Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have owned Nokia Symbian smartphones since the 6682, and in the E-series, I have owned the E71 and E72. I loved both the E71 and E72 phones, and I had very high expectations for their successor. Many of my expectations were met, but the phone has several serious issues that prevented me from giving a higher rating. Form Factor & Build - 10/10 - Nokia really did their homework when putting together this phone. Symbian Anna is a nice evolution for a hybrid hard key and touch interface. I was skeptical at first, but I'm now seamlessly using both. - The phone feels very solid, and it feels a little stronger in my hands than even the E71. It is certainly sturdier than the E72. Battery Life - 10/10 - Battery life is fantastic. As with previous E-series phones, this phone was designed to go the distance. - The battery is proportionately large and makes up more than half the width of the phone. I think that it was a good move on Nokia's part to get the extra hours and is a definite advantage over most touch screen phones. As they were still able to keep the phone small, I would say it was worth putting in the larger battery. Keyboard - 6/10 The Good: - I am a hardware keyboard addict, and I loath the cell phone industry's move to all-touch phones. - In terms of feel, the E6 has another solid portrait layout keyboard from Nokia. The Bad: - I can't believe they put the apostrophe as a function access on the `L.' I would much rather have a thinner spacebar if I could still have a functional apostrophe - no question. Though not as important as the apostrophe, the double quote and parentheses were relegated to function accessed keys as well. - The `Ctrl' key now has its own, coveted bottom row position, but what's the point? The entire user guide only mentions it once, and it is supposed to help with copy and paste functionality. I didn't even remember that my E72 had this key (it was a secondary function to the `silent mode' shortcut - something foolishly done away with in the E6). - The E6 has slightly raised keys, but Nokia got rid of the domed keys from the E72 which I preferred for typing speed. - The keyboard backlight has taken a step back from previous models. By default, the backlight won't turn on in seemingly random situations and never turns on when entering the lock code - even in pitch black darkness. When I first drafted this review, I gave the keyboard a 3/10. After lots of digging and playing with settings, I found that the keyboard backlight is controlled by Menu>Settings>Phone>Display>Brightness. If you turn the brightness setting above 50%, the keyboard and screen backlights work 10x better, and the keyboard backlight is on when typing the lock code! Screen - 9/10 - The screen is beautifully detailed, the color appears accurate, and the black levels are very good. - The touch interface is remarkably good. I have found it to be one of the more accurate touch screens I have used, and multitouch gestures work consistently. - I had to mark it down slightly because the default backlight setting is much too dim and gets even dimmer when the sensor deems it appropriate. The screen is beautiful when the backlight is well-illuminated, but it's hard to read when it's often too dim at the default setting. - I immediately deactivated the touchscreen vibrations as they felt cheap and were noisy. Notifications - 5/10 - I really miss the `breathing light' from the previous two phones. This made the phone brilliantly easy to watch for the status of emails, sms, and calls even when the phone had to be completely silent during a meeting. There is a menu setting to enable the breathing light (off by default), but it seems to have respiratory problems as it is dim and hard to view off-axis. - I have not had any problems with the vibration as reported by other users. Symbian tailors vibrations to match audio tones even when the tones are turned off, and they might just need to make a tweak to get it working properly again. - The charging light is annoying, bright, and cannot be turned off in the settings menus. I have to cover my phone when I place it on my nightstand. - Email notifications are abysmal - More on this later. Sensors - 8/10 GPS: Seems to work well as in previous models and is able to quickly lock on a signal. Electronic Compass: This is a pretty slick new feature, but it seems to be a little off. I have retried the built-in calibration every way I can think, and it still seems to be about 10degrees off. It also doesn't notice if I turn the phone 180degrees. Accelerometer: I haven't found many practical uses for this feature on the Symbian Anna phone, and I quickly disabled the feature to deny calls or turn off my alarm by `turning' the phone. This seems like a recipe for missing calls and oversleeping, and I'm surprised it is enabled by default without warning the user. Camera - 6/10 - I would rather have fewer megapixels in exchange for better picture quality, and unfortunately Nokia decided to pack an unwieldy number of pixels (8MP) in the little E6. To be honest, a close inspection of the pictures makes them appear as if they have been upconverted, but this could simply be a result of trying to rescue an image from a sensor with such tiny pixels. The camera would be far better with half the megapixels, the E72's autofocus lens, and newer low-noise sensor technology rather than an 8MP pixel density on such a tiny chip. - The autofocus camera from previous models had far superior contrast and sharpness compared to this "endless depth of field" camera. This is important to me as I like to be able to use my cell as a document camera when traveling, something EDoF cameras are notoriously poor at. Some reviewers have reported better results with this camera when shooting portraits and landscapes, but I rarely take a photo of something further than an arm's length away. Email - 1/10 => Abysmal (I would give the E72's email an 8.5/10) Though the interface is similar to previous models, the email on the E6 has taken a huge plunge. As a reference point, I have pushed the capabilities of Nokia email