdown times for the browser are
dissapointing to say the least(40 secs to close the application).
YouTubes mobile version(m.youtube.com) can be used without a lag on a normal Airtel GPRS connection in Bombay which is really cool.
GPRS often causes my phone to hang and restart unexpectedly (on an
average once a day). A lot of users of this phone have mentioned this
problem and Nokia should release a firmware update to correct this -
but until they do - **this remains to me the single biggest disadvantage
of this phone.
End Result
Great phone barring the major software issue - if that is sorted out this phone would have got a 4 or a 5 from me.