Tag Archives: SYMBIAN

Part one of my E7 review concentrated on the external hardware and I decided that despite some very good quality materials more thought should have been put into the way the phone works physically. It’s now time to look at the software and the individual hardware features to see if they can lift my E7 mood.

Available to pre-order for £466

Highlights-

Symbian 3 for Nokia
Full QWERTY keyboard
4” AMOLED touch screen
8 mega pixel camera with dual LED flash
720p high definition video recording
Full web browsing of real websites
HDMI connection
Bluetooth 3.0

Software

When I first powered up the E7 I was greeted with a plethora of boxes, icons and widgets that covered the gamut of what a smartphone can do. From BBC iPlayer to Facebook to email, it is all on the home screen(s) and can be confusing for new users. What surprised me most was the lag when swiping between home screens- this is a review device with no extra software installed and yet there was still a noticeable lag when moving around.

The entire interface is fiddly and far from intuitive. There is a lot of screen real estate here, but Nokia has still managed to cram it full of stuff and make it feel cluttered. This desire to offer as many apps and features to a new user as possible is being done away with by others such as Sony Ericsson and Samsung and Nokia needs to carefully consider how they set up new Symbian phones because it isn’t quite working at the moment.

I could go on about the software, but it would take too long. I haven’t used Symbian for a while, but there are multiple areas where the interface and performance could be speeded up. The web browser, for example, is very slow to load complex pages and when I first started it up I wanted to enter a URL. I was greeted with a basic list of bookmarks and no URL bar. I then had to press ‘options’, then ‘go to’ at which point a new menu appears with the following options; New web page, web search and web feeds. I then had to tap ‘new web page’ and I could enter a URL. As it happens the display of text on web pages is not great either with tiny fonts that are far too thin to read easily.

There are too many areas where extra steps are needed, even in third party offerings. Little things annoy me like entering my email address in the Gmail app- once typed in I had to click options and then choose from ‘OK’, ‘Add from Contacts’, ‘Editing Options’ and ‘Writing Language’. If I had just typed in an email address I would presume that OK should be available with one tap. That particular solution gets worse by the way, but I couldn’t face using it any more so gave up.

I decided instead to set up my main email account. I went to the front screen and then tapped applications which brought up the mail app. I chose to set up a new account and a box for the email address popped up. There is an ‘@’ at the start of this box- type the first part of the email address and then jump over it to complete the address. Add your password and then enter everything else manually. I haven’t had to manually enter my mailbox settings on a smartphone for a year now so why here?

Anyway, I entered all of the settings correctly, it went off to check the settings each step of the way, and when I got to the main mailbox page it wouldn’t connect and told me to go off and check my settings. Two days later it still won’t connect.

It is remarkably frustrating to use, in almost every area, and has highlighted to me that Nokia is right to move away from Symbian. Sadly it has also highlighted that Nokia does not understand how to make hardware or software that normal people will want to use. Everything about the software is frustrating and the power button became more annoying as time went on as well. It is tiny, flush to the surface and just about impossible to hit without some serious thought. This isn’t software related, but is a pain when the screen keeps turning off after a few seconds (despite being set up to turn off after longer periods). AAAARGH!!!!!

General Performance

There is a general malaise about the way the E7 works which can be summed up in two words- it’s slow. Little delays take away the feeling of a high-end device powered by good quality innards. It isn’t underpowered at all, but the software doesn’t seem to quite fit the hardware in this instance. A shame.

Camera

Oh well. At least we can expect a Nokia camera to be great.

It is good of course, but not as good as I was expecting. In bright sunlight it struggled to catch colours the way the N8 does, but in dark conditions the flash is excellent and produced photos you rarely see from a smartphone.

Video capture also performed brilliantly in darker conditions and the 720p output was very good indeed. It is a Nokia so we would expect a decent camera, but I wonder how important this feature is to people within the target market for this phone.

I would have added some example photos, but am still struggling to set up my email account to buzz them over.

Battery

Good for 2 days use with moderate usage. Heavy Wi-Fi use pounds it a bit, but it is typically Nokia in this area and pretty good.

Call quality / signal

No problems here. Read any of my previous Nokia reviews and you know what to expect. Nokia got these areas sorted long ago and has, rightly, seen no need to change things.

