Business phone - no fancy - corporate - that is what E50 is.
This is my dad’s phone and I’ve been dabbling with it for almost

6 months.
Looks and Profile: According to me this phone is too much upper crust, stiff and corporate when looks are concerned. Its profile is slim and compact and can fit in easily into the shirt pocket. Its metallic battery cover gives it a touch of boldness.
Ease of Use - Hardware: Nokia has definitely given ease of use a thumb down while trying to make E50 compact. Yes, the key pad - its cramped, though the elevations in the keys help to type but accessing the last row of keys is really very difficult with single hand operation. I stress on this because being web-capable you might end up typing blogs, mails etc on this phone and u’ll feel the pain when pressing the "0" key for space. Another is the edit keys - located at the right upper side – too much of thumb straining for it. Apart from this the joystick feels nervous.
The Features and how they fare:
Display - Screen at 320x240 res is excellent - even though the screen is a bit smaller - but due to high resolution it fits in more text - helps you when browsing the net.
Memory - The phone comes with a good 70MB phone memory, which is really appreciating. It also comes with hot swap microSD slot which can support up to 2 GB.
UI-UI is typical 3rd edition s60. Its fast but as the sd card starts getting filled up - the interface starts getting slower.
Audio - Nothing ooh la la - most modest output. Add to it a downgraded media player - not like the ones in n-series, I mean the tracks can’t be changed by pushing the joystick and volume can be controlled only through the dedicated volume control on the left side of the phone. The media player interface is not good - all the buttons are placed vertically one below the other. (off course one can install a 3rd party mp3 player). AND NOTE – Comes with ’mono’ earphones – although the output is stereo!!! Strange ways to cut down the price. AND also no FM Radio.
Video - Excellent video output - thanks to the screen. But comes with native support for rm and 3gp files only. (You can load divX player and smart movie for divX support)
Connectivity - E50 comes with standard connectivity options with data cable, blue-tooth, infra-red and EDGE. Blue-tooth and infra-red speeds are normal. EDGE speeds are very good and the s60 browser does wonders when surfing on ur phone. It also comes with the standard "Service" browser for wap pages. Well, u can always go for Opera which supports both.
Camera - Oh yeah, there’s a camera too... well phones HAVE to HAVE cams now a days! Well its 1.3 MP - does a decent job in good lighting, performs terribly otherwise and this is true for the video recording too.
Business Features - True to its genre, the phone excels one the account of the plethora of business applications - provided one knows how to make best use of them.
It has this "Team Suite" which is really a good app - especially if you lead a small team at office.
It comes with Office Reader - note “only reader” - which can be upgraded to write as well at an extra cost. - This is a dampener, a slap on the face; I could edit docs even on my N6600. One more thing - as the office suite is preinstalled it is not possible to install the upgraded office suite from any other sources other than through nokia.
Apart from the above there is:
Adobe Acrobat Reader - works decently-would’ve helped if the screen was few cms wider.
Zip Utility – deals with zipped files.
In-device Search - A great tool to search ur phone -like Google desktop search, helps you if you have lots of docs, sheets and files on the phone/card – works perfectly.
E-Mail – Has multiple POP and IMAP accounts – like most other Symbians. It supports only text format – no html support for emails. I mean if your mail has inline graphics – it will appear as attachments.Note: Only file formats which are natively supported by the phone can be sent or received as attachments. It comes with option to receive only headers or entire mail. Tried out with Rediff pop service – worked perfectly but again you cant attach all file formats.
Plus it has sync facility and blackberry support – don’t know how they fare as couldn’t test them.
Accessibility - Voice Independent Speech Engine - No need to record voice tags or commands - recognizes natural voice - accuracy being inversely proportional to the number of phone book entries.Also note that it returns wrong match in slightly noisy environments.
Read out SMS - Reads out messages. Not a tool u ‘cant’ do away with.
Read out Names - Reads out the name of the person calling - EXCELLENT feature, works gr8 when using handsfree.
Other features:
Alert light feature - Rare for Nokia phones - E50 comes with led based notification light which blinks in case of a missed call/sms/mms/email (Type of alert and duration of alert is configurable).What is pleasant about it is its placement - its located below the joystick - so the area around the joystick blinks green in case of sms or mc.
Dedicated Phone book cum Voice key - On right side, apart from the edit key there is another key - which when pressed once launches the phone book and on holding it activates the voice command mode. Although useful, might loose on the usability due to the placement and lack of tactile response-when holding in one hand there is the need to stretch the thumb to reach the key.
Apart from the above details - the phone packs in the usual s60 stuffs - same phone book, messaging, gallery, real player etc. It doesn’t come with any pre-installed games. Could have come with Solitaire or Minesweeper – after all it is an “executive” phone!!
Software and application upgradeability
As E50 comes with s60 3rd edition OS so there is a smaller pool of 3rd party applications, themes and games compared to the earlier symbian os. I mean apps, themes and games which used to work in your old nokia 6600/ 3230/ 6630/ n72 etc might not work here.
More over with enhanced certificate management, installing applications is not that breeze – there are too many checks and you keep getting certificate expiry warnings etc – overall getting really deep into the phone is not that easy like older symbi phones.
Verdict - Honestly speaking, taking the price into consideration this was a good buy for my dad but for me – noh!
There are few things missing from this phone which makes it not so perfect – d radio, d zing in camera, d thump in d music, d wow in d video, d other ear bud in the handsfree, d editing in the office suite, d layout of d keypad – all these on one side and the special business apps on the other side – after all apps are softwares which can be installed on any symbian device but hardware cant be upgraded… isn’t it.
No wonder Nokia has come up with E51 – a much better counterpart.

Purchase Price:	9700
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