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 The Nokia E50 is not a phone apparently. According to Nokia's website it's a "business device". It's been designed as a kind of mobile office, but it's not a huge clunky device like the 9500 Communicator - it looks like a mobile phone! In fact, for a SmartPhone it's pretty light and slim.
The E50 is intended as a lightweight SmartPhone for the business user who's not interested in having a camera, MP3 player, etc on their phone.
Appearance and design
113x43.5x15.5 mm; weight: 104g.
In handling, the size of the device compared to other smartphones is immediately noticeable. From the front, the E50 is not that much smaller than devices such as the N70 and, by contrast, the Nokia 5500, which by volume is a little bigger, at first glance looks smaller. However as soon as you turn the E50 on its side you realise it is a thin phone. It is 33% thinner than the N70 and 10% thinner than the E60. In side profile, the phone tapers in the bottom half, and this further enhances the impression that the E50 is a svelte device. Despite its size the E50 feels very solid and well put together, and the combination metallic and hard plastic casing reinforces this. The E50 feels like it could take a lot of wear and tear and should enhance Nokia's already rosy reputation for build quality. The design of E50 is rather conservative. It is mostly silver and black which merge in some areas and create a pretty ergonomic impression. The phone is not flat and the keypad part is positioned lower than the rest of the body. This leads to a significant ease when writing. The joystick bulks in front of everything and smashes to pieces the nice impression of the otherwise perfect design of the phone. Keypad
The keyboard, especially when using number keys, is excellent. There are no gaps between the keys, but they are sufficiently large, have good tactile feedback and are ridged such that even those with larger fingers should have no problems. The softkeys, application key, cancel key, and the send and end keys are a little smaller, and took a few moments to get used to, but should present no problems. The joystick was responsive to directional touches (it is a stick, rather than a four way button), was also good and is given plenty of room, which should mean less accidental key presses when navigating through lists and menus. The surrounding area lights up when the backlight of the keypad in on, the color of which is blue. The backlight is weak and you can hardly see the numbers in the dark, while the letters are almost impossible to read, unlike the display. Additional buttons
The phone has four side buttons: the two on the left side are for the sound volume and the ones on the right side are the Voice Key and the Edit button (a pencil). The latter is usually located on the front side of the phone, it's used both for changing the way you enter text and selecting/marking multiple fields/items at a time. The volume control buttons are easy to reach only if you hold the handset next to your ear; if you use it with your right hand, you have to move your hand to reach them as your fingers are at the back of the phone. The Power button, as usually, is located on top; it's a bit hidden as you have to push the whole surface which in turn comes into contact with the button underneath. This is uncomfortable but at the same time it makes sure that the button will not be pressed by accident while the phone's in your pocket. Sizes, Ports and Slots
The bottom of the phone is reserved for the Pop-port and the charger port. E50’s charger is of the new ones, with the thinner jack. Under the metal battery cover is the BL-5C 970 mAh Li-Ion battery which is said to endure up to 215 hours of stand by time and up to 6 hours and 40 minutes of talk time. The SIM card bed is located beneath the battery. The microSD card slot is on the left side of the black panel. This means that it can be hot-swapped without taking off the battery but you must remove the battery cover first. Display
TFT, 240х320, 16.7 million colors
The E50 has a QVGA (240 x 320) screen which has a sensor and automatically adjusts its brightness as necessary (this can be user controlled too). The quality of the screen is excellent, even under bright lights, and considerably eases reading of the screen when compared to lower resolution devices. QVGA screens are becoming standard for higher end phones, but are still some what rare in the mid-tier. The QVGA screen also means the E50 is better able to take advantage of the changes (smoother fonts, resizeable UI) in S60 3rd Edition when compared to lower resolution devices. Camera
1.3Mpx, Video
