| Review of the Nokia E51 |
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The E51 is a slender and thin Smartphone from Nokia the sports many of the features found in some of their larger PDA models (but without the full QWERTY keyboard). The E51 therefore looks more like a standard candy bar cell phone, but it processes many of the features expected from higher-end models.
The Nokia E51 is not available through any Canadian provider. Posted: 03-Jun-2008
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Before reading this review, please read
Some Thoughts on Phone Reviewing.
RF Performance
Click on this link for a full description of
RF Performance, and how to interpret it.
RF Sensitivity: The E51 was taken along to
Square One at the same time as the Nokia 5200.
Both of these phones performed very well in the Hall of Shame and
exhibited equal RF sensitivity. Bear in mind however that the E51 supports
standard GSM and UMTS. The 5200 is a standard
GSM phone only, and so comparisons were made on standard GSM. This is only the
3rd UMTS phone I’ve been able to test, and so I didn’t have too much to go on
when it came to RF sensitivity in that mode. However, based on the performance
of the Nokia 6120 Classic and the
Ericsson K850i, the E51 did exceptionally
well.
Over-the-road Performance: In standard GSM mode the
E51 does quite well at taming the ever-present handoffs. Most of the handoffs I
observed throughout the tests were far less obtrusive than is the norm for
Nokia, putting the E51 near the head of the pack in this regard. In UMTS mode,
where handoffs are not an issue, the phone did an excellent job of providing
clean audio with few detectable frame errors or “burps”. This compares well to
the 6120 Classic and the K850i, but I have no other references to compare to.
Suffice it to say that the E51 performed about as well in UMTS mode as I would
have imaged it could.
Audio Performance
Click on this link for a full description of
Audio Performance, and how to interpret it.
Sound Reproduction: In my original review, I said
the following: Astute readers will note that I
normally discuss Tonal Balance before I discuss Sound Reproduction. There was
never any specific reason for it being done in that order, but in the case of
the E51 I have a very good reason for examining the reproduction first. The E51
that I tested had a very poor earpiece speaker that suffered from severe
sympathetic vibrations. These vibrations are perceived as distortion that makes
the audio sound crackly. The earpiece also had a rather coarse sound to it that
might have been the fault of the amplifier circuits in the phone, but given its
other glaring weakness it was easier to believe that the physical earpiece was
the culprit.
The question I cannot answer from testing just one example of the E51 is will
the earpiece on ALL examples of this model be the same, or did I just get a
lemon? According to Howard Chu, from whom I borrowed the phone, he’d run into
many other examples of Nokia phones that exhibited the same sympathetic
vibrations, thus leading him to believe that the fault lie with the design of
the earpiece. If that’s true, then you can expect all E51s to have similar
problems.
Over the following year Howard
Chu tried numerous fixes to get ride of the sympathetic vibrations, but until
just recently (September of 2009) he hadn't found a solution. As we long
suspected, the problem was unique that one specific phone, in that there was a
problem with the frame that caused the vibrations. I re-tested the audio and the
E51 sounded just fine. It had very good sound reproduction that was right up
there with most of the current Nokia models.
Tonal Balance: In my original review, I said the
following: It was a little hard to appreciate
the tonal balance of the E51 with the previously-mentioned earpiece problems at
front-and-center. However, it is my opinion that if you listen beyond the
cracking and distortion created the earpiece, the underlying tonal balance is
actually very good. The sound is generally quite rich and there doesn’t appear
to be any signs of harshness. It is just a shame that you can’t truly appreciate
this due to the other failings of the earpiece.
With the fixes recently made
to the phone, the tonal balance sounds great. The phone has just the right
amount of low-end to give it a rich sound that is actually a bit better than
many of the other Nokia models I've tested since last summer.
Earpiece Volume: I wasn’t particularly pleased with
the maximum earpiece volume. Even when cranked up to full, the E51 produces
insufficient volume to be easily used in noisy environments, such as crowded
shopping malls or along noisy streets. If your caller is faint to begin with, it
is quite likely that you’ll be unable to hear them under harsh conditions.
Outgoing Audio: Happily this is one area where the
audio quality of the E51 comes out ahead. The overall quality and smoothness of
the outgoing audio was exceptional, and the phone’s ability to handle loud
background noise, while hardly award-winning, it definitely near the top of the
pack (especially for Nokia phones in general). It certainly didn’t suffer from
the show-stopping problem I’d found on the 5200.
Speakerphone: The phone produces reasonable volume levels with what has to the richest sound
I’ve ever heard from a small cell phone speaker. Sadly it does suffer from some
sympathetic vibration (which is not uncommon to most speakerphones), but not
enough to be much of an issue. You can’t use the feature in harsh environments,
but under any normal circumstances where one might be tempted to use a
speakerphone, the E51 delivers the goods with extraordinary quality.
Support Features
Ringer Volume: As is often the case, an excellent
speakerphone translates into excellent ringtone volume. The E51 doesn’t
disappoint in this regard. Even the musical ringers are loud enough to hear in
places where other cell phones would be inaudible. No, the E51 doesn’t hold a
candle to the mega-loud ringers found on iDEN phones, but it rises to the top of
the pack compared to just about anything else.
Keypad Design: The E51 suffers from a real estate
crunch that is common to many modern candy bar designs. Screens have become
physically large and this inevitably crowds out the keypad. To its credit the
E51 had good key feel and the spacing of the 12 number keys is fine. The problem
with the design (as is the case with many Nokia candy bar and slider designs) is
the softkeys and the 4-way cursor pad. These keys are either way too skinny (the
softkeys) or way too difficult to discern from one other (the 4-way pad). I
won’t say that this is the worst keypad I’ve tested on a Nokia phone, because
it’s far from it. However, it is also far from being a great keypad design. I
guess the fairest assessment is to call it an adequate keypad design.
Display: Provided is Nokia’s excellent 320 x 240
TFT color display. It has vibrant colors and it is surprisingly easy to see in
direct sunlight. It doesn’t provide the amazingly-reflective background found on
the Nokia 5200, but it does something that very few TFT display can: it actually
reflects sunlight internally. This is important because the brighter the sun
gets, the better you can see the display. Sure, the colors aren’t so great in
direct sunshine, but you can at least READ the display and easily see
important information. This makes the E51 display one of the best compromises
between indoor and outdoor performance that I’ve seen. Hopefully this means that
future Nokia models will be endowed with the same great display.
Icing on the Cake
Camera: Oh dear, what can I say about Nokia cameras
that hasn’t already been said. Like virtually all of the Nokia 2-megapixel
cameras before it, the one in the E51 is afflicted with the same flaw that
renders an otherwise decent camera nothing more than a toy. I’m referring to the
penchant to make gray look green in such a way that it’s virtually impossible to
rescue using any combination of color filters in Photoshop.
WiFi: The E51 includes WiFi, which allows you to
make use of data services without actually using the bucket of bytes in your
data plan, as well as taking advantage of much higher data speeds for streaming
media. Unlike previous Nokia models I'd tried with WiFi, I had no problem
connecting to various types WiFi setups using the E51.
Conclusions
The E51 is really good phone, but the inadequate earpiece volume steals any
chance of this phone has of ever getting on my must-have list. However, earpiece
volume aside, the phone provides all of the great qualities that Nokia has
managed to engineer into most of the models I'd test of late.
