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Unexpectedly, SMS messages have become the most popular mobile service. Who would have thought that people will write messages in a peculiar way on these small keyboards? Years later, phones are much more advanced and the variety is greater, but this service continues to hold the first place. So it should be expected that developers will try to make it more user-friendly, shouldn’t it? Until recently, the availability of a full keyboard was something typical only for business phones, but manufacturers began to realize that the ordinary customers also like using SMS, e-mail and chat and QWERTY keyboards have made their way into every level of consumer devices. Design Thanks to this, we have models like the Nokia E63. Based on the popular business smartphone E71, a full keyboard is now available to everyone. Its appearance is more casual, replacing the metal with a high-quality plastic. Hopefully, the build quality doesn’t suffer from this and is still very high-end. The colors are also more liberal and instead of the boring grey and black, here we find the fresher blue or red. The E63 has gotten a bit thicker and is now 13 mm, instead of the E71’s 10 mm. There is virtually no change in the other dimensions and as a whole the size is pretty decent for a QWERTY phone. Speaking of the keyboard, we have to mention that the keys are very handy, although a bit small. Unfortunately, once again, the bottom row of keys isn’t shifted to the right so you’ll have to get used to it in order to avoid mistakes. When it comes to buttons, we have to note the total lack of such on the sides – no volume rocker and no power key. 
As is typical high end Nokia phones , the E63’s display won’t disappoint you. It looks good indoors, as well as when exposed to direct sunlight, though in the latter situation the colors become a bit undistinguishable. Still, the image is clear enough and allows you to use the device with no real issues. Display Nokia E63 has a 2.36" 16M-color QVGA screen. That`s the same display found in the Nokia E71 and back then sacrificing screen estate to make the phone more compact and pocket-friendly seemed right. But again, maybe not all Nokia E61 upgraders will agree. 
Size aside, the screen performance is great, with excellent contrast and vivid image. Sunlight legibility is commendable as usual with Nokia TFT screens. 
Keyboard The Nokia E63 QWERTY keyboard is an almost complete replica of what we had with the E71. There are a few minor changes but the overall usability is unaffected. The most important novelty has nothing to do with typing. Pressing and holding the space bar in standby powers up the LED so you can use your handset a flashlight. That's a nice little perk and it even works with the keyboard locked. 
The other obvious change is the size of the actual space bar: its size has been reduced compared to E71 and now the bottom row accommodates two extra keys. Our team is divided over whether a parenthesis symbol and a standalone Ctrl key are a bargain over a big nice space bar. 
Anyway, the rest is no news if you've read our E71 review and in the case of these here couple of Nokia messengers no news is good news. You shouldn't expect regular desktop typing speed and you'll certainly have to look at the keypad but you can achieve pretty decent results with the E63. If you are into texting, you are sure to get used to it quickly and start speeding your way through messages in no time. 
The controls above the keypad are also quite handy, obviously copying the E71 and the E51 layout. Those include the two soft keys, the Call and End keys (the red one now doubles as a power key and shortcut to ringing profiles), the Menu key and three so-called one-touch keys. One-touch keys can be set as shortcuts to any application you like, never mind the icons on them might suggest otherwise. Furthermore, you can assign two applications per key, making use of the press and press-and-hold function on all of them. 
The D-pad is equally pleasing. Its ample size and tactility do add to the excellent mark on ergonomics for E63. Still, you should be warned that the Nokia E63 lacks touch sensitive Navi wheel functionality as it was suggested earlier on when the device was fort announced. Still, a try-before-buy is advisable for people with larger fingers, as the QWERTY keypad knobs might not feel as comfortable to them. 
User interface Nokia E63 runs on Symbian 9.2 with Series60 3rd Edition UI. It comes with Feature Pack 1 but it also brings in a number of enhancements inherent to Feature Pack 2. Nokia E63 is powered by a single 369 MHz CPU and has 128MB of RAM . In Symbian terms this means that navigating the menus is fast with instant response to key presses and no delays whatsoever. Memory Full warnings are highly unlikely and you should make quite an effort to deplete the available memory. 
The phone's main menu has two view modes: a 4 x 3 grid of icons and a list. However with the E63 you cannot even opt for having animated icons as with most other Nokia phones. This is probably just another way of reiterating the business targeting of the phone. At least the font size is configurable depending on your preferences. 
The circle next to the icon of a running application is a well known Symbian indication reminding users to quit unwanted applications that are still running in the background. The active standby mode goes without saying on Nokia E63. This is a nice and convenient way to bring shortcuts to all favorite applications to your home screen. You can even assign shortcuts to websites of your choice for quicker access. Furthermore, each of the one-touch keys can be customized to access any feature (actually two per key) of choice. 
The two soft keys' functions can also vary. If active standby is off you can also assign shortcuts to the directions of the D-pad. Luckily, although the keypad lock pattern is the usual quick successive pressing of the left selection key and the Fn key, the left key no longer lags before acting, like it used to on previous models. There is also an automatic key lock on the E63. It gets activated upon a user-defined interval with the options ranging from 5 seconds to an hour. This option can also be disabled if the user sees fit. 
As of E 71, a nifty feature allows you to toggle between two different phone setups - the so-called Mode Switch. Each of them can be customized with its own theme and homescreen applications for maximizing usability. This way you can have a leisure and business profile and alternate them at the expense of a single click. 
