Audience: Business people who need an economy solution with Blackberry support and a Camera.
If you are one of those executives needing a professionaly looking phone(don’t go by this screenshot, the black model is great) around the cost of 10K, with black berry support and camera go for this. This is not a FUN FEATURES phone like N70. So I’m not responsible if you are not happy buying this and complain "hey, this doesn’t even have FM feature". This is strictly an Executive phone. Executives don’t really need FM in their day to day life. At least, not in a mobile. I can buy an FM set for just Rs.150 to 200. And it is insane to spend Rs. 2000 or 3000 more just for the FM.
Good Shared memory(whopping 70MB) and with a 1GB microSD card(I own one), you can stuff in all your MP3 songs and play all night.
I also use blackberry and I was really surprised that it gives the basic black berry features for just 10K.
Has an 1.3MP camera, and I think E50 is the only mobile in the executive series to support a camera. If you a need a little more sophistication for an increase of 6K you can go for E61 and others. They look like mini comps but not really interesting if you are looking for a "mobile" like looking phone with executive features.
A few defects, I hear though, are automatic loudspeaker switching when you attend a call. It hasn’t happened to me even once. And I’m in the best hopes that it doesn’t happen to me(it would be embarrassing in a meeting - people say you can’t even cut the call or switch off).
I see a few grains in my camera but I think it is because this is 1.3MP. If you have a good software you can use filters to remove those grains. I haven’t compared this with other mobiles. But there is a site where the author has made it purely to share his E50 experiences. See: https://nokiae50.info/articles/e50-camera-compared-to-fuji-s5600 for the camera quality comparision.
Listening to MP3 in the loud speaker is not all that fancy but through a Nokia Headset, it is Heaven. Buy a headset for sure - it is worth it.
One of the features I like is that the phone comes with the latest OS - S60 3rd edition. and 3rd edition is not binary compatible with both 2nd and 1st. This not only means you won’t get any viruses from 1st and 2nd editions but no programs made for 1st and 2nd edition will work in 3rd edition. You will need to find an equivalnt for 3rd edition seperately. Of course, as usual, all java programs work, as it is cross platform( bless those slow JAVA applications:D) I use Opera for browsing purposes and it works flawlessly - just wow.
I’m not a fan of buzz words, nor a critic follower. I evaluated other phones and never found an executive phone with Basic BlackBerry support(may be I missed?). I also understand that there are some bad pieces out there, the ones with the LoudSpeaker problems. So that is a fact you will need to be aware of.
I’m happy with my E50 phone overall and I have rated the phone by giving enough considerations to the broad audience. So the ratings may differ from person to person. Go by the Ideal audience note(see first line) - do you belong in that category? Consider buying(just put it in your list, it is your freedom to make a decision).
One of the good reviews I found here with all the Pros and Cons is from this link: https://mouthshut.com/review/Nokia_E50-127243-1.html
Except, this post gives an overall big picture in a user experience neutral way and let you decide based on Audience category and not based on Features(Features are features - nothing changes, but the audience always differ, what category are you?).
BTW: If you are going for this, go for the BLACK one(I don’t really like the screenshot image here for white, yuk).
This is my first review in MouthShut and I hope I have tried my best to put things in a neutral way. I also like the way MouthShut is built(except a few technical issues with Firefox users like me:()
Hope this helps.
Cheers