Nokia E6 review

Updated: 22 June 2012 10:54 IST

Highlights

Nokia's latest touch and type smartphone the E6, could be a prospective BlackBerry killer

Introduction :

Nokia has had a long legacy of business-centric smartphones, the latest avatar of which is the E6. Armed with the new Symbian Anna OS, the E6 could be a prospective BlackBerry killer. Could be - but will it? Read on for details.

Packaging and Content:

Nokia has pulled its regular stellar job with packaging and content. We get a pair of decent headphones, a charger, USB cables and a very plush leather case apart from the phone itself. Nokia usually does a solid job with packaging and the same holds true for the E6.

Hardware and Styling :

Nokia is making no bones about how they see the E6 - as the heir to the iconic E71's throne. While this job was supposed to be handled by the E72, the device faced disappointing sales due to its dated hardware.

At first glance the E6 reminds us of the iconic E-series of smartphones, but don't be fooled this device may boast of all the iconic E-series features but it also has a 2.7-Inch AMOLED touch display which has an impressive pixel density of 327 Pixels Per Inch (PPI).

For Video Chat aficionados, Nokia has armed the E6 with a front facing camera which is placed right above the display.

The QWERTY keyboard is on similar lines to the ones we have seen before on the E71 and the E72. It even feels a tad more comfortable than a BlackBerry QWERTY, which is noteworthy.

On the top of the device Nokia has employed a standard power button, a 3.5mm headphone port and a memory card slot which has a plastic flip-out cover.

On the right hand side we get the volume rockers and a screen lock slider.

The bottom end of the device houses the small-pin Nokia charger point.

Besides this Nokia has added metallic chrome like finish, which adds to the design aesthetic.

As usual the 8-Megapixel Extended Depth of Field (Edof) camera is housed in the rear along with LED flash. The loudspeaker is also placed in the rear. Nokia has provided a very solid looking plastic finish which may not have a lot of aesthetic appeal but it sure does feel solid.

Overall, the device may not be a looker but it feels very rugged and will outlast most devices currently available in the market.


Interface :

Nokia has long been at the forefront of smartphone user-interface design. Unfortunately, those glorious days are now way in the past, which has struggled to innovate in this space ever since the inception of Apple's all conquering iPhone.

Some would even argue Nokia's beloved Symbian OS has been on a respirator for some time as the company's two flagships, the N8 and the E7, both failed to attract the fancy of a Nokia loving smartphone market.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop realized that in a hurry when he came in from Microsoft and swiftly entered a licensing agreement for Microsoft's Windows Phone Platform.

While the fruits of the Microsoft deal are yet to materialize Nokia keeps updating it's aging Symbian platform, the latest being Anna.

For starters, we get a set of redesigned icons, which are pretty. They are very easy on the eyes and are decidedly larger making them more touch friendly. While all this might look good on a large touch screen, on the E6's meager 2.7 inch display it does not look very user friendly. But wait, all is not lost as one can control the device the old fashioned way, with the track buttons.

While the touch interface is definitely welcome it still needs some work.

Another notable thing about Symbian Anna is that the OS has Kinetic scrolling built in. So, unlike the E7 or N8, while scrolling through the home-screens, widgets transition into the next home-screen rather than magically popping out of nowhere which frankly felt very annoying as it provided a detached experience unlike the iPhone's immersive experience.

Apart from this, Symbian Anna adds a faster redesigned web browser, more widgets, a portrait mode QWERTY keyboard (not applicable to E6), performance tweaks and a more refined OVI Maps.

While these updates are welcome, we believe Nokia need to do more work on the OS, as one has to go through steps through each and every task.

Nokia has already announced the next update will be called 'Belle' and has stated Android users will love it. Lets hope for the best.

On a curious note Nokia has decided to alphabetically name its Symbian updates similar to Android, which follows a policy of naming new Android version after deserts in alphabetical order. In Nokia's defense, they are rooting for something more feminine rather than naming their OS after a desert.

Multimedia :

We all know Nokia is quite adept at making multimedia powerhouses. After all, they are still the leading smartphone brand in the world and do not disappoint with the Nokia E6.

While Nokia does not boast of any multimedia flamboyance with the E6, it does boast of the usual multimedia niceties.

The inbuilt 8-Megapixel Camera is not the spectacular performer we saw on the N8 but it the rather timid EDOF one we saw on the E7. Seriously Nokia, you make some of the best mobile sensors, can you please stop presenting these irritating EDOF sensors? One of the major problems with EDOF sensors is that one struggles to get a tight focus from a close range, but other than that the camera performs quite admirably. It has a powerful flash, decent white balancing (not the best though) and decent macro-mode capabilities. But clearly, it is no match for the sensors found on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc or theSamsung Galaxy S2 leave alone the N8, which is in a league of its own.

