Nokia E7 (E7-00)

The device
At 4" the device has one of the largest displays Nokia have ever put into a device. All displays of 4" or more are communicators in the 9000 series and the E90 communicator. The Nokia E7 being a communicator it is quite fitting to have a 4" screen. It seems to me that Nokia have analysed and researched the maximum ideal device size for comfortable holding in various hand sizes and probably the sizes of pockets etc and that the biggest ideal device screen size seems to be about 4" and the biggest ideal device size is around about 120mm high by 60mm wide. The Nokia E7 is 123.7mm by 62.4mm by 13.6mm so the Nokia E7 is a very good size. The casing for the Nokia E7 is made from anodised Aluminium in a couple of different colours. There is Micro USB, Mini HDMI, 3.5mm audio socket, SIM card tray, volume slider, camera button, dual microphone (for noise cancellation, lanyard attach point, and lock slider 8 MP camera with two led flash units, and a keyboard underneath the slide up screen.

Screen
The display is a 4" capacitive touchscreen AMOLED with ClearBlack Display technology. Clear Black Display technology makes it much more viewable in direct sunlight and increases the contrast. The display is big, bright and vibrant. Using AMOLED technology probably also helps extend the battery life and save space and give better contrast. LCD displays have a back light behind them that shines through the colour and the backlight must be constantly on even if the majority of the screen is black. With AMOLED the coloured light is actually emitted from the layer itself. Which saves having extra space taken up by a light behind. Each AMOLED pixel only uses electricity when it is producing light. On a mostly black screen only the pixels that are producing light use electricity which would give a saving of battery life. Additionally because each AMOLED pixel produces the light itself there is not really any light leaking into neighbouring pixels as can sometimes happen with LCD which has a back light behind shining through the LCD which increases the contrast. AMOLED also looks more vibrant as it is emitting light instead of white light passing through a filter and being dulled as in LCD. The combination of AMOLED and Clear Black Display makes the bights brighter and the darks darker. I think this probably gives the screen on the Nokia E7 the highest dynamic range of any mobile screen. I suggest looking in the photo gallery at the evening shot with coloured lights reflected across a harbour to really see the full extent of the lusciousness of this screen.

Keyboard
The keyboard is quite well spaced and the keys are slightly curved toward the edges, which can only be seen by looking along the keyboard from the front. The keys feel like they could be used extensively for long periods of time without thumbs becoming sore. Nokia said that they prototyped ten different keyboard designs before choosing the keyboard design that they have put in the Nokia E7. The keys are also backlit.

Operating System
The Nokia E7 runs Symbian^3 Operating System which is the newest progression of the Symbian Operating which would be familiar to a large number of people. This will enable most people to get started and up to speed very quickly, and efficiency of voice and text based communication is what this device is designed to achieve being an E Series Communicator. There are three home screens that can be personalised with up to six widgets and the background can be chosen as well.
Nokia have stated that the Operating System will get at least two updates this year. The first update (PR2.0, or Symbian Anna) will bring improved onscreen portrait qwerty keyboard and split screen input (with the keyboard closed), improved web browser (increased speed, 3x faster than before, back button always visible and better page tab interface), there are 50 improvements in this update. The second major update this year (PR3.0) will bring a new interface with new resizable home screen widgets and icons able to be placed separately instead of in pre-defined widget sizes. Also in PR3.0 will be a new web browser that will be updated separately from the Operating System. Clearly Nokia does have a road map of improvements and updates and will be rolling them out and continuing to progress Symbian^3.

Media
The Nokia E7 has very good media capabilities with HDMI and Dolby Digital 5.1 output. Videos can be output over HDMI to a TV/Monitor or Projector. I purchased and used a HDMI to DVI adapter and it works. That means the device can output to devices that don't have HDMI but have DVI which widens the list of available output options. Movies are outputted at HD with Dolby Digital sound over HDMI or 3.5mm jack or the built in loud speaker or bluetooth. A beta application made by Nokia called Big Screen provides a gallery for music playback, video selection and playback, picture gallery, and slideshow with music. This application also does karaoke videos and videos with subtitles which I haven't used. The application also includes a screensaver starts after a minute to save burn in on the output device. Plasma TV's would be the most likely to suffer from burn in so this is a cleaver feature. The application changes the device screen to a basic remote to control the media on the output device. The Nokia E7 also mirrors the screen output over the HDMI connection without the Big Screen application other than when displaying videos or QuickOffice PowerPoint full screen which are in HD.
The Nokia E7 can output Microsoft Office Powerpoint up to version 2007 over HDMI in HD. This means that PowerPoint presentations can be delivered from the Nokia E7 to any device that will accept HDMI (or DVI) like board rooms, conference rooms etc.

