Software
While the E5 hardware has a lot going for it, the S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 running on Symbian v9.3 takes it down a few notches. Blackberry users will certainly appreciate the greater flexibility and customization the Symbian platform affords, but if you’re used any modern smartphone OS in the last 3 years or so, prepare to be confused and frustrated.
I must confess that Nokia has done a fair bit to make Symbian more user-friendly and feature-rich since the time I last used a Symbian-based Nokia phone almost 4 years ago. With that being said, the underlying platform IS almost a decade old and there is only so much a company can do before it has to completely revamp the platform.
Starting off with the home screen, there is a fair bit of customization that can be done here. Nokia even offers a bunch of standby screen layout presets such as Active, Basic, Horizontal/Vertical icon etc. that re-arranges what is and is not visible on the home screen. The E5 makes it very easy to switch between the presets (Work/Personal modes). You can display everything from your calendar, inbox(s), notes, clock, shortcuts to frequently used apps, and a couple of more useful features all on one screen.
You can choose from a bunch of different home screen ‘styles’ and easily switch between presets
While not at the same level of customizability as Android, I found the flexibility and usefulness of the home screen quite nice. Symbian offers a lot of personalization options and if you are willing to spend the time to try and sift through the dozen or so different menus and options, you may be able to tailor the E5 to your exact requirements. The only issue here is that the interface is not particularly intuitive which, along with the small display, make it a frustrating experience.
While the menu page itself is logically laid out, the options and features they control are not. For example, part of the data connection-related options are under the Settings > Connection section, while there are some options under the Connectivity menu, and you need to look under both to get stuff working.
The no-frills menus in Symbian OS
The overall design is clean and simple, without any animated effects or transitions, which is why navigating between menus is snappy and the phone is for the most part pretty responsive. And considering the fact that S60 has a pretty efficient multitasking system, the overall responsiveness of the E5 helps you switch between your mailbox, calendar, contacts and browser very quickly.
Multitasking in Symbian OS is simple and straightforward
You can see a list of apps running in the background by holding down the home key. Another nice touch is that all open apps are identified by a green circle on the top-right corner of the app icon in the menu grid.
Speaking of browsers, the default browser that the E5 comes installed with is one of the outliers to the otherwise snappy response of the phone. Even over WiFi, the browser was quite slow and even no-so-heavy websites caused the browser to hang. This behavior was only exacerbated on 3G, where the browser was slower to load pages. The dull 2.36” screen doesn't do the browsing experience any favors, either. With the phone seriously lacking display real estate and pixel density, websites are completely illegible zoomed out. Even when the website is only moderately zoomed into, you have a scroll a lot both vertically and horizontally. And because you are constrained to the D-pad and soft-keys for browser navigation and actions instead of touch gestures, surfing the net on the phone quickly becomes a chore.
The default browser (left), Opera Mobile 10 (center) and tabbed view of “history” (right)
There was however one feature of the browser that I liked; clicking on the “Back” menu option in the browser shows a “tabbed” view of the previous pages you visited. Initially, I actually thought of them as being real tabs, but soon I realized they were just snapshots of the previous pages I had visited (the default browser doesn't have support for tabs). Nevertheless, it is the one feature that proved useful in a browser that should otherwise be avoided. To imagine the default browser is actually webkit-based! Most of these issues can be readily remedied by downloading an alternate browser such as Opera Mobile 10; a point made blatantly clear by the fact that it is one of the most popular apps in the Ovi App store. But even then, the 600Mhz ARM11 CPU seems to struggle to carry anything more than the weight of Symbian and the E5’s default apps.
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velis - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
Heh, it's ridiculous how we all expect to see reviews of super new fancy-shpancy gadgets.While this article just shouts "OLD!!!" to the OS used in this phone, I still have to say this:
[bold]This OS does the job[/bold] unlike certain other OS(s) where a simple reminder is a useless feature because it only reminds if you're sitting on the phone at the time, where you are only notified of a call when it stops "ringing" (not that it rang in the first place), etc.
