Nokia E65 review

Frank Broughton

Available in sober dark brown for investment bankers or racy red for media types, the design is very elegant though not exactly stunning

We review the Nokia E65 mobile phone - a handset with built-in wi-fi and advanced emailing capabilities

The E65 is a slick and compact quad-band smartphone, the first slider in Nokia’s business-minded E series. Its roll call of features includes the Symbian 60 operating system, Wi-Fi connectivity and 3G, plus an impressive suite of software, a 2 megapixel camera and some well thought-out specialist business buttons.

Available in sober dark brown for investment bankers or racy red for media types, the design is very elegant though not exactly stunning. It feels good in your hand: not too heavy (115g) but with a nice solidity to it, and with a reassuringly firm spring action in the slider.

The E65 is compact for a smartphone (105 x 49 x 16 mm), grips nicely, and your fingers roam easily over the keys. The screen is big and bright, even outdoors. The only ergonomic gripes would be the surprisingly fiddly volume controls on the side – fleshy fingers beware, and the fact that you inevitably slap your greasy thumb on the screen when you open it.

Initially at least, the main control panel caused confusion, partly because your reviewer began without a manual, but mostly because there are more buttons than expected. The extra controls are a mute switch – to make sure your clients don’t hear those witty asides, and a dedicated conference call button.

This will connect you to your normal conference service or round up two of your contacts for a threesome. It takes a single touch to start a text or activate the camera, there’s a dedicated button for your phonebook, and a ‘My own key’ that lets you zip to your favourite place in the phone’s deep menu. And you can use everything while you’re on a call.

E65 is quite the team player, so it’s well prepared for office politics. As well as the conference call features you can set up distribution groups for sending out one-shot emails, texts and more to the people who do all your work for you. And with some extra software it can even be integrated with your office telephone exchange.

Also handy in such a hard-working phone is a search function that digs out files or contacts by keyword. There are the usual utilities like a calendar and to-do lists, and you can synch everything or transfer data using USB, Bluetooth or infrared.

Connectivity doesn’t stop there, because the E65 also has Wi-Fi. This is great to have in a phone, speeding up browsing and letting you use your home or office internet connection rather than racking up usage on your mobile bill. The E65 also supports VoIP, which means you can use it with your Skype account and make all those free international calls. And there’s instant messaging, too.

Whether you connect by Wi-Fi or over your network, an excellent browser breezes you through the internet. It’s all reformatted for the portrait screen, but as you scroll around the links a thumbnail of the whole web page appears to help keep you oriented. Email is a doddle, with all the major protocols supported (POP/IMAP, SMTP, and IMAP4), so you can collect and check your mail on the go, and there’s all the brains you need to view attachments in PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats.

If you like the sound of your own voice there’s a recorder to capture your flashes of genius. Voice recognition means you can make hands-free calls by barking orders at your phone, and you can choose a built-in voice (either Ellen or Martin) to read your texts out to you. This all seems a bit Space 1999 but is no doubt very nifty if you want to use your phone on the motorway as you race to top-level strategy meetings.

The 2 megapixel camera takes great pictures and pretty good video, using the central button for the shutter, though there’s no autofocus and the unprotected lens might be a little vulnerable in your money-filled pocket. There’s no flash and no mirror, so you have to stick to serious business photos: no snapping yourself making Shrek faces. The other big photographic negative is that there’s no front-facing camera, so even though it’s a 3G phone, video calls are one-way only.

There’s an accomplished music player on board, although the E65 comes boxed with just a mono earpiece and it only has a Nokia Pop-Port connection, so you’ll need to shell out for Nokia headphones if your ears are in stereo. Memory clocks in at 50MB but you can extend it up to a Gig with a MicroSD card (not included). On paper, battery life is good, although like most smartphones, with connections open you soon clean out the battery.

All in all, the E65 is a smart, attractive and highly qualified candidate, at home on the world stage, not afraid of multitasking, and with communication skills that would be an asset to any business. If you’re a fast-paced international dealmaker – or if you want to be – it’s definitely worth considering for the position.