Storage
The Nokia E7 contains 16GB Memory to store any documents, music, videos etc. There is a file manager to access, move, copy and delete files. The Nokia E7 does not have a Micro SD card slot. I don't think this should be a problem as 16GB is quite a lot of storage and there are numerous applications and providers offering solutions that can enable remote drives to extend the internal 16GB storage using cloud storage for little or no cost. The Nokia E7 can also attach multiple remote drives using WebDAV. Alternatively if a company had an internal server with shared documents I think this could be setup with a VPN remote drive and files could securely be accessed remotely on the Nokia E7 while away from the office. This would be a very good feature for some business users and a big boost to productivity.

USB OTG
USB On The Go is able to use USB sticks and some other USB devices. I was able to plug in a wireless keyboard and mouse receiver and use the wireless keyboard and mouse on screen using a HDMI to DVI adapter to a 21.5" 1080p screen. I was able to use Quickoffice document, spread sheet and presentation with a mouse and keyboard on a monitor without a computer. I think how all this functionality combines together creates some interesting possibilities and increases the flexibilities and options for the travelling business user to create/prepare or deliver business communications on the go. Alternatively this would allow people to plug the Nokia E7 into a HD TV and surf the internet from the couch using a Bluetooth keyboard.

Connectivity
The Nokia E7 has Penta (5) band 3G connectivity and Quad (4) band 2G connectivity means the Nokia E7 should be able to access coverage in probably just about any continent in the world. The Penta Band 3G connectivity is up to 10Mbps down speed and 2Mbps up speed.
The Nokia E7 also has WiFi B, G and N at 2.4GHz
BT 3.0 with A2DP is included.

Tethering
Another handy feature included for free in all Nokia Smart Phones is tethering or the ability to use the phone as a modem to connect a computer to the internet. This can be done over USB or Bluetooth. There is also an application called Joikuspot that creates a WiFi hotspot using the phone's data plan there is two versions a free, lite, application and a paid, premium, application with more features.

Camera
The camera is 8 Mega Pixel Full Focus, which means that everything is in focus all the time, the camera does not need to spend time adjusting focus depth to whatever is in the field of view. When taking a picture everything in the field of view is always in focus, including the foreground and the background. This I think is quite a good idea and something I like a lot. When a specific depth of focus on other focusing cameras is used the background of pictures are often out of focus which is not very often how it looks to the naked eye. There are a lot of positives I see from the Full Focus camera. Everything is in focus all the time. No time spent waiting for focus to adjust. The camera module doesn't take up as much room, which lets the device be thinner, and gives more room for the battery, which increases the amount of time between battery charges. In a word, efficient.
There is also quite a lot of more advanced options when taking pictures if desired. The default setting is auto and colour tone default is normal which gives a more accurate colour representation, there is also vivid if higher saturation colour is desired.
There is a Panorama application in the Ovi Store which guides through taking multiple pictures and the application stitches the pictures together automatically after the pictures have been taken.
There is also a HDR Photo Camera application in the Ovi Store that creates HDR images using the camera which I have tried. It is good.
The Nokia E7 includes a dual LED flash for the camera which can function as a torch when needed. To activate the torch go to the home screen and swipe and hold the lock swipe down for two seconds and then swipe and hold the lock swipe down for two seconds again. I found the torch to be remarkably bright.

Applications
Mail for Exchange is included. It uses Microsoft Active Sync to synchronise directly with the Microsoft Exchange server to push email to the device for free with no additional software required. Mail for Exchange requires no special phone or data plans, just an ordinary data plan that is included in almost all mobile phone plans currently. The Nokia E7 also has support for Lotus Notes email which I didn't use.
Lifetime Nokia Messaging push email is included for free. This enables the device to check up to 10 different email addresses and push them to the device.
The synchronisation or push emails can all be setup to be pushed between certain hours on certain days of the week or set to be manual check or automatically checked at certain time intervals. It is very configurable.
Email inbox widgets can be configured to the home screens which show the title of the inbox and the two latest emails and the home screen widgets will update as new emails arrive automatically. This enables simply glancing at the screen to see the latest two email subject and sender information.
Gravity is an iconic program for Twitter users on Nokia and many say it has the best Twitter User Interface on a mobile device and has a home screen widget also.

