Through the years, we’ve seen a gradual stream of industrial and messaging-centric landscape QWERTY smartphones come and go, with HTC arguably leading the pack via its selection of Windows Mobile, Android, and WP7 devices featuring sliding keyboards and tilt-out displays. But few of HTC’s offerings are as iconic or memorable as Nokia’s line of Communicator clamshell phones — starting with the Nokia 9000 in 1996, continuing with Symbian S80 models, and culminating with the Nokia E90 atop S60v3.
The Nokia E7 is the newest during this distinguished succession of Communicators and the manufacturer’s current flagship device, dethroning the Nokia N8 which continues on because the company’s media mogul. Now that the E7 is finally shipping within the US , we are able to start to answer about a outstanding questions on Nokia’s latest high-end device. Is it the best Communicator thus far? Can it carry the torch for Symbian inside the immediate future? And more importantly, how does it fare in today’s shark-infested Android and iOS waters? Jump past the break for our full review.
Hardware
Let’s make something abundantly clear: black or silver, the Nokia E7 is one gorgeous piece of hardware. It’d not have the proportions of the Dieter Rams-inspired 0 iPhone 4 0 , however it’s a handsome and refined phone that could definitely compete in the case of materials and build quality. The E7 design language mimics its N8 sibling, and includes a flattened aluminum cylinder that includes a 4-inch glass-capacitive touchscreen on one side, a tumbler window protecting the 8 megapixel camera and dual-LED flash at the other side, and tapered plastic covers hiding antennas and connectors at each end. From front the E7 seems like a bigger N8, but on the way to accommodate the physical keyboard, the body is sliced longitudinally into two sections. The thinner “half” houses the lean-out display and the menu key (centered below the touchscreen), the opposite “half” contains the keyboard, the camera, and many of the electronics. With out a camera pod protruding the back, the E7 finally ends up being thinner than the N8 overall, and among the slimmest landscape QWERTY devices we’ve stumble on.
The E7 feels hefty in a reassuring, confidence-inspiring way — as a degree of reference, it’s almost the identical weight and size because the 1 HTC Thunderbolt 1 , but about 6 mm (1/4-inch) narrower. Fit and finish are impeccable, and so is the awareness to detail: there’s a machined and polished bevel surrounding the camera window at the back of the E7 and lining the sting of each control at the aluminum body. The head cap includes a 3.5 mm headphone jack, the ability / profile key, a mini-HDMI port (behind a plastic door), and a micro-USB connector with a charge indicator. On the opposite end, the ground cap hosts a microphone and a single speaker. We found about a niggles here. While the headphone jack supports stereo accessories (3-pin) with none problems, it’s electrically incompatible with most non-Nokia headsets (4-pin). The speaker could be very loud and clear but is positioned such that it becomes muffled slightly once the telephone is placed face-up on any flat surface. At the right fringe of the E7 you’ll discover a SIM tray (that’s easily removed with a fingernail), a volume slider (which feels downright awkward), and the camera shutter button. The screen-locking slider benefits from the identical excellent spring action as at the N8 but lives on its own at the left edge, where it’s easier to access when using the keyboard.
The lean-out display and physical keyboard are the celebrities of the show. Nokia chose a hinge mechanism just like the only it implemented at the 2 N97 2 and 3 N97 mini 3 . Unfortunately, at the E7 this mechanism is universally difficult to open — almost everyone fails the 1st time, and risks slipping and dropping the telephone within the process. We eventually discovered a sure thanks to operate the hinge, however it’s not intuitive, and requires the (preferably symmetric) application of the correct amount of force within the right spot and on the right angle. Assuming you overcome this initial hurdle, the mechanism is spring-loaded in both directions and opens / closes with a fulfilling “clunk”. Once open, the touchscreen rests at a 30-degree angle from the keyboard, that is equally fitted to typing because it is for watching videos. The hinge, back of the display, and base of the keyboard are all cast from a suitably light, strong alloy. We didn’t detect any play within the mechanism even after using the E7 for a month, but we did notice that our older review unit was easier to open than the newer one. It’s worth noting that the silver model features black accents, including the touchscreen, back of the display, hinge mechanism, keyboard, camera window and flat edges of the top covers.
We’re really impressed with the keyboard at the E7. It’s the best we’ve utilized in recent memory — on par with the keyboard at the 4 HTC Arrive 4 , but with an aligned 4-row layout rather than a staggered 5-row design. Tactile feedback is astounding despite the quick key travel and, unlike the N97 and N97 mini, the gap bar is centered properly.