While the newest gadgets may look cool, feature some super impressive HW and SW, they really tend to forget a phone's basic functions.
That said, it's a shame this phone has such a pathetic screen.
Drunken.Swagger - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
"The one other idiosyncratic move on Nokia's part was to not allow entering contacts by name in the texting application. In this day and age, having to remember and enter a contact's number instead of just typing their name with the phone suggesting contacts as you type is laughable. There is a way to “Add Recipient(s)” via the menu, but this is a smartphone, and it’s not the year 2000. Come on guys, get it together."I have a Nokia E71 and it does allow this feature. Given that it's similar software, I think you might need to investigate further to make sure it's not available (Because it is rather picky).
mythun.chandra - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
You are correct Druken.Swagger. As pointed out by Akdor 1154 later on, clicking on the center button in the "To" field shows the contact list. Why they didn't make it "type ahead" capable, I don't know. :)deeyo - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
I have an E71 too. You can start typing in a name, and once you press the middle button it will list all the matches in your contacts list.If I type 'Jess' and click enter, it'll list "Jesse B, Jessica G...." for example
In general there's a lot of clever little functions tucked away in the default OS, although the app store selection is AWFUL! And nobody makes new programs =(
ojisama - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 - link
S40 phones also open contact list with the center button. Also, you can write your message first and if the recepient field is empty the concact list is opened (with favourites on top, if added.). I don't think I've ever seen a Nokia phone that forces you to remember the number...Type ahead can be a bit problematic, if your recipient uses several numbers. Perhaps not a bad idea, but since I'm usually sending text messages to a limited number of people, selecting the name from recently used list is faster.
Calin - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
The Symbian operating system has at least a couple newer versions: the S60 3rd Edition (feature pack 2) is still sold, but the Symbian S60 5th Edition is newer, and the open source Symbians (^1, ^2 and ^3) are newer still.mino - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
Yeah, Actually Symbian is about as "old" as Windows is.The only problem with it (on smartphones) is they (for political reasons) chose S60 instead of perfecting UIQ which was WAY ahead of its time when it came smartphone UI's ... :(
Belard - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
This phone does look great... but its screen, camera and OS are vastly out-dated, and so what its its targeted towards "BUSINESS USERS". When an Android, WM7 and iPhones offer far more for the same price - why would they be caught using something that is frustrating to use?There are some Android & WM7 phones that have slide-out keyboards... check.
I did play the video you made with this phone... its HORRIBLE. I recorded a 720-HD quality video on my Samsung Galaxy-S phone, it LOOKS great, sounds very good... with its high-res AMOLED screen, it looks almost as good as real-life.
At&t (and I gather others), sell the Galaxy-S for $100~150 with a contract.
Internet ability rocks and that is important for business. (GPS on Samsung still sucks)
I remember when I last had a NOKIA phone, and I never looked back. Using SONY for years until I went to Android.
The top 3 phone WILL be Android, WM7 and iPhone... RIM is still behind, MS has done good research (wow). Where is NOKIA?
thewhat - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
"When an Android, WM7 and iPhones offer far more for the same price"Same price? I don't think so. Well, maybe _some_ Android phones can be had for that money, but that's it. The iPhone is 2x-3x the price of this Nokia.*
I'm not a fan of Symbian or Nokia, but let's be real, it will still sell because it's relatively cheap. (Still too expensive IMO and I'd probably rather get an Android or wait for Meego phones.)
*if you're talking about the price on contract with the US carriers, that's a different story. The price of US smartphones on contract are all pretty much the same, +- $50, because you're required to get the same expensive "smartphone plan", no matter which phone you choose. But that's a specific market which doesn't reflect most of the world's prices or the off contract prices.
T2k - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
"The top 3 phone WILL be Android, WM7 and iPhone..."WOW, powerful stupid.
It'd surprising to see WM7 to reach even RIM sales...