The built-in memory is 120MB, which is a decent count by all means. Unfortunately, there is no memory card included in the retail package. As we managed to confirm, Nokia E63 has no problem handling an 8GB microSD card. Accessing applications or any other files on the memory card is quick and you probably won't notice any difference compared to accessing ones in the phone memory. As with any Symbian phone, there is a built-in voice recognition system. It is launched by holding the right soft key and is doing a good job, being fully speaker-independent and recognizing a very high percentage of the user commands. 
And finally, there's the same feature as on the E71 - the Remote Wipe. It's not a new feature per se, but up until now it was usually reserved for corporate scenarios. Now it's available to everyone. In case your Nokia E63 gets stolen or lost, you simply need to send a coded SMS to your SIM card number. The phone then gets locked down and upon three unsuccessful attempts of unlocking it, it's wiped clean of all personal or sensitive info. You might not get your Nokia E63 back, but at least nobody will access your personal data either. 
Software Even though this is the first E-series model that isn’t business-oriented, the E63 is by no means dull. It runs on Symbian 9.2 with Feature Pack 1, just like the E71. The option of switching between two modes is also present here, reminding us of the fact that the E63 can easily turn into a business assistant. As such, it offers perfect organizer functions; phonebook, e-mail client and Internet browser. The last one lets you check your favorite page, and for a fast connection you can use either the 3G or Wi-Fi network. According to Nokia, the E63 is designed to use the Internet or to access social networks and we were eager to find out what options it packs for this. We were surprised to see that it actually supports a Facebook “application”, though it has to be downloaded additionally. We put it in quotes intentionally, as this application is nothing more than a shortcut that opens the mobile version of the site in the browser. While it is very useful, since Nokia is advertising that the phone is for the social networks addicts it would have been better to equip it with a real, optimized application like we see on the Xperia X1. 
What the E-series phones aren’t good at is multimedia. Is the E63 better, since it is targeted at the general consumer and not the business crowd? As you would expect, Symbian’s standard media player is used, which is really good, but this time a 3.5mm jack for headphones is also on board. This is a very welcome addition, because in contrast to the decent loudspeaker the headphones from the package perform rather poorly. When we plugged in a nice pair, everything came into order. There are no surprises considering the video playback quality - it’ll be top-notch when you play MP4/H.264 clips with QVGA resolution, as long as you don’t mind the relatively small size of the 2.4” display. The E63 downgrades the already poor 3.2 megapixel camera found on the E71 to an equally poor 2MP shooter, though it does snap pictures quickly. 
Music player Full featured music abilities are not supposed to be make-or-break in a device like Nokia E63. However this doesn't make the onboard music player any less of a good application. After all, the Symbian S60 music player is a seasoned performer and it didn't cost Nokia anything to just put it in the E63 too. 
The lack of dedicated music keys is easily overcome by the smooth D-pad control. There is a huge number of audio formats supported including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. M3U playlists are also managed seamlessly and transferred files are added to the music library trouble-free by choosing the refresh option. 
Filtering tracks by artist, album, genre and composer is automatic and searching tracks by gradual typing is also at hand. Tracks are uploaded to Nokia E63 via Bluetooth, USB or by simple download. You can also use a card reader for that purpose and transfer them directly to your memory card. Upon completing a USB transfer, the phone automatically prompts scanning for new music tracks and, if allowed to do so, adds the new ones to the music library. 
Camera The Nokia E63 - is equipped with a 2 megapixel camera with fixed focus, LED flash and self-portrait mirror. You can't really expect much from a 2 megapixel snapper especially given the Nokia E71 3-megapixel unit was quite disappointing. Much like the Nokia E71, the E63 camera lens lacks any lens protection. This means that the glass above the camera lens will get scratched in no time unless you use a carrying case at all times. The lack of a dedicated camera key is also a downer. 
The camera user interface is very simple and strange in the same time mainly because the viewfinder window does not fit fullscreen. The camera interface is the basic Nokia one (as seen on Nokia 6210 Navigator or Nokia 5320 XpressMusic) and even has fewer options than the one on the Navigator. For example - there's no Panorama mode and the options toolbar hosts fewer shortcuts. The scarce additional options allow for setting the white balance or adding four different color tones to your images. Also there are a self timer, night and sequence mode, but we hardly believe you will use them more than once. 
The Nokia E63 image quality is below average. Pictures lack detail and noise levels are high. The colors are also far from being precise and as a whole there is hardly anything good we can say. It seems ditching the camera altogether could've been an option to consider, granted especially that the E71 still lacks a camless version along the lines of E50 and E51. Anyway, you can check out the sample photos made with the E63 camera. Video recording is another let down with the E63 camera. The business-minded handset only manages QVGA videos at 15 fps, which has MMS written all over. As a whole, the camera is the one feature of E63 yelling business-comes-first. It's understandable though, given the price tag. Conclusion Whether you call Nokia E63 the economy package - or stimulus package, in the jargon of the day - you're looking at a capable business device. It brings the essential skills of the E71, and only sacrifices looks to round off that sweetly trimmed price tag. The lacking GPS comes closest to but still can't be a definite no-go. Even without it, the E63 is a strong enough offer to consider. Besides, the E63 is not all about downgrading the E71. Whether Nokia want to expand the reach of their Enterprise lineup just like they do with the Nseries, or try to secure some mass demand for a truly elaborate and capable device like the E71, the result looks worth it and we are sure it will get as popular as E51. |
