Nokia E50 is one of the latest Nokia’s business smart phones. The phone runs on Symbian OS 9.1 (Platform 60 ver 3.0 interface) and it’s considered to be one of the business class phones from Nokia and that means E class. Before reviewing the phone let’s see some of its characteristics: the phone has QVGA screen resolution, 70MB of memory and a microSD slot card, it has EDGE, HDCSD, Blackberry connectivity, a 1.3MP camera and a very powerful battery. You should know that this phone comes in two versions, one with camera and one without.
First let’s talk about the build quality of the phone. The handset is long and has for narrow shape. Its dimensions are 113 x 43.5 x 15.5 mm and it weighs 104g. Though it is slightly longer than most of Symbian mobile phones, it’s quite thinner. In conclusion we can say that the build quality of the handset is great the phone is robust and very well held together.
The screen of E50 has QVGA resolution (240 x 320 pixels) with 256K colors and as all Symbian Nokia phones it adjusts the brightness automatically. The screen physical dimensions are 31 x 42 mm. which brings me to the first disadvantage of the phone: the screen is too small for its resolution and that makes the font hard to read. It’s not a big problem but some of the users could complain, though I’m sure small font fans will love it.
Let’s jump to the camera of the device. It does not excel in any way but then again, the phone is not meant for the photo enthusiast. Also the video quality is quite poor, only being able to film in 176×144 resolution at 15fps which is quite outdated. Obviously the version without camera doesn’t have this problem with all.
The connectivity of this device is exceptional, this is where the business part comes alive. E50 is quad band (operating in GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900), it has IrDA, Bluetooth, USB port (Pop-Port), EDGE, GPRS, HDCSD and Blackberry connectivity. Unfortunately it doesn’t have WiFi or 3G.
Of course, being a Symbian phone allows E50 to also be a multimedia machine. The mobile phone has MP3 player, RealOne Player and of course you can enhance the phone features by installing new software. Speaking of software the phone comes with already installed PDF viewer, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Excel viewer and a great HTML browser. It can even extract ZIP files. Also worth mentioning is the new improved gallery named Photoalbum.
Being a business phone, battery has to perform well. With an average use of 1.5 to 2 hours of phone calls, about two hours of browsing and 30 to 60 minutes of other activities including music listening and taking pictures E50 Li-Ion 970 mAh battery lasted for about three days.
In conclusion although E50 is targeted at business users I think that E50 can be bought by the Symbian fan that can’t afford a N series mobile phone. This is especially because Nokia E50 is the cheapest handset with Symbian out on the market.
Nokia E50 Specifications
-Dimensions:113 x 43.5 x 15.5 mm, 70 cc
-Weight:104 g
-Display:TFT, 256K colors
-Size:240 x 320 pixels, 31 x 42 mm
-Ringtones:Polyphonic, Monophonic, MP3, True Tones
-Card slot microSD (TransFlash), hotswap
- 70 MB shared memory for applications, SMS, MMS, ringtones
-GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
-HSCSD
-EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps
-Bluetooth v2.0
-Infrared port
-USB v2.0, Pop-Port
-Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
-Browser: WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
-Camera 1.3 MP, 1280 x 960 pixels, video(QCIF), also available without camera
- Push to talk
- Java MIDP 2.0
- MP3/AAC/video player
- Document viewer
- Blackberry connectivity
- T9
- Voice command/memo
- PIM including calendar, to-do list
- Integrated handsfree
-Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 970 mAh (BL-5C)
-Stand-by Up to 215 h
-Talk time Up to 6 h 40 min
Nokia E50 User Guide in English
Tags: phones, mobile phones, nokia E50, review, phone review
