Nokia E5

NOKIA E5 REVIEW

The E5 is the first device announced for the Eseries portfolio after Nokia clarified its handset naming convention back in March. To understand the positioning of the E5, one simply needs to look at the letter and the accompanying digit. The E in Eseries comprises productivity and business devices, and the number 5 (on a scale of 1 to 10) means the cost of the E5 is best described as middling. The E5 could well go for next to nothing with a two-year plan from a telco operator. The E5 runs the same S60 3rd Edition software with Feature Pack 2 like the E72. However, there are a number of differences beyond that. The E5 has a lower 18-bit screen color depth (24-bit on the E72), 50cm to infinity camera focus range (10cm to infinity on the E72), and lacks an onboard accelerometer. On the bright side, it has twice the amount of RAM at 256MB and a larger F2.4 aperture (F2.8 on the E72). The fixed-focus camera on the E5 also has the Extended Depth of Field feature, which increases the distance of the depth-of-field, keeping more objects in focus. Though the browser is usable, the small 320 x 240-pixel display means Web surfing isn't very enjoyable. Third-party applications are available for Symbian S60, but these aren't as plentiful as what's found on the iPhone and Google's Android OS. If games and programs are important factors in your buying decision, going Symbian probably isn't the best idea. The 5-megapixel fixed-focus camera on the E5 gave decent image quality with acceptable sharpness and good color rendition. We noticed a slight blue cast in the middle of the photo in our test shot, but this should not be too obvious for small, Web-quality snapshots. The 600MHz processor and 256MB RAM did well to keep things chugging along smoothly. We did not feel significant slowdowns when using the smartphone even with the browser, Tweets60 (for Twitter), email and the Bloomberg app all running in the background. Battery life was good, giving us over two days of use on a single charge. Considering most touchscreen smartphones these days require daily charging, this is a very good show from the E5. However, remember that the dwindling third-party support for S60 also means apps are not as compelling. For example, the preloaded Facebook app is very hard to use compared with the Android and iOS versions. Because of lower-quality apps, we ended up doing fewer social-networking activities (such as tweeting and checking in using Foursquare) and spending less time using the browser. That had a part to play in extending the battery life of the E5. The 1,200mAh battery, according to the specifications, has a rated talktime of 18.5 hours on GSM and standby of up to 29 days.

SPECIFICATION & FEATURES

NOKIA E5 PRICE

Price in USA $199

Price in UK £120

Price in EURO €136

Price in PAK Rs.16,400

Price in INDIA Rs.8,599