E66 - Sexy Solid Slider, And One More S…
If you watched this week’s Driving With The Guru, you must know that I attended the “Convergence of Mobility and Nokia Internet Strategy” press conference in Lebanon, where the N78 was finally unleashed on the local market, and the new E66 and E71 were officially announced. During the event, I was able to handle all 3 handsets for a while and test them out. Today, I will talk a little bit about my first impressions with the E66, but stay tuned for the 2 next days because I will also tackle the N78 as well as the E71.
Recently, my friend bought an E65 and simply comparing the slider to my N95 made me realize how poor the N95 is built compared to Eseries, and even swear hatred to Nseries sliders. The E66 builds upon that, with a Solid Slider, probably better than the E65, but adds a 3rd S to the equation with a very Sexy look and feel. It is also very compact and thin, but with decent sized screen and keys. Of course, these aren’t the only conveniences that the E66 brings to the table: in fact it is improved in every single aspect in comparison with the E65.
The reason why I am talking about the E65 here is because it was a surprising device for me, as I believe it was one of the success stories for the Eseries line and was carried by many ordinary consumers, and not only by business people. It might have been due to the red and brown color schemes, to the solid slider feel, to the slimness factor, to the “ordinary look” compared to the E61i or the E90, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it had the potential to reach average consumers, and bring S60’s power to them in a very elegant and capable design.
The E66, in my own opinion, will build upon that success story, and probably even surpass the E65 because of one fact: it kinda looks like a Samsung, and that is the 4th S in the equation. There, I said it, sue me. I don’t mean this in a bad way, oh far from that, this might be by far one of the best things that could happen to the E66. Why? Because Samsung is known for building awesome sliders, because consumers already associate Samsung with the shiny metallic slider form factor, and because it might appeal to Samsung users as well as make it easy for them to feel right at home and therefore simplify the switching process to S60.
Picture taken by Antoine Naaman, T3 Middle East editor.
Let’s not forget that the E66 sports a decent 3.2 MP camera with Autofocus, GPS, A2DP, a new improved Standby, WiFi and HSDPA, a built-in dictionary, full Office license, Share Online, Nokia Music Store, … and one of the best surprises for this handset: an accelerometer with two built-in functions. The first one is autorotation which works everywhere on the phone (even the standby screen which doesn’t seem to be supported on the N82), and the second is the flip-to-silence feature. By emphasizing on this huge set of features, Nokia will easily rock the E66 to the market.
Out of the impressions I’ve read, there seems to be things coming up over and over again.
E-series Phones:
- Higher quality build (Metal, frames, slider etc.)
- Camera is with lower resolution (Not that it necessarily means so much)
- Smarter productivity functions (Calendar, shortcuts)
- No N-gage support
- Handling of media is not the main focus.
N-series Phones:
- Build is of poorer quality (Plastic, bad sliders, keypad)
- Camera with higher resolution
- Not so great productivity (QuickOffice Viewer only, Mail for Exchange can be installed, more dependent on 3rd party applications)
- N-gage support.
- Handling of media is main focus.
All my Nokia devices have been N-series (Except “ugly” 6600),
as I do appreciate multimedia functionality besides som little gaming on my device.
I got several productivty applications on my device such as Profimail and QuickOffice (just to mention some few)
I would consider an E-series device if it wasn’t for the camera resolution and lack of Xenon flash (Addicted after using N82)
There have always been a thin red line separating those two series of phones.
Even though this line have been thinner, I do believe Nokia will keep separating them due to the targeted markets.
Looking forward to see your impressions on the other devices.
N78 with its FM-transmitter (which unfortunately is not available all over the world due to country laws).
The E71 do look slick with its materials and its slimness.
Just one thing. The key captions/legends/icons/whatever you wanna call them are HORRIBLE. I like the idea of a house-shaped thing, but that one is bad. Bad bad looking. And so ar the other three ’shortcuts’. Spoils the design imho. I may be picky here, I know, but there are studies that show that the majority of handset purchase decision are based on looks (and impulse). Those captions are anything BUT sexy in my book, and it’s a pity, since the rest of the handset is nice. Pretty much similar to the E51. Has anyone noticed how we now have different design languages for the E and N series? Very different but still very similar inside each line. Cute.
@Vlad: each to his own I guess, but the “home” key and the other three for calendar, messaging and contacts on my E51 are probably the most useful items on the handset, in addition to the slim form factor and solid build.
I can’t wait to get my hands on an E66, because it seems that Nokia listened to consumers and dramatically improved the “could be better” features of the E65.
Isn’t it too overpriced…?
otherwise its a stunner
Cheung Yuen Wong,
it’s always nice to see that our readers are interested in what we have to say, but also that they want to bring us their personal opinion, which is one of the reasons that make this work interesting.
I definitely agree with you, the line is getting thinner, but the separation will always exist no matter what, which is something I loathe. I would love Nokia to remove these stupid series, and introduce overall devices, but I guess it’s a marketing strategy, and business users will always love to carry a device that has the business smell, and multimedia junkies will always love to differentiate themselves with a special serie phone.
Also Chueng, I’d like to thank you for being a regular commenter here on Symbian-Guru, with a bunch of insightful comments
alcatraz,
I agree with you, the labels might not be super duper cute and lovable, but they are in sync with the icons in the phone’s menu and they make it easy for the average consumer to know what they do by default. The customization option on these keys will probably make them the ones I will use most often when I get the E71.
Gomcoit,
With all the functionality it brings, and probably operator subsidies when it’s released, i don’t think it’s overpriced.
When will nokia listen to consumers working in secure areas?? I want the E71 without camera…. Not even the E51 without camera is available in India
Ajit, Nokia has previously released cam-free versions of phones, like the E61 (not the E61i) and the E51 without a cam that you mention. I sure hope they will release a cam-free version of the E66 or the E71, as it is needed.
Jun 22nd, 2008 at 5:01 am
[...] talking about my initial impressions with the E66 yesterday, I will today go deeper with the Mobile World Congress announced N78 that has just been [...]
Jun 24th, 2008 at 7:17 am
[...] Link [...]
Jun 25th, 2008 at 12:39 am
[...] can read my first impressions of the E66 when I first handled it last Thursday during the press conference. Basically all I said by then was [...]