In my Nokia N8 review I wrote- “Symbian^3 is by far the most complicated to use OS of the bunch and is at times unusable unless you are a hardened Symbian user who is completely familiar with the way the system works. It is not even close to defendable and in direct comparisons to iOS, Android, Windows Phone and even BlackBerry OS 6 it feels like an OS from 3 or 4 years back.”

Sadly that is still true and so I will conclude here with an unfinished review. Despite a form factor that is near perfect for me and a keyboard that is truly excellent, the software and the way the hardware is built consign the E7 to being merely a footnote in the history of Symbian. The lack of an expansion card slot and a fairly low screen resolution don’t help. One for hardened Symbian users only.

Nokia has had a hard time of it over the past year with continual criticism of Symbian and dwindling market share being the main areas of attack. The switch to Windows Mobile has led many to believe that Symbian is effectively dead, but that is not quite true. The Ovi Store is gaining in popularity and it seems that Nokia is now producing phones that show genuine creativity and an eye for what the general public wants. The E7 is considered to be one of those phones so let’s find out what it is really like.

Available to pre-order for £466.80

Highlights-

Symbian 3 for Nokia
Full QWERTY keyboard
4” AMOLED touch screen
8 mega pixel camera with dual LED flash
720p high definition video recording
Full web browsing of real websites
HDMI connection
Bluetooth 3.0

As you can see the price is high and the specs are impressive. This phone is without doubt aimed at those who want to communicate and undertake multiple tasks throughout a normal day and those who have a need for a quality photography experience. It is a serious device and displays this in every part of the design.

When I first picked it up I was impressed by the quality of the build and there is little doubt that Nokia can make a phone that feels solid as nails. The sheer quality throughout the device is exceptional and there are no creaks or rattles in sight. It is almost perfectly constructed.

But…

The consequence of using metal in every part of the design is that the phone is not easy to hold. It feels incredibly slippery and makes you grip it harder than you would most other phones. This is compounded when you try to slide open the keyboard; the mechanism is very tough and requires some force when you first use it, a force that cause me to drop the phone 3 times when I opened the keyboard initially.

It’s a case of good and bad because this mechanism makes for an extremely tough feel when the keyboard is open, but getting there could be easier. UPDATE: I eventually worked out how to open the keyboard without applying too much force and this makes a difference, but should I really have to scratch my head and work out how to open out a keyboard on a phone? UPDATE: And I have dropped the phone a further two times…

Anyway, the hardware is seriously tough and the design is a love it or hate it affair that will gain the affections of some and the loathing of others. To me it looks great when the keyboard is open, almost futuristic, but with the keyboard shut it is incredibly bland and offers almost zero personality. It is black metal tapered at each end with a few buttons dotted here and there and a business-like approach from every angle. I can only presume that Nokia is aiming this phone at business because the design will not sell itself to the average person on the street. Then again, if that is the case why is there an 8 Megapixel camera here?

It’s a confusing design which doesn’t quite add up, and one that leaves me with one question-

At the end of 2010 Nokia had 132,000 employees. The E7 is one if its flagship phones and is thus important to Nokia. If we presume that those 132,000 employees work 35 hours a week that is a total of 4,620,000 hours worked per week. Why did no-one in Nokia give this phone to one employee for 30 minutes (or 0.0000108225% of the Nokia working week) and ask them how it felt to use?

What kind of corporate culture lets a phone with such a hard to use design have so much money invested in it?

The irony is that the keyboard is not too bad to use and the viewing angle of the screen is perfect, but the opening mechanism and materials used on the outside of the phone defy logic to me.

The box contents are quite steady with an HDMI cable, AC charger, sync cable, half-decent headphones and that’s your lot. Not a great bundle, but enough to get you started.

Rounding off the hardware, the buttons are very good indeed. From the quirky volume slider to the camera shutter button they are easy to hit and of extremely good quality. The top side is busy with the headphone jack, on/off key, HDMI and microUSB slots all crammed together. It does all work well though and makes for a setup that is easy to use yet will not cause problems should you carry it around in your pocket.

I will detail exactly how well, or not, the E7 works in part two and that will include the screen, software and everything else, but it is safe to say that from a hardware point of view Nokia has used some great materials and then stuck them together to build a quirky design that you will either love or hate. There is no in-between here.