for several years using four or five different accounts of various types at any given time. Nokia sold their push email company due to financial problems, and they have already removed true push capabilities from the E6. This causes a multitude of problems: - Emails take so long to arrive that carrying on an email conversation is impractical. I have conducted tests on Exchange, Gmail, and imap accounts, and the fastest arrival time was 4 minutes, the longest was 13 minutes, and the average was about 8 minutes. Compared to the E72's nearly instant email around the clock, this is a huge disappointment. It doesn't sound like long on paper, but it's a huge pain in actual use. - After buying a new phone or performing a hard reset, the phone will no longer download all settings from Nokia's secure servers. This made setting this phone up frustrating. - Unlike the quick configuration of the E72 and E71 email clients that utilized Nokia's push service, setting up all my accounts has been a nightmare on the E6. Though it quickly accepted the settings of one imap account, it still refuses to accept another. When I got into the settings, it had reset the incoming server to the smtp server (a result of sloppy coding), and it still won't work after reconfiguring all the settings. I had no trouble configuring this account on my E72. - As on previous models, only one Exchange account is allowed. This is quite frustrating for anyone who has more than one, and the workarounds (the aforementioned imap account) are ineffective and very limited. SMS - 9.5/10 (I would have ranked the system in the E71 or E72 a 3/10) - The sms interface is much improved over any Nokia device I have previously used. - The threading not only replaces free-isms which I had used previously but works even better with a cleaner interface. - I have to mark it down a half point as there are aspects of the interface that still need a little tweaking. While it has improved a great deal, the user experience design still has a little ways to go to streamline message replying, forwarding, and flow between senders, time, and the homescreen. Browsing and Tethering - 9/10 (8/10 for Browsing and 10/10 for Tethering - Symbian phones have never had great browsers, but I have always found them functional. Like previous models, the browser is a little outdated and weak, but it works for 95% of the internet. I admit that this is very frustrating in the 5% of time that demand more, but I haven't ever worried much about it as I always have a laptop to tether nearby. - The browser on the E6 is an improvement over previous models, and touch speeds up browsing. - I have to lower the rating because there are several features that are poorly designed - Several features that wouldn't make any sense to a user who hadn't previously used the keyboard only version. For example, RSS feeds can only be removed using the D-pad and backspace key, something I found immensely frustrating using touch until I remembered the keyboard way to do it. - For the record, I don't use Opera because I don't like my data tunneling through 3rd party servers - just a personal preference due to privacy management. - Tethering on this phone is top notch. Assuming you have a laptop nearby, it makes up for many of the browsing shortcomings. - Tethering speeds are much higher than speeds on the built in browser. I don't know why the built in browser is slow, but the tethering speeds are nice and fast! A note on JoikuSpot Premium: I have been a paid user of JoikuSpot Premium for several years, and I was excited to see Nokia include this package in the default lineup. This application and off-the-grid tethering are one of the E6's greatest selling points. Nokia was very wise to put this on the E6, and secure WEP tethering is really slick on the E6. Included Software - 9/10 Disclaimer: I'm no app junky, and as a business user, I don't care about games. - Maps: A surprisingly robust, well written, functional application. This is definitely one of the selling points of Nokia Ovi phones that include unlimited, free navigation using Ovi Maps. It has timely information for route planning, it nicely integrates satellite and map views, and it has a great interface. With touch, I find this to be a 10/10 application. That being said, I still use Google maps for finding local businesses. - Adobe Reader & Quickoffice: Both solid programs that come in handy from time to time. 10/10 - Social: This isn't a feature I have used or played with. I did try to open it briefly while writing this review, and it wouldn't die when I pressed exit. I had to turn the phone off and on to exit. meh/10 - Ovi Store: The appstore is awful. If Nokia would just filter out the junk, it would be far better, but unfortunately most of the store is junk. I'm still offering a 9/10 for the software as I don't really need much more out of a cell phone than is included by default. I occasionally see something cool I wish I had (like the night sky augmented reality programs on iOS and Android), but I don't think about this often. Interface - 4/10 - Home Screen: This is an unfortunate step back from previous models. To be honest, I preferred the E72 with a single homescreen to the 3 I have configured on the E6 due to the E72's responsiveness. The E6 homescreens take several seconds to update when I switch between them, and this makes flipping between them impractical. You can actually see the email application marking emails read before loading new emails as you wait to see if anything new has arrived. If you flip at a normal pace, you can flip past the screen before it has even loaded new emails. - Widgets: The E6 has added additional support for Widgets, but they aren't particularly effective. To test their functionality, I downloaded several from the Ovi store. The Accuweather takes 4 or 5 seconds to update once you flip to its homescreen (15 seconds after restarting the phone sometimes), and newsfeeds have to be manually updated. While this sounds trivial, this is something that could be easily done in the background. Complaining about 5 seconds sounds silly, but it's very frustrating