It's rare these days for a mobile phone to impress us straight out of the box, but Nokia's latest addition to its E-series range proves that you can combine a fully functional business phone in a compact and attractive chassis. The E65 looks good and feels great, and is packed with enough features to lure both mobile professionals as well as the fashion conscious.
Design
The E65 marks a return to the stylish design of quality handsets such as Nokia's own 8800. Measuring in at just 105mm by 49mm by 15.5mm and weighing just 115 grams, the E65 is incredibly small given its list of features. Sliding the spring-loaded front panel upwards reveals a stylish keypad with well spaced buttons that have a solid feel. Push the slider down again and it snaps shut with a reassuring click.
The E65 includes several shortcut keys on its front for one-touch conference calls, muting and opening your contacts. There's also a "My Own" button you can program to load up your favourite application. Flip the handset over and you'll find a 2-megapixel digital camera surrounded by a leather-feel plastic surface. Strangely, for a 3G capable phone, the E65 lacks a second camera on the front panel for video calling.
The large 2.2-inch, 240 x 320 pixel display packs up to 16 million colours and comes with adjustments for the contrast and brightness. A sensor located below the power button can detect ambient light levels and adjusts the brightness of the keypad accordingly to save battery life. In the box you'll find a 256MB microSD card, connectivity cable, travel charger, carrying pouch and a mono headset.
Features
The E65 comes equipped with every connectivity feature you could ever need. There's support for quadband GSM, 3G, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g with VoIP support), EDGE, USB, infrared and Bluetooth version 1.2. Nokia has stuck with the S60 Symbian operating system, and this latest version is easy to navigate and has most functions located in the menu items you'd expect them to be.
Marketed as a business phone, the E65 comes with several office-based applications such as Quickoffice's document reader or Nokia's Team Suite organiser, plus you'll always stay connected with the instant messaging feature. You can't create Word or Excel files on the go, but this would be frustrating given the limited 2.2-inch display and lack of a full QWERTY keyboard.
When the work day is over, the E65 doubles as an entertainment system thanks to the inbuilt video or audio players and 50MB of onboard storage. You can sit back and watch MP4 files or listen to MP3/AAC tracks, but unless you plan to use the inbuilt speakerphone you'll need to purchase a stereo headset. The E65 also lacks an FM tuner.
To make life easier, Nokia has loaded the E65 with several voice command options, with voice dialling and voice controls for menu short cuts, keypad lock, and profiles. The phone also comes with the usual assortment of personal info managers including a calendar, contacts, to-do list, and notepad, all of which are accessible during calls.
Performance
Nokia's latest smartphone will please most users after a basic handset with a few added features but it's not entirely up to scratch as a fully fledged business model. Call quality was good but the speakerphone was too quiet even at maximum volume, which made it difficult to carry on a conversations whilst in the car or in crowded areas.
Images from the 2-megapixel camera were not up to Nokia's usual standard, turning out slightly grainy even in the highest resolution mode. It didn't help that most camera phones in this price range are now equipped with larger pixel CCDs, and that the E65 also lacked a LED flash or self-portrait mirror. You can improve image quality slightly by playing around with the white balance and colour tones, but we wouldn't rely on using the images for printing photographs.
Battery life was good, with the BL-5F lithium unit charging up quickly and going the distance even with our heavy usage. The phone lasted close to five hours on talk and almost a week on standby, which should be more than enough for most users.
Demanding business users after a replacement for their PDAs are likely to be disappointed by the E65 as it's better suited to general consumers after a stylish and compact handset with a few extra bells and whistles.
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Professor Eliote Iskezan
19/09/2008, 11:52 AM
rating
5/10
Shame, could've been a good and great handset...
