Nokia E65 part three: final thoughts

So far my experience with the Nokia E65 has been largely positive with a few minor issues taking away some of the shine. I must admit to being a fan of the Symbian OS- it is designed for voice usage above all and is an impressive system for any smartphone to have onboard. The real beauty comes when it is implemented in a small device like the Nokia E65. It feels like a phone, it looks like a phone yet it contains many smartphone features that I suspect many people will never use. It is aimed at the business market though and I feel sure that many people will love what it can do and start to really appreciate it.

In the case of the E65 it almost feels as if the OS is too big for the phone. That may sound silly and no doubt some people like devices that allow them to view emails and not necessarily reply to them on the go but, and this is a personal view, it can seem like a marriage that is too one sided with the hardware holding back the included software. Having push email and exchange sync is great and the contacts and calendar functions work perfectly but the whole experience is let down by using a standard number pad. I feel sure that the majority of people will prefer this and a couple of people I have spoken to absolutely adore predictive text. My response of “it’s because you know no better” went down well I can tell you.

I have to ignore the data input side of things for these articles though because it wasn’t a surprise to find only a number pad included on the device and it is built for a specific purpose which is to bring business type functionality to a smart looking small device.

On the whole I found the performance to be very speedy but as the available memory drops a little the occasional stall occurred and I would find myself waiting for a few seconds before it started to move again. I am not convinced that there is enough available memory for continued stable use and have to conclude that Windows Mobile 5.0 handles available memory better than Symbian when things are getting busy.

Nokia have made efforts to include some original features which will be of benefit to many people if they take the time to understand how to use them. The conference facility is brilliant as is the VOIP feature, WiFi connections were pretty impressive for such a small device and I had no issues with the Bluetooth set up. Unfortunately all of these facilities do have an impact on battery life and using some for extended periods of time may mean needing a charger handy. Maybe the battery life will improve as it is conditioned but bear in mind that there are a lot of power hungry features powered by a small battery in this unit. That is by no means a bad thing because I would rather they were there than not.

This phone can also be a potential cost saver when you consider VOIP and the conference facility so it genuinely is a device that could pay for itself quite quickly if your usage (and general location) fits the right pattern to benefit from this.

The big surprise for me has been the ability to enjoy many entertainment functions in such a small device- videos are perfectly viewable, eBooks (using MobiPocket on full screen) are readable and the music side is excellent- with a decent set of headphones we are approaching iPod quality and this was a real surprise.

The included calendar is very poor and so far little effort has been made to improve this- the ability to be able to set alarms by default is surely a needed option? Most other aspects of the software are top class apart from the web browser which in no way worked as well as on the Nokia E61 but Opera’s worked well for me anyway.

All in all this is a superb device that works as it states on the tin and you are unlikely to be disappointed if you buy one. Remember though that the data input side falls well short of the potential held within and for a hardened PDA or smartphone user this may well be reason enough to avoid.

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