We got a quick little bit of quality time with Nokia's new business-centric S60 phones, the
E66 and the
E71. Both phones are virtually identical when it comes to specs, so it really boils down to what you prefer in form factor. If you're a T9 maven and prefer a vertical screen orientation, the E66 slider is obviously your ticket, but the E71's full QWERTY keyboard and glorious 10mm of thickness are probably going to guide it into many a business slack front pocket. The E71's keys have a harder, clickier feel to them than its predecessors, and they're also a tad more crowded than usual -- we had a bit of trouble typing at first, but it's a solid, well-built keyboard that'll certainly come to be second nature with a bit of use. Despite the phone's thinness we found it to be incredibly sturdy and just the right weight. As for the E66, we just love the feel of its slider mechanism, but we're a little puzzled as to the thickness compared to the E71. That said, it's a quite comfortable and small form factor for a smartphone. Our favorite new feature on these phones is the quick switch from business to personal use, which can swap your home screen, email accounts and calendar to your personal stuff after hours -- and with that hefty 3.2 megapixel camera, A-GPS and WiFi, there's plenty of fun to be had with these phones when your work is through. Video after the break.
posted Jun 16th 2008 8:02AM
oh please, stop that nokia stuff... give us more apple news !11
Cue KIRF China clones in 3-2-1..
and on a side note, Iceman STFU!
I really hope that was sarcastic
He must be. He's nickname is from Finnish F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen.
Fin lover=Nokia lover
Wow! 2 Nokia phones get 3 posts. I'm pleasently surprised.
As a v.satisfied owner of an E65 (which had no front cam, a 2 MP cam, No GPS), I highly recommend these 2 phones for any phone seeker these days. Very elegant, very efficient, and EXCELLENT Nokia build quality, and unlike common belief, it is very Media-Game friendly.
Try loading some GBA roms on that beautiful E71 horizontal screen and see for yourself. S60 games and software are practically all over the web. You can even transform your E-series phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Windows Live Messenger is only one button click away. Nokia Maps 2.0 is practically the best free navigation software there is. It has all names of all streets in all countries.
Very fast phone, very stable UI. If HTC Dream wasn't up on the Horizon, the E71/E66 would definitely be next on my update list.
Oh and they are the only phones with native flash lite support for the web browser. So you can view Youtube and other flash-based apps right on the web browser.
I'd recommend these phones A LOT MORE than the clunky S60 Touch phones (The Tube) coming up by the end of the year.
You have no clue as to what you're talking about. Have you ever held either of these phones?
1)These are not the only phones with flashlite support, all of the N95s, the N82, the E90, the N78 and the N96 have native flashlite support.
2)How can you call S60 touch clunky? Have you ever used it? Have you ever touched the Tube?
Please.
S60 is anything BUT fluid. Now S60 Touch is the basic S60 software with touch support. Don't you mistake that for "finger-friendly", because it's not. Many of the current S60 layout (small side softkeys) are the same in S60 Touch. Till now, it seems that a stylus will be very much needed when surfing the tube. And No, I haven't used the Tube. No one has. What we all saw was the promo videos Nokia has been releasing, and the touch-response time is very disappointing, when comparing to.. say the iPhone. However, it is exactly the same speed of S60 which is no longer competitive.
Moreover, last time S60 was demoed in Feb, then in March and April. It was extremely slow. This may be because they never changed the core programming of S60, they just made it support touch input. As a matter of fact, Nokia has been confirming this fact many times, "The same S60, now with touch"
As for flashlite support, you've just listed all the new Nokia phones (some of which haven't even made it to the market) to make a point that "I had no idea what I was talking about".... Ok maybe it's a personality flaw but yes, these new phones including the Eseries all support flashlite. Big surprise. mkay? I don't know about the n95 but as far as I know, it DOESN'T have native flash. Even if it does, I don't think that qualifies as "no idea what ur talking about" :)
I love S60, I do. It's very resourceful and has a HUGE library of 3rd party apps. Maybe the biggest. Most likely the biggest. The OS is stable and reliabe. But as far as UI goes, it is really "last-gen".
So, "please" yourself.
*sigh*
You may THINK that it won't be friendly but let me tell you now. There will be surprises once S60 touch comes out. Tell me this; how can you judge an OS from renderings on a demo video that aren't even the real thing OR emulations of the very early stages of the OS on a device that is NOTHING like the eventual hardware that the OS will be placed on.
Plenty of people have used the Tube. Plenty.
All the new Nokia phones? The only phone that isn't available in a shop down the road from me right now from that list is the N96. Besides, I wouldn't really call the N95 new, considering it's been floating around since May of 2006...
Please.
