I was looking for an upgrade to my Nokia N70. After using and seeing mobile phone cameras, I feel its still some years till mobile phone camera match up with dedicated cameras, if ever. With the same resolution, dedicated cameras are miles ahead. Likewise, dedicated music players like ipods offer considerably better overall experience than music phones. So, I decided to concentrate on’phone’ features rather than the hype of phone cameras and music phones while I chose my next phone.
The feature that attracted me to E51 on the web site was the wlan capability. Since most offices, hotels and airports today offer wlans, its usefulness on the mobile phone is self evident. Possibilities are endles as the there is whole virtual world of emails, maps, blogs, games, printers, faxes, documents etc. that you can transfer/exchange. I have not used any of it except email but the possibilities are there.
After three days of use, what I like about the phone - Design, screen resolution and brightness, keypad, battery, connectivity options(almost everything is there from infrared to 3G and everything in between). What I didn’t like - screen size is too small. I maybe nitpicking here but for serious browsing you will miss the bigger screen of a E90 or a blackberry. Its a compromise between price, ease of use and mobility. Afterall, who except salespeople(no offence meant) want to be seen talking into huge calculator like devices.
Conclusions time. Who this is for? Primarily business users looking for connectivity options but who are unlikely to use it as primary internet access device. They have personal computers at office and home. This baby chips in during transit or when your laptop battery dies down. Otherwise its a beautiful phone to carry in your jacket pocket.
Who this is not for? People looking for flashy fashion phone or’impress your girlfriend with’ phone. Music player is just ok and phone camera is barebones - no flash. Anyways I don’t think girls are dumb enough to be impressed by phones unless it is a Vertu.
The other thing I liked about E51 is that its quite uncommon. Quite unlike the N series - even N95 is common as the flu.
Cheers