Pros: -Looks
-Quadband
-Wifi
-3G
Cons: -Hanging
-Easily Scratched
-Crashing for no reason at all
-Slow camera
-Slow when opened but eventually will progress speed
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Katrina
01/09/2008, 09:16 PM
rating
1/10
looks great but is crap to use and dosent help that i bought it off ebay and my keypad light doesnt light up and ofcourse i cant get it fixed.. grrrr
Pros: looks nice..
Cons: where should i start?
very slow, to many features for the normal person who just wants a nice phone to text on and call and prehaps take the odd pic.. i wouldnt recommend this phone to anyone- what a waste of $400. :(
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Dan at work
01/09/2008, 04:53 PM
rating
1/10
This phone is rubbish. Really slow, always freezes and turns itself off. Lacks basic features.
Pros: Wi-Fi
Cons: Freezes
Turns itself off
Takes 9 years to turn on
Drops calls
Super slow
Predictive text is dumb
Many many more.
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mrmister91
31/08/2008, 07:56 PM
rating
8/10
I have had this phone for just over a year and i find it excellent. resonably good battery provided WiFi and bluetooth are switched off. it does take longer to open messages and menus than other phones but not excessively - it does not bother me.
Pros: All these great features packed in this slim slider. quite good camera for a phone. nice design and interface, can download games & apps from the internet to install. micro SD. Email. can record phone conversation. generally a phone with advanced features compared to the mainstream ones people use today (eg. LG shine ect...)
Cons: I found that WiFi is a bit slow, and the phone gets quite warm after ~10 minutes of use (WiFi), takes around 30secs to turn on. i have not been able to get youtube working on wifi.
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Anii
24/08/2008, 11:44 AM
rating
10/10
I've had this phone for 4 months and it is GREAT !!!
I mainly use it for music and it still performs really well
I can get coverage anywhere in Australia where my friends can't
Pros: - Great design
- Good signal
-
Cons: - Laggy at start but gets quicker after you start using it
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chockolate_girl@hotmail.com
21/08/2008, 03:04 AM
rating
7/10
i had this fone for almost 2 months and honstly its not that bad at all..
Pros: very stylish look, easy slide, big screen. very good phone in general if you want to use it for calls and msgs which i do anyway..not that good in other things like games. if you keep it clean and with a soft case u will never get scrashes.
Cons: abit slow in opening msgs...easy to scratch if not taking care..abit expenisve (bought it for 500$ AUD).
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someone333
16/08/2008, 05:10 PM
rating
6/10
is it just me or does the phone's keypad not light up... really hard txting in the dark =\ if anyone could tell me how t fix it as i cant find it in the handbook anywhere
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thought through
02/08/2008, 10:50 PM
rating
1/10
i had this phone and it has no quality!!! it was replaced 3 times and fixed 2 times, and now its sitting in my draws with a brocken screen
Pros: nice to look at
Cons: - complex to use
- too many buttens
- lacks basic features
- not even worth the time to fix it
BTW i treat my phones well so it wasn't my fault that the button screwed up, screen broke, compleatly froze and lights didn't work
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Desdemona
02/08/2008, 05:07 AM
rating
2/10
Had this phone for a month and got sick of it. It really looks great, but that's all. Battery life is absolutely horrible, had to charge it every other day with minimum use. It freezes very often, restarts when it feels like it. It also offered me a new definition of the word "SLOW".
Pros: Great if you only stare at it.
Cons: Where can i start from...
- Takes a lifetime to open
- Menu freezes all the time
- Wanted to boil eggs and realized there was no countdown or, anyway, something that counts time!
- Poor battery life
- Drops calls and shows no signal for no particular reason
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sman
09/07/2008, 06:22 PM
rating
8/10
ive had my e65 for about 12 months and honsetly i have had no problems with it, it looks great and i think its and all round good phone it does the job but isnt a top end performer..i dont think its really for business users.. its just a good phone in my opinion.
Pros: *looks good
*good slider mechanism
*takes relativley good photos for 2MP.
Cons: *does take a while to open up a message and applications which is a bit annoying.
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