The E6 also manages to shoot 720p video without any hitches. The videos were smooth and crisp though not of the standard set by the 1080p shooting handsets.

As far as music goes, the E6 does a pretty good job. The new Symbian Anna gets a refurbished Music app, which has an Apple-esque cover flow style interface. The kinetic scrolling as always kicks in and gives the Music player the fluidity of an Apple interface.

Even the on-board loud speaker was loud and clear. We did not come across any noticeable distortions in sound quality, but please don't get us wrong the loudspeaker is not meant to be used like a portable boom box, it is supposed to be loud and clear. Period.

Another place where the E6 scores highly is the fact that it comes with a 8GB memory card and be expanded up-to 32GB. This should be a more than enough for media gobbler.

PC Sync and Market

Android has Google Contacts, iOS has iTunes and Windows Phone has Microsoft ActiveSync, but the oldest player in this synchronization game has been Nokia with their evergreen PC Suite software.

While PC suite is not perfect which often forces users in to get stuck in tangles, PC Suite gets the job done. It is quite simple but when in comparison to Google Contacts it can be a tad intimidating. It even has support for Google Contacts, checking all boxes.

As a side note, we would like to mention Nokia's PC suite over the years has become a bloated piece of software constantly being prone to hangs, often slowing down older Windows based PCs. This Nokia should quickly change in their upcoming handsets as Google has shown that PC sync can be a quick and painless process eliminating the need for utterly complex and useless softwares.

Nokia's OVI Store is the defacto haven for Symbian or QT applications. While the OVI store has been around for quite a long time it has failed to amass a library of applications on the lines of Apple's app store. In-spite of this being true one can find most of the popular cross-platform applications.

Essential Apps :

The E-series of smartphones have always been a hotbed for a plethora of business applications and the nothing changes with the E6.

Nokia provides us with a copy of Quick Office, which includes a Word, Excel and PowerPoint like applications. Quick Office is the premier office suite on the Symbian platform and is among the best so one should have no worries utilizing it as it is tuned to be used a by power user.

While Quick Office handles all Microsoft Office content Adobe Reader handles PDF based content.

The E6 inherit the Nokia Communicator heritage with Microsoft Outlook Communicator functionality, which will add to its enterprise functionality.

Nokia also provides us a Zip file opener giving the E6 ability open compressed file may it be an e-mail attachment or a file stored in the memory card.

Performance :

Performance is an area where recent Nokia smartphones have struggled. Nokia hopes that the Symbian Anna update will mitigate this anomaly but its just not the software but also weak hardware that contributes to Nokia's woes.

In the E6's case Nokia continues its habit of packing in a sub GHz processor with the device packing in a 600 MHz processor. While it is a well know fact that the Symbian OS is boasts of superior process delegation abilities a 600 MHZ processor in this day and age feels a tad old.

This being true, the E6 definitely feels smoother and more responsive than the shambolic hanging experiences we have faced before on the E7 and the N8. Nokia has done a lot of work on the OS which is now finally not far behind Android in terms of responsiveness.

Like the N8 and the E7 Nokia has packed a dedicated Broadcomm GPU which handles 3D rendering tasks very efficiently. Games like Angry Birds and Need for Speed Shift flew like eagles and we never faced any slowdowns or hangs.

Call quality as always with Nokia was stellar. It is safe to say that Nokia provides best in class call quality. Only the likes of the BlackBerry Bolds could even imagine competing with the E6.

Battery life again was supremely impressive with device holding charge a good two-days with Wi-Fi being active through combined with intermitted calls and 3G uses.

Overall the performance would be comparable to mid to lower end Android smartphones and we would not over stating the fact that the E6 is no spring chicken!

Verdict :

For those looking for a powerful QWERTY keyboard smartphone south of Rs 20K, the E6 is definitely a good option. Obviously in-spite of the new Symbian update the E6 is no rock star, it neither has the customization options of Android nor does it have the intuitiveness of Apple's iOS, but as a standalone QWERTY smartphone it does just fine, in-fact better than most BlackBerries. The keyboard is among the best we have ever seen and its feature set is up there with more expensive smartphones, which makes this device a very tempting option for modern day messaging addicts!

Price - Rs 17,500

Pros

Impressive Keyboard
Feature Set
Touch and Type
Price
Build Quality

Cons

Symbian OS
EDOF Camera
Sluggish performance

Ratings
·         Performance: 3
·         Price: 4
·         Ease of Setup: 3
·         Ergonomics: 4
·         Wow Factor: 3

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Further reading: BlackBerry, E6, Nokia, Symbian Anna, smartphone

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