E61 modifications

Jean-Marie has posted an extensive list of required E61 changes on this blog. OK, here goes-

Since past month of May I had consecutively a Qtek 9000 (1 month), Nokia E70 (2 weeks), and now the Nokia E61 (>2months). These are my findings :

A. User interface :

A1. Possibility to add more rows of shortcuts in the standbye screen ! Now the standbye screen is so empty and there is no possibility to add more shortcuts than those already shown in the top screen window. That’s such a shame for that nice big and expensive screen !

A2. Too limited screen information :
A2.1. When displaying call or message history, etc.
A2.2. Much too limited phone number information if a contact has more than 1 phone number. Simply enlarge the phone number pop-up window would already offer big relief !

A3. After editing an item, you can choose either ‘cancel’ or ‘back’. Actually ‘back’ means ‘OK’ or ‘accept’ : so it would be be more clear to understand if the ‘back’ word would be changed into ‘OK’ or ‘accept’.

A4. Theme : the phone always come with the standard Nokia theme which displays text with white characters. I don’t understand where the Nokia got the idea for that, but why would it be that all pc-applications work with dark text on a light background ? Where did Nokia get the idea to use white letters on a light background ? This is almost unreadable in bright sun light ! Why doesn’t the phone offer to use no theme at all ! I had to search and install a (freeware) white screen theme with black text which is much better readable in all circumstances ! (only the battery display lacks the 2 upper scores so it always looks as if my battery isn’t fully loaded).

A5. In the special characters I am missing the ° (degree) character !

A6. The ‘call button’ is useless in most screens. Attributing a user-definable function to that button would be very practical. For example : you open the calendar and pressing the call button could bring up the contact list, or bring up the ‘new item’ menu or a limited short menu instead of the often much too long menus which makes the user loose lot of time for finding the wanted menu item.

B. Missing Keyboard Shortcuts :

B1. Missing a “ctr+a” shortcut in order to select a complete line, field or record.

B2. missing a date insert shortcut : the ‘Old Nokia 9100 Communicator’ had a Ctr+D shortcut that automatically inserted the date in any text field.

B3. Only for the E70 : The opened E70 lacks a numlock shortcut (concerns the azerty keyboards). When opened it’s terribly annoying to insert phone numbers, bank account information etc. That’s why I immediately sold my E70 after purchase in July !

B4. Ctr + up/down should allow to jump to next screen (in a pop-up menu list, or in the contact list, the history list etc).

C. About contacts :

C1. Phone number field only allows numbers :

C1.1. No space allowed between country, area & actual phone number in the contact phone number field.

C1.2. The phone number field only allows spaces, when you first write the number with spaces in a text field and then copying that number to the phone number field. This phone number field will be valid for dialling.

C1.3. In the same way you could copy number and text from a text field to a phone number field, but when trying to dial the phone will show an ‘invalid number’ message and you won’t be able to dial.

C1.4. You even can copy a phone number with spaces ánd text in front or back of the phone number, (when copying from a text field) : but the phone number will be invalid.

C2. Editing a contact :
I think that contact items are too much protected from accidentally editing. Maybe it’s a question of taste, but I think you should automatically be able to edit a contact as soon as you open the contact. Now it’s so annoying that you have to open the item and then press the option button, then scrolling through the menu and finally pressing the ‘edit’ option.

C3. Contact list is very slow to find or edit a name ? I have 830 contacts, but my old 9100 had no difficulties with that ! In fact that 9100 was (is) faster at every task !

C3.1. First slow down occurs when entering letters in the contact list search field : when pressing a second letter it takes a second before that 2nd letter appears and before you can press following letters.

C3.2. Opening the contact also takes at least 1 to 2 second.

C3.3. Opening the ‘option’ menu takes another 1 tot 2 seconds.

C3.4. Choosing ‘edit’ takes 3 to 4 seconds before the screen becomes editable.
After pressing the ‘ready’ button, it takes another 3 to 4 seconds before the ‘back’ button appears.

C4. Voice dial function is unusable :
It’s absolutely unclear how to make a voice dial. Therefore I don’t use this function at all. I even believe voice dial is almost unusable. Also I think you can only have 1 voice dial per contact. I’d need to call my mother either on her landline or on her mobile, without having to make 2 contacts ! Before I owned a Qtek 9000 (too heavy) but I used the voice command very often.

D. Calendar, time & alarms, tasks and notes:

D1. Linking a calendar or task item to a contact would be great ! Then, when the calendar or task is being displayed you could simply press the phone button to call the person. In fact this shouldn’t be so difficult to program, while this is the way that sms-messages are linked to the contact list.

D2. Repeat schedule is incomplete : it should indeed offer to repeat on workdays only, weekends only, every X number of days, or every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (user definable). The old Nokia Communicator 9100 already offered the possibility for workdays alarm (weekend alarm lacked).

D3. After an alarm passed (that you didn’t notice for some reason) the message should stay on the screen (as with the 9100).

D4. The clock setting only allows for one alarm. I would like to be able to enter a (or several) simple wake-up alarms with repeat function, instead of having to make a wake-up ‘appointment’ or ‘task’ with an alarm.

D5. The alarms should have an individual sound setup for different kind of alarms !

D6. There is a clock, but why not also a countdown timer and a stopwatch ?

D7. Can’t order my tasks nor my notes : it would be practical to be able to order them in several ways : alphabetically, by task start or ending date, and in a second level : ascending or descending.

D8. When adding a new task or calendar item, the start time should be adapted to the actual time. For example, now it’s 11 am and I add a task with an alarm, the phone supposes 08:00 am as the alarm time instead of the actual time.

D9. Anniversaries : here there should be a ‘birth date’ field offering a yearly alarm.

E. MUSIC PLAYER : there is no possibility to scroll forward or backward within a song.

F. SOUND RECORDER :

F1. 1minute limit recorder is unreasonable
F2. Record button should be possible to dissable to avoid accidental recording

G. MISSING APPLICATION :
MISSING AUTOLOCK function ! Freeware is available, but why not built this into the phones ???

H. NOKIA PC-SUITE

H1. Losing new (or edited) contact field information when syncing from E61 to Outlook.

H2. Before synchronising you can solve conflict items that exist in Outlook as well as the E61. For example : you edited an item in your phone and, you edited it in Outlook before synchronizing. In this case setup offers to choose either Outlook priority, phone priority. I think it would be handy to add an extra conflict solving solution like ‘ask me each time’ or : PCsuite could show both items during or after synchronisation and offer to edit the phone item or the Outlook item in order to have one correct entry.

I2. Calculator : the ENTER key should lead to calculation results (in order to avoid scrolling through the mathematical functions).