The 4-inch 5 ClearBlack 5 AMOLED touchscreen is bright and delightful, even in direct sunlight. Colors are vivid, and contrast and viewing angles are excellent, as you’d expect from one of these display. Interestingly, the united states version exhibits a touch warmer color temperature. Resolution is one more story, and pixel-density enthusiasts can be disappointed. With an insignificant 640 x 360 pixels (what Nokia calls nHD), the E7 makes even a 4.3-inch WVGA display look high definition. Obviously, we realize it is a limitation imposed by software, but these days of 6 qHD 6 devices, it misses the mark. We also observed some strange color banding on our European review unit (see 7 here 7 ), which can be a producing defect because the problem is absent from the alternative one. A sheet of 8 Gorilla Glass 8 protects the touchscreen and homes the proximity and light-weight sensors, the earpiece, and a front-facing camera (VGA). Strangely our US model acquired several small scratches at the display within hours of being unboxed, despite being treated gently, while the alternative one survived a whole rough and tumble 9 week at CTIA 9 unscathed.
The E7 features almost the very same internals because the N8: a somewhat lackluster 680MHz 0 ARM 11 0 CPU, a Broadcom BCM2727 GPU, 256MB of RAM, about 350MB of phone storage, and 16GB of internal mass storage. You’ll also discover a complete set of radios with support for UMTS / HSPA ( 1 pentaband 1 , including AWS), GSM / EDGE (quadband), WiFi b / g / n, 2 Bluetooth 3.0 2 , and AGPS — there’s even an FM receiver. Unlike the N8, there’s no MicroSD card slot for added mass storage, no Nokia 2mm charging port for legacy power sources, and no FM transmitter to irritate your mates with on roadtrips. The E7 also shares 3 USB On-The-Go 3 with its sibling, which permits it to host a lot of common USB devices consisting of flash drives, self-powered hard drives, keyboards, or even optional accessories including Nokia’s own 4 Digital Radio Headset 4 . Both the ecu and US variants ship with a USB On-The-Go adapter, HDMI adapter, stereo headset, micro-USB cable, and micro-USB charger.
The E7 and N8 include the identical 1200mAh 5 BL-4D 5 battery which isn’t user-replaceable, and with none visible Torx screws we’re not even sure tips to access the battery in a pinch. In our tests, call and reception quality lived as much as Nokia’s usual high standards and battery life was excellent for a totally specced smartphone. The E7 handily beat our Android handsets with almost three days of sunshine duty — usually about half-hour worth of calls, a dozen text messages, three email accounts and one Twitter account being monitored and tended to (that’s hundreds of messages), plus the occasional photography (with upload) and music playback daily. Note that in our battery tests we enabled WiFi, turned off Bluetooth, and powered our devices down at night. Understand that, that’s precisely the variety of endurance you’d expect from a business-centric phone just like the E7.
Camera
The E7 is provided with an 8 megapixel 6 EDoF 6 (Extended Depth of Field) camera and dual-LED flash. In typical Nokia fashion the optics and sensor are great. This, along with superior image processing ends up in beautiful shots. As you will see that in our sample pictures, color balance and exposure are excellent, and noise is kept under control without obliterating detail. While it’s no match for the outstanding N8, the E7 camera sticks out amongst today’s smartphones. There’s however one massive, glaring problem — the elephant within the room, in case you will — and that’s the EDoF lens. Depth of field becomes meaningless with this camera. Sure, everything from 60cm (two feet) to infinity is perfectly in focus, but clone of with a set-focus lens it’s impossible to take closeup shots. Nokia waxes poetic about how EDoF means no moving parts, allows a thinner device, improves shooting speed, and makes it easier for the typical person to make use of the camera. We’re reminded how the 8 megapixel sensor captures enough information that images is usually enlarged and cropped and not using a huge impact on quality. Here is all true, but we feel EDoF is simply too much of a compromise especially when it’s combined with a good sensor and optics. It just takes away a complete layer of creativity from the image taking experience in comparison to an autofocus lens.