The camera in Nokia E50 is a 1.3 megapixel one. It produces quite nice pictures and has interesting settings. Exposure compensation is not present, which is essential, but White balance is available. Self-timer, color tone settings and image size adjustments are available also. As E50 is not a camera phone, it shoots in vertical mode only. A flash and a self-portrait mirror are absent on the handset. Video can be recorded in QCIF resolution but the result is disastrous. Picture quality is very poor and the frame rate is very low. The sound is even worse than the picture. Menu
E50 is a phone running on Symbian Operating System with Series 60 interface. The version of the interface is v.9.1, which is the latest one up to now – that's why it's similar with other phones by the manufacturer, like the E70 and N80 for example. S60 is the most used interface for Symbian, and Nokia has a lot of models using it, while it's also used by other manufacturers (Siemens, Samsung, Sendo).  The top part of the homescreen displays a clock and the date, as well as the usual signal strength and battery, while the name of the carrier or Offline can be seen in the middle. The Offline tag indicates that the E50 works only as an “organizer” with the phone function switched off (that's handy for using the device during a flight). Just below these is located a row of 6 shortcuts which can be personalized to suit you best. The rest of the display, below them, is used for “notifications” – this is where missed calls, upcoming tasks (or To-Do in the calendar), received messages are displayed, as well as the music player status (the song that's played at the moment).   The main menu can be viewed as 3x4 grid of icons that can also be displayed as a list (it's chosen directly from the main menu) but the icons are not animated in both cases. The menu can be personalized by using themes, and if you combine various screensavers and personalized homescreens, two identical phones can look quite different. Definitely, the operating system provides many good personalization options, so it can be compared to the most advanced system, according to us, WM for Pocket PCs. As with the other Eseries phones, multiple push email systems are supported. These include Nokia's Intellisync Wireless Email, Blackberry Connect, Visto Mobile, Activesync for Microsoft Exchange and Altexia (a new addition). The standard S60 email client is present with IMAP, POP and SMTP support and options for multiple mail boxes, automatic scheduled mail retrieval and more. The E50 will ship with software for viewing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files as well as ZIP files and Adobe PDF documents, which should cover the majority of common email attachments. The usual S60 Contacts, Calendar, Notes and Messaging applications are present and round up a comprehensive set of enterprise software that ships with the device.
Imaging 1.3 Megapixel Camera
4 x Digital Zoom
Video Recorder (Up to 1 Hour)
Video Player
Wallpapers
Screensavers
Caller Identification with Image Messaging
SMS (Text Messaging)
MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
SMS Distribution List
Concatenated SMS
Email (POP3, IMAP4 & SMTP)
Email Data Roaming
Email with Attachment Support
Attachment Viewer Support
Instant Messaging
Sound
Music Player (MP3 & AAC)
RealPlayer
Push to Talk
Voice Commands
Voice Dialling
Handsfree Speaker
Conference Call (Up to 6 Contacts)
Vibrating Alert Entertainment
Pro Tour Golf Game
Java™ Games
Symbian Games
Downloadable Games
Embedded Games Organiser
Phone Book
Calendar
Customisable Profiles
Notepad
Calculator
Alarm Clock
Timer
Converter
Symbian Operating System OS 9.1
S60 Software 3rd Edition
Automatic Key Guard
Terminal Management Security
Call Management
Connectivity
Pop-Port™
USB
Infra Red
Bluetooth®
Network
Quad Band (GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800 & GSM 1900)
Internet
EDGE
GPRS
GSM
XHTML & HTML Browser
Memory & Talk Time
70 Mbytes Dynamic Memory plus Hot Swap MicroSD™ Card
8 Hours Talk Time
240 Hours Standby Weight & Size
104 g
113 x 43.5 x 15.5 mm Pluses
Narrow body and light construction
Good display
Good HTMl browser
Powerful battery
Minuses
No 3G
No FM radio
No WiFi
Uncomfortable keypad Conclusion
Nokia E50 combines high functionality and stylish design with a very good size for a smartphone, but when compared to the other phones of the E-serie, E50 is a good choice for those who can live without the Wi-Fi but appreciate the small sizes and low price. The phone is also a possible upgrade for 6230i users who would like to try using a smartphone. Whatever happens, the low price will keep the sale numbers high. |
