Oct 30, 2010 10:55 AM
6164 Views
(Updated Nov 19, 2010 03:42 PM)
I switched from using a Nokia 6300 (bought over 3 years ago for Rs 12, 500/-) to Nokia E5.There were several reasons for switching over. While the 6300 phone was something I really liked, (it could even run Opera Mobile on it and connect to internet), I was unable to sync contacts to website and typing on the keyboard was very difficult - my fingers ached after typing in a url or trying to search. The camera was not good on 6300 either.
Enought of talk about the 6300! I guess you will now want to know about the E5!I was planning to go for E63 (was undecided for a longtime) by which time the E5 was available for sale. I bought the phone from Planet M for Rs 11, 000 (plus Rs 300 for upgrading to 4GB card and Rs 199/- for extended warranty for 1 more year).
I was able to sync my contacts and calendar in a matter of minutes. The phone was all ready to connect to internet without any problems.I was able to setup all my email accounts - my office email account, personal email accounts (gmail, hotmail and yahoo) without too much problems.The personalization feature is simply fantastic allowing me to switch between two modes effortlessly. I could customize the applications in both modes, customize some of the keys and so on.
The Maps feature is also good - though I have not really used it much.The camera was not good enough I think for the simple reason that it does not remember my settings.I was used to several things on the 6300 however, small changes annoyed me to no end. Being an IT person I have very high expectations from such devices.
On 6300 I could record a call by selecting a menu option. When I tried the same on E5, I was shocked to see no option for this. Looking up the manual I realized that I had to switch to Home screen (something I was not used to doing) and then look where the voice recorder application was then activate it so call could be recorded. In my opinion this is a basic requirement and should NOT need so much of hunting around. However, I discovered that I could set this up as an application shortcut so it appears on the home screen and this made recording a little easier (though not as easy as it was on 6300!)
Realized that the Symbian OS does not display a single of all calls - Dialed, Received and Missed calls instead these are split in the 3 respective categories. At first I could only see dialed calls and while driving I was frustrated to not being see a call I had received when I needed to call the person back. It took a while for me to realize that these are available in 3 tabs - but then in my opinion Nokia should provide a fourth tab having ALL the 3 calls in one list and allow me to configure the key so that I could pick any of the lists to be displayed by default.
As mentioned above the camera does not remember your last settings - first of all to switch the flash off (which I needed to do when I wanted a photo look better!) you need to run thorugh different options. Thankfully the order of these options can be configured. However, if you switch off the flash in the camera, take a phone, then exit the camera app the setting is not remembered. So when you open the camera again, you will again need to switch the flash off.
However, these were minor irritants - the real problems started after a week or so.
The phone hung at times - forcing me to pull the battery out (it would not even restart after pressing the off key).
This happened a couple of times. Then the worst thing to happen was the phone switched in the middle of calls - this occurred at least 3/4 times.
I plan to visit Nokia service center - however, one has to wait in line for 1/2 hours before they can attend to you ...
Hold off buying this phone till the problem is understood - I am not sure if this is a problem in my unit or a general problem with the E5.