to spend 15 seconds to check my three homescreens for email, the outside temperature, and my calendar. Multimedia - 10/10 Radio: I have never used the FM radio on any Symbian phone I have owned. Music Player: A surprisingly good interface, and the 8GB of built-in storage + microSD allow for carrying a nice music collection. As an mp3 player, I'm surprisingly pleased and sound quality seems very good. Video Player: I think video playback looks really good! The high resolution screen really shines with video playback, and I haven't noticed any playback hiccups. However, I should mention that I'm not one to watch anything longer than a few minutes on my phone. Streaming Media - Nada The lack of steaming multimedia options isn't Nokia's fault entirely, but it's something worth considering when buying a new phone. Streaming Netflix: This is becoming a pretty standard feature on other platforms, and it's noticeably absent when the Netflix app only allows you to modify your queue. Streaming Music: Spotify is supposed to offer some support for Symbian (haven't tried it myself), but all of the other major players including Pandora do not. Security - 9/10 - I'm pretty zealous about protecting my laptop and cell phone from data theft even though it's never been a problem for me. When I consider how much of my life and identity is accessible via my mobile devices and email, it makes this an important enterprise class feature. - The E6's support for encrypting the phone, built-in mass storage, and microSD memory is commendable and really stands out. It doesn't take long to activate, and I assume it's pretty effective. - I marked down my security rating because the lock out code is so darn hard to access in the dark with the default backlight setting (you can't see the keyboard at all). This is the third time I am marking off points because the default backlight setting is too dim to see the screen or keyboard backlight. Bottom Line - 6.97/10 => 3/5 (SEE END OF REVIEW FOR UPDATED 2/5) I loved this phone when I first got it, but aspects have becoming disappointing with more use. In fact, I loved this phone so much in the first few days that I wanted to order another to replace my wife's E63! There were a few little things that were annoying at first, but I was sure they would work themselves out over time. Unfortunately, some of those irritations have become larger problems. The slow interface and asinine email service are by far the worst of any Nokia E-series device I have owned, and it's feeling like the E-series designers jumped ship with the Microsoft takeover looming. I am giving a 3/5 star rating based on increasing the backlight setting a great deal, but I would have given a 2/5 had this option not been available considering this effects so many aspects of the interface and usability. Overall, my feelings on this phone fluctuate between 2 stars (don't recommend) and 4 stars (recommend with caution), an ambiguity I don't normally feel. On one hand I love the touch/hardware hybrid, new sms interface, security features, tethering, battery life, and media player. On the other hand, I hate the email client, homescreens, notifications, widgets, streaming media, and camera. Though I have stood by the Nokia Symbian platform for years and really wanted to love this phone, I have begun to reconsider my loyalties after owning the underwhelming E6. UPDATES: - To address concerns of other reviewers concerning the vibrate mode, I put my phone in a custom 'vibrate only' profile. Though I agree that the vibrate is not particularly strong, I have found it to still be reliable. A weak vibrate has pros and cons - it's quieter, but it's also easy to miss. Remember that sometimes Symbian requires you to keep an audio ring that's turned all the way down for vibrate to work properly. - I have to tone back my glowing review of the new SMS interface. For each contact, only the last 12 messages are stored in the conversation queue (which translates to only 6 messages each). When "Show Older Messages" is selected, the most recent messages disappear, and dumping messages from new to old occurs automatically even when you're trying to read them. I would expect much better functionality from a phone in this class. I also believe that the SMS interface requires too many presses to navigate from a user interface perspective. - I have noticed that the touch screen doesn't work on hot, humid days. I don't know how this compares to other phones, and I don't understand this defect very well. I have found this problem to be most apparent after removing the phone from my face on humid days outdoors. The touch screen is inaccessible until the phone has sat in air conditioning for a few minutes. RETURNED: Deciding whether to keep or return a cell phone is a very personal decision, and it's not one that I can make for anyone else. Based on my demands for an enterprise class phone, the Nokia E6 couldn't hold its own. The irritations became problems, and the problems became deal-breakers. I've ultimately decided that the means don't justify the ends. The E6 fell short of my expectations after owning previous Nokia enterprise phones, but I don't know that I would have been happier if I hadn't relied on the E71 and E72 for several years. To be honest, I think I would have liked the phone even less not knowing the legacy commands, menus, and settings. Last night I ordered a "like new," store returned E72 to replace my E6, and I'm looking forward to sliding it in my pocket. UPDATED NOTE ON CALL QUALITY: I have found the call quality of this phone to quickly deteriorate with use. After a month of use, calls are often either disconnected or the other caller could hear me while they sounded as if they were at the end of a long tunnel. Other phones using the same service had no trouble calling from the same location while I was losing calls or had hopeless call quality. The call quality was solid when I first wrote the above review, but use during the final two weeks of my return period showed rapid loss of signal quality. DUE TO THIS SERIOUS ISSUE, I am lowering my rating of the phone to a 2/5.