Voice Guided Turn By Turn GPS Navigation
For voice guided street name navigation there is Nokia Ovi Maps which is also free. With this navigation solution the maps are pre-loaded for the relevant country and the device can be used off line. Many other navigation solutions require a constant connection to the internet to download the maps as they are needed, which could be a problem if navigation is required where there is no internet coverage. Additionally alternative voices may be recorded or downloaded with the OwnVoice application available in Nokia Ovi Maps.
Quickoffice supplies the Office document viewing and editing for Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and Adobe PDF reader.
F-Secure Anti-Theft is included for free. (Posted on 19/06/11)

The first thing i noticed about the phone was just how amazing its design was. the neat lines and smoothed surfaced metal give it a very sophisticated look. However. Symbian, feels, old. there haven't really been any new features added to Symbian for a while and therefore i feel like the phone has gone to waste because of it. (Posted on 19/06/11)

Actually SAD according to Nokia's own website ther is a Secondary camera for video calls (VGA, 640 x 480 pixels)

The Phone is a gorgeous piece of kit and if you like symbian it's a terriffic Mercedes quality smartphone (Posted on 4/06/11)

I had a chance to play with this phone today when they had a demo stand at Melbourne Central. I was really impressed.

After having been disappointed at the unusable keyboard of the n97 (I returned it) this keyboard is great. I can really type on it and the alt shift key (little arrow whatever it's called) is better located. I wouldn't write anovel on it but I could seriously write long e-mails and memos etc. Also it includes software that can edit MS-Word files without having to pay for an extra app. The n900's keyboard is better than the n97's and the E7's keyboard is mcuh better than the n900's. (I still love my n900 though because it's fast and runs LINUX). I didn't use the virtual (on screen) keyboard much but the little test typing Idid seemed pretty good.

The speed was great. After the sluggish n97 this was really impressive. You can scroll FAST. Instead of doing what it wanted to like other phones I've used it felt really responsive. LIke it could go as fast as you want. The scrolling was as fast as the LINUX based Nokia n900; maybe even slightly faster! I was able to scroll around MP3 libraries quickly and open a ripped copy of a DVD movie. The bloke said it was because it has four processors: one for video, one for audio, one for computing and one for something else.

The build quality is incredible. It feels really solid. It's made of metal not plastic. The rep claimed that the screen is made of the same material that they use for Apache helicopter windscreens. I don't know if that's true but he did punch the screen hard right in front of me and scrapped it with a coin and it didn't leave a mark. He claimed it makes screen protectors obsolete. I'm not sure if that's really true but I reckon the E7 could take a few bumps in your backpack or briefcase and come out ok.

The only possible gripe is that the camera is 8MP is stead of the 12MP that the N8 has. But honestly my n900 only has 5MP and the movies I shoot on it look fine on my desktop's 22 inch LCD monitor. So unless you're a professional photographer or serious hardcore hobbyist 8MP is probably plenty. I assume a pro or serious amateur would want a digital SLR or dedicated video camera anyway.

In short I feel like Nokia's finally gotten everything right. I'll probably stick with my n90 for now because I just bought it and like tinkering with LINUX but the E7 will likely be my next computer phone. (Posted on 12/05/11)

Pretty safe to say that this phone is the best all rounder I've used. Would have been nice to have the 12 mp camera, however they probably couldn't fit it in. Lots of features, business apps are great and a nice solid feel. (Posted on 2/05/11)

best smart fone on the market (Posted on 8/04/11)

by the looks of it, Nokia have again chosen to go with the non-bevelled, flat, rubbery and almost zero feedback key design--an implementation i really hate in my n97. since i do most of of my communication through e-mail and messaging, i've really missed the thumb friendly E71 design.

not sure who thought this would be a good idea. i'd have snapped one of these babies up right away, otherwise. (Posted on 20/11/10)

no video call (Posted on 28/09/10)

good phone but The camera should be 12 mp (Posted on 17/09/10)