I wanted a fairly "power-packed" but no-frills, business phone, at a "reasonable budget". I did a pretty air-tight analysis on diff models(namely SE P990i, Nokia E61/E62, various i-mate and dopod models). Found that Nokia E62 was looking like the best buy for its price.
Well, I thought my analysis was "air-tight". And I also assumed that armchair research gives you accurate results. People learn lessons from mistakes . some from others, some from their own.
*Here’s a list of some of the issues I have had:
Dropped calls: **Apart from poor-network-inkduced problems, I never faced dropped calls with my faithful Nokia 6610i. This phone regularly drops calls, most often just as it makes the connection. It’s like the processor EMI profile changes and drowns out the signal.
Bluetooth Implementation: **I have a hands-free Bluetooth mic-speaker in my car. Normally the E62 works fine with it. However, if the E62 is Auto-locked, calls can come in but it will drop them when I attempt to answer them! Similarly, I can get right up to dialing a call and it will then drop the call. The Bluetooth interface has been paired to the phone, so what security breach do they figure they are solving with this?
Inconsistent User Interface:** Sometimes the right function key is "Speakerphone" and sometimes it’s not. The phone has a whimsical mood. Sometimes the backlight turns ON when I need to unlock the phone, and sometimes it doesn’t. There is a long list of these types of UI goofs.
Use of received data: My old Nokia 6610i(and all the other Nokias I have used before that) had the ability to dial a number from a received text message, or to save that number from the message details. Not in the E62. This is something I TERRIBLY miss from my earlier phones which costed a fraction of this.
Crashing: Turn the phone to "Offline" mode, then try to read a Blackberry email message. poof it goes down . Remove the battery and start over.
Slow: It takes multiple seconds to do just about anything on this phone. 7-10 seconds to get a text message. 10-15 seconds to see a Blackberry message. Boot up and power down are particularly painful.
Key queuing: This wouldn’t be so bad if the UI wasn’t so slow, but this OS apparently has no ability to queue keystrokes. So getting from looking at a message back to the idle screen takes seconds for each keystroke. Amazing.
Deleting messages: Look at the list of messages in Blackberry mode or text message mode. One message will be highlighted. Hit Options > Delete and if another message should happen to come in during this time the wrong message will be deleted - and there is no way to undelete either . As if you have committed an unforgivable sin. This problem is aggravated by the extreme slowness of the UI(which increases the probability of an incoming message just while you are deleting one). The only safe option is to open the message for reading(wait, wait, wait), then Options(wait, wait), Delete(Wait, wait wait). Hufffff.
Unsent messages: You send a text message and count on it going through. Maybe not! On the E62 there is no visible indication that the message failed to send. Instead it puts the message in a special folder.
Battery life: The way I use my phone(more than 3 hours of talking, browsing, speakerphone, bluetooth, alarms and ringtones with vibration mode always on) it needs to be charged daily, else the battery conks off in approx 1.5 days. The BIG disadvantage is that the phone doesn’t charge by USB. So I have to carry the wall AC charger, the car-charger and the USB-PC-Cable in my backpack all the time.
Speaker: When using the E62 as a normal phone(without hands-free) the ear speaker has a very narrow range of being hear-able. Needs some getting-used-to to place the super-wide phone correctly on your ear so that the speaker points directly into your ear.
Fonts cannot be made larger.
Design: There are three buttons on the left spine - Volume Up, Volume Down, and Voice Record - but nothing on the right side. Anybody will instinctively look for a jog dial and a Back button like those found on the Q and BlackBerrys. but they are not available, and their absence makes it quite a challenge to use the E62 one-handed(I prefer one-handed operation of a phone).
WLAN feature not available. This is a BIG negative.
Keyboard: Keys are stiff to press and the keyboard is a a bit cramped . needs some getting used to . but hey, its a real QWERTY keyboard. How do you expect the buttons to be larger AND the phone to remain handy-sized?
*The phone has, however some PLUS points things to talk about:
*No problems with MS-Office files. I regularly work with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents on my E62 - both for viewing AND editing . no problems. Formatting loss - very little or none(forgiveable).
It does not have a touch screen and/or stylus(Yes, this is a PLUS for me, as I believe in one-hand operation of a phone, which most smartphones dont allow as you have to fiddle with the stylus). No stylus means - no tension of losing it either. Been there done that.
The address book is a huge improvement. Each entry has room for multiple numbers, an e-mail address, home and work addresses, a Web URL, and so forth. For caller ID purposes, you can pair a contact with a photo(although you’ll have to transfer images onto the phone, since the E62 doesn’t have a camera) or a ring tone.
The WEB browser is actually quite useable, and is worth a mention. Like the one found on the Nokia N80, the E62’s browser gives a thumbnail of the full Web page so that I can easily navigate to a certain point on the site, rather than having to scroll all over the place. I can also download RSS feeds and blogs and bookmark sites. What more, I can block pop-up ads too! But the “mouse” pointer is less than adequate.
The screen is very good.
Shape & Size: I love the thin and wide form-factor. The size is good. Quite a handful, but not too heavy either.
IR and Bluetooth connectivity is very good. E62 offers Bluetooth 2.0 - which is faster than E61.
Ringtones, operating modes are well thought out.
Plays well as an MP3 player.
Displays pictures well.
No Camera:(Yes, this is a PLUS for me) I am a purist, and dont believe in half-hearted photographic quality from something which should be primarily used as a personal business assistant. When I want to take photos, I choose to use one of my cameras.
*Summary:
*Although I do not strongly regret buying this product, I have a mixed feeling now. Sometimes when I suffere from the problems mentioned above, I wonder maybe I made the wrong choice. Maybe I would have done a better investment to spend 7-10 K more and get an iMate product.
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