Nokia E5 Preview
Nokia E5 Preview
Despite the onslaught of Apple’s iPhone and the many Android phones by Motorola, HTC and Samsung on its smartphone marketshare, Nokia is continually rolling out new smartphones in almost every category and price range offering the same hardware features but at a lower price. The Nokia E5 is one such phone, which offers almost everything you would expect in a smartphone, in Nokia’s bestselling form factor - the QWERTY smartphone. The Nokia E71 has been a bestseller and even the new Nokia E72 and the budget Nokia E63 have done very well. They are aimed at the business users who cannot afford a BlackBerry but want a QWERTY device which is sleek and fast. The new E5 has excellent hardware, rivalling the Nokia E72 and will be priced cheaper than the E72. It’s sure to be a hit at least in the developing markets.
Design
It sports a sleek design which isn’t very flashy and has an excellent build. The plastic and metal body feels robust. It has dimensions of 115 x 58.9 x 12.8 mm and weighs around 126 gms which is about the ideal size for a candybar QWERTY smartphone.
It will have a 2.4 inch TFT display with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels and will support 16 M colors, just like the Nokia E63, E71 and E72. The display is standard and can compare to neither the iPhone 4’s retina display nor the AMOLED displays of Android phones.
Hardware and OS
When it comes to hardware, the Nokia E5 is one of the best Symbian phones. It is powered by a 600 MHz ARM 11 processor and comes with 256 MB of RAM. It has 250 MB internal memory and a 2 GB micro SD card (with support for up to 32 GB micro SD cards). It runs the Symbian OS v9.3 with FP2, the latest in Symbian non-touchscreen phones. The OS is fast and zippy and the UI is intuitive and responsive. It supports a vast collection of Symbian apps and games.
Multimedia
The Nokia E5 has a 5 MP fixed focus camera which can take shots at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. It also has LED flash and allows customization of advanced settings. The image capture quality is pretty nice, in line with other Nokia 5 MP camera phones.
Besides that, it also sports the standard Symbian image gallery and the default music player and video player apps which support MP3, WAV, WMA, eAAC+ and 3GP, MP4, WMV formats respectively. It also has a built in FM radio with RDS support.
Connectivity
On the connectivity front, the Nokia E5 doesn’t disappoint. It offers GPRS, EDGE, 3G HSDPA, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with UPnP and DLNA. It also has a microUSB 2.0 port to connect the phone to your PC.
It comes with the standard Symbian version of the Webkit browser and Nokia Messaging email support. It will also have the Ovi Store.
It has a GPS transceiver with A-GPS support and Ovi maps 3.0 with free navigation. It is powered by a 1200 mAh Li-ion battery which has a talk time of around 8 hrs.
Conclusion
It is one of the best budget QWERTY smartphones. It should replace the Nokia E72 and should appeal to both business users as well as those who want good multimedia capabilities.