On the subject of video recording, the E7 captures smooth 720p HD content at 25fps with great results. EDoF actually helps here since most phones don’t support continuous autofocus during video recording, and instead rely upon a sub-optimal preset focus, user-controlled initial focus, or touch-to-focus during capture (like at the iPhone 4). While EDoF precludes closeups, a digital zoom is out there with little (if any) effect on video quality. As an advantage, audio is recorded in stereo and sounds very clear. Our sample video was recorded at the E7 after which edited with the bundled video editor. Sadly, this caused the audio to get out of sync, that is a known bug. The camera interface at the E7 is very nearly clone of the single at the N8 and in all fairness easy to exploit. Most controls are easily accessible, and extra settings are nestled within menus. There’s no built-in panorama mode, but a separate app with that functionality is out there to download for free of charge from the 3 Ovi Store 3 (see sample 4 here 4 ). We only have a pair minor usability complaints: the shutter secret is hard to locate by feel, and the camera window is flush with the body of the E7 making the glass liable to scratches when the device is resting face up on a flat surface. Overall, the E7 camera delivers strong performance, but we actually hope Nokia ditches EDoF and reverts to using autofocus on future flagship products.
Software
We’re going to be frank here: Symbian breaks what’s otherwise great hardware. Most of what we mentioned in regards to the software in 5 our N8 review 5 applies to the E7 — it’s an analogous tired routine, a frustrating user experience that quickly becomes a burden day-to-day. Now, before you rise up in arms, you will want needless to say we’ve been Symbian users for a long time, so we’re well conscious of the strengths and weaknesses of this once-glorious OS. The unhappy reality is that after measured against the opposite major platforms Symbian isn’t any longer competitive, especially on the high-end of the market, and that’s much more true today than it was six months ago after the launch of the N8. With that disclaimer out of ways, let’s study some specifics. Our European review unit was running what was formerly called) 6 Symbian^3 6 PR1.1 while our US model was one release behind at PR1.0, and both devices were using browser version 7.2. Aside from the firmware, the obvious difference between the 2 seems to be the bundled apps. Beyond the humble set of Nokia apps, which incorporates the Ovi Store, our US phone came preloaded with Quickoffice, F-Secure, National Geographic, Paramount Movie Teasers, OviMapsChallenge, Climate Mission, Psiloc World Traveler, Vlingo, and topApps. The ecu variant also included CNN Video and E!, but lost topApps.
3 Under the hood Symbian is pretty efficient which helps with battery life and multitasking, and offers adequate performance even on run-of-the-mill processors. Unfortunately the E7 often still feels sluggish, despite being faster than most past Symbian devices. The 7 Webkit 7 -based browser — which used the be one among Symbian’s gems — has stagnated into oblivion over time, and is now a whole mess. You’re simply just installing 8 Opera 8 and calling it an afternoon. Email configuration is very unintuitive: by default, accounts are proxied on Nokia’s servers unless you decline the terms of service during setup. Only then does the e-mail client offer you direct access for your account. However it’s not all doom and gloom. To at the present time, Symbian still provides probably the most comprehensive Bluetooth functionality of any mobile platform. just a few apps stand out as examples of what Symbian is in a position to. 9 Ovi Maps 9 is a brilliant alternative to the ever-present 0 Google Maps 0 that supports offline navigation and offers better mapping in most parts of the sector. Gravity is a great Twitter client that pushes the envelope of what might be done with Symbian when it comes to UI design. It takes full good thing about push notifications or even includes its own on-screen QWERTY keyboard with a portrait mode, something that’s still missing from the bottom OS. The photo and video editors also are quite noteworthy for being powerful and simple to exploit. But ultimately, these are only a couple of shining stars in a dead constellation.
Wrap-up
4 After spending several weeks with the Nokia E7, there’s absolutely certainly that the it’s one of the most sexiest pieces of hardware we’ve played with in recent months. Perhaps it’s not 1 the best Communicator 1 Espoo has ever bestowed upon us, however it comes close and gives one of the most balanced set of features of any Symbian device up to now. This makes it Nokia’s de facto flagship smartphone and Symbian’s ambassador for the foreseeable future. Devoted Symbian fans shall be unfazed by the official $679 asking price for the E7 (unlocked and unsubsidized) and could seriously consider picking one up (or its N8 sibling), but for the remainder of us the E7 misses the mark. While providing excellent battery life, proper multitasking, and a few unique functionality which will please power users, Symbian remains an unmitigated disaster, with a sluggish, frustrating, and cosmetically antiquated user experience. We just can’t recommend the E7, especially in light of what the Google and Apple ecosystems need to offer. Dear Nokia, please give us an E7 with a much better pixel-density display, an autofocus camera, a current-generation processor, and a delectable serving of Windows Phone. Oh, and do it soon — the sharks are beginning to smell blood.
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