As a v.satisfied owner of an E65 (which had no front cam, a 2 MP cam, No GPS), I highly recommend these 2 phones for any phone seeker these days. Very elegant, very efficient, and EXCELLENT Nokia build quality, and unlike common belief, it is very Media-Game friendly.
Try loading some GBA roms on that beautiful E71 horizontal screen and see for yourself. S60 games and software are practically all over the web. You can even transform your E-series phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Windows Live Messenger is only one button click away. Nokia Maps 2.0 is practically the best free navigation software there is. It has all names of all streets in all countries.
Very fast phone, very stable UI. If HTC Dream wasn't up on the Horizon, the E71/E66 would definitely be next on my update list.
Oh and they are the only phones with native flash lite support for the web browser. So you can view Youtube and other flash-based apps right on the web browser.
I'd recommend these phones A LOT MORE than the clunky S60 Touch phones (The Tube) coming up by the end of the year.
They look ugly as hell though...
No thanks
After watching these videos, and seeing these new phones have front facing video cams, and nice cameras with flash, I realized something.
Fuck the iPhone.
...but did you really watch the videos, then? I saw some clunky interfaces and a lot of 'oops, let me try that again.' and 'erp, where'd it go?'
They look fine but those are really more targeted at the blackberry devices and other Nokia-style slider phones.
...and side-mounted headphone jacks? That's on par with the iPhone not having MMS - you can live with it, but it's WRONG, very wrong.
Yeah, let me loosen my tie and switch to 'life mode' on my phone.
Sexy User Interface, no oops, it's 2008 not 1995!
Because everyone wants a touchscreen, right?
Tell me, have you always made grossly stupid generalisations?
This TS talk is a bit confusing some times considering that Nokia has over 55% of smartphone market and non of them have TS screen. TS market is small and will grow, but for now this is just add to Nokia's portfolio. They dont make just 1 phone in a year you know.
With the S60 5th edition we will again see alot of TS phones from Nokia next year and end of this year, again not just a one device.
And the fact that S60 3th edition is living it last days so now it might look out dated to some.
This phone does miss in menu side much of the eye candy as it dosent have the latest eye candyed feature pack 2, but if you can live with that and in a same time be able to do much more than many other phones you should be fine. Plus it's really stable system and really fast to use.
After all over 55% of this planet smartphone users seem to go for these so they must be doing something right even if the current OS is getting old pretty soon, but will get replaced by 5th edition later this year that should be totally new and eye candyed.
Man if i could live without touchscreen that E71 would've been my new friend
would be my new friend
would be my new friend
Is there an echo in here?
The guy in the video demos a Nokia devia in a restaurant? I suppose he owns the restaurant as well and does Nokia adverts on the side ........
Not bad phones........... I know these two devices will definitely break the bank.....
Me want E71. Want E71. Will save money. QWERTY is a must for my slow brain.
Look- I'm a Mac fan- I admit it. I LOVE Mac! - But there is so much better shit coming out than the new iPhone. I sick of Apple putting out half assed "updates" just to milk more money out of an old product. The only thing that keeps them alive is their software. Which BTW is the only reason that I'm still considering getting the 3G iPhone- because of 2.0. Even still- after looking at these phones- It makes me wonder if I should just be content with keeping my computers as Macs and allowing myself the pleasure of having a phone that actually has some good shit on it- just my .02...
"The only thing that keeps them alive is their software..."
As though that isn't actually the most important thing.
One question that's being asked a lot around the internet: It says on the E66 video that it has an orientation sensor. The E71 and E66 being "identical" when it comes to hardware, does the E71 also have the same sensor?
Additionally, is this orientation sensor = acceleration sensor (for example in Nokia N95)?
Answering my own question...
There's no mention of the aforementioned features for E71 at Nokia.com, but orientation sensors are mentioned on the E66's page..
Hm. Shame, there are many cool applications that utilize motion sensors these days. To me it's pretty much as cool as multi touch. Well, E71 it is anyway, I've grown so accustomed to a QWERTY keyboard.
Maybe in the year two thousand there will be an E71i, with orientation sensors : )
I think you should only say "full keyboard" if it has five rows. Function keys to hit numbers suck. (Although the iPhone's complete lack of a keyboard sucks most of all.) The Sidekick LX gives you both options -- a numeric row and embedded-keypad numbers -- and, for someone who types as much as I do, I'd have a hard time going to a smartphone that has no numeric row.
Full Keyboard > Silly touch screen. This nokia is designed for practicality, not as a toy like many other phones nowadays.
Too bad there is no red version like the E51 I have
Both had 3G on AT&T! I can feeeeeeel the love from Finland!
Loving the dig at the iphone
"Its not just shiny plastic"
lol.
O why O why could they not make the screen bigger on the E71- just drop the key drop and extend the screen up too