The Nokia E66 is a new business oriented smartphone that is tasked with replacing Nokia's popular E65. With a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera and updated Contacts and Calendar applications, we take a look to see if the E66 is much of an improvement, and how well it stands up to the tasks expected of a business phone.

Design 

The Nokia E66, available in grey or white steel, is a slider handset with a regular numeric keypad. The top part of the slide is bordered with a chrome bezel, and the backplate is metal, with a dimpled pattern that offers a bit of grip. The remaining areas of the housing are finished in a glossy metal-flake finish, resulting in a very professional looking device. The E66 is a bit hefty, weighing a solid 121g (4.3oz), though the slender 107mm x 49mm x 13mm (4.2" x 1.9" x 0.5") body does not take up too much room in your pocket.

As is typical of Nokia's Eseries cell phones, the E66's build quality is fantastic. The phone's body does not creak or make any sound when in use, and the slider doesn't wobble even the slightest bit. The slider is spring-loaded, so that once you push it halfway, it snaps solidly into position. However, due to the finish on the E66's backplate, fingerprints readily show, and the result is a multicolored optical illusion that's somewhat bothersome. A clean cloth takes care of it, though.

The button cluster on the top part of the Nokia E66 consists of dedicated end/send keys, with a delete/back key situated directly between, and left and right softkeys above. There are four shortcut keys surrounding the squared-off d-pad, as well. All but the end/send keys feature backlit labels, so that with the phone powered off, there are no visible button labels. While inconvenient in the dark with the phone powered off, this backlit label design really adds to the professional style of the handset.

The shortcut keys, starting from the top left and going clockwise, are Home, Contacts, Messaging, and Calendar. Each has 2 functions, activated by either a short press or a long press. The Home key has replaced the typical S60 menu key, with the same functionality. A single press will take you straight to the standby screen, while a long press pulls up the task manager. The remaining three shortcut buttons can be customized by the user, including the short and long press actions. The d-pad is solid, but not too firm, and I found it to be a pleasure to use. All four directions, as well as the center button, are easy to press and provide awesome tactile feedback. There is a very handy notification light around the inside middle of the d-pad that breathes when in standby, to let you know that the phone is powered on. If you have a missed event, such as a call, email, or otherwise, the light flashes quicker, letting you know.

When you slide the E66 open, the numeric keypad is revealed. These keys feature the traditional printed labels, and the * key is now a shortcut to toggle Bluetooth on and off, while the # key is still a shortcut to the Silent profile. The power button is located on top of the handset, and is crafted from bright red plastic, making it much easier to find over those on previous Nokia handsets.

The right side of the E66 is full of buttons. At the top is the volume up and down keys, with the Voice Recorder button located directly between them. Annoyingly, this button cannot be reprogrammed. Below this is the two-stage camera shutter key. However, similar to the Nokia E90, this dedicated camera button does not actually launch the camera application, so you are forced to waste a shortcut on the camera, or fumble through the phone's menus to get to it.

The left side of this smartphone is where you'll find the micro-USB port, IrDA port, and 2.5mm audio port. A standard Nokia 2mm power port is located on the bottom left of the handset since the micro-USB port can not be used for charging. The back panel of the E66 houses a mono speaker and 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash, but there is no protective lens cover built-in.

Display

Nokia E66 features a 2.4" 16M-color QVGA display. Its performance is completely up to Nokia's usual high standard with great contrast and brightness. Those make the picture really vibrant and a pleasure to look at. The ambient light sensor also makes sure the display is maximum user-friendly under any kind of lighting conditions.

The Nokia E66 screen offers the usual uncompromised legibility under direct sunlight. No matter how bright the sun outside, you can always read the display easily without trying hard finding a proper angle. Sliding Nokia E66 open reveals the alphanumeric keypad which we're really fond of. It has large keys with terraced layout and great touch orientation. Press feedback levels are also commendable.

The only problem is the insufficient headroom for the fist row of keys, where the slider does get in the way. It can be troublesome for users with large hands but it seems the new Eseries are more interested in reducing size than accommodating this concern.We already mentioned the main controls on the slider, which do deserve an excellent mark too. The backlighting is also strong and pleasing to render the E66 perfect to handle in the dark.

Telephony

With Nokia E66 you are extremely unlikely to experience any reception issues. Sound during calls is very clear and free of any interferences. The phone sports the really nice Smart Dialing feature, which helps you quickly find a contact straight on the standby screen. All you need to do is type some digits and all contacts with names (first or last) containing letters corresponding to them get displayed.

Nokia E66 sports an advanced call manager for filtering your incoming calls. You can opt for various settings - accepting only calls from your contacts, from all non-private numbers or from anyone. In addition you can set up different ringing profiles that can be scheduled to activate at a certain time (hour and day). Finally, you can also set the behavior of the phone when rejecting a call - busy tone, reject with SMS or answering machine on are some of the options.

We conducted our traditional speakerphone test with Nokia E66. Unluckily it turned out to be one of the quietest handsets we have seen so far. This means that missing a call in noisy environment is rather likely with the Nokia E66. Here is how it ranked among a few of the other handsets we have tested.

User Interface

The Nokia E66 uses Nokia's S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 user interface, running on top of the Symbian operating system. This offers quite a few customization options, including an advanced Active Standby screen with 6 user-customizable application shortcuts and a variety of standby plug-ins, such as email, device search, and more. The Active Standby screen changes based on the situation, and can show things such as nearby WiFi hotspots, information about the currently playing track, and others.

A notable new feature, and my personal favorite, is the mode switcher that allows users to set 'work' and 'personal' standby screen and UI themes. With this feature, users can quickly and easily create 2 Active Standby profiles with different device themes, shortcuts, and standby plug-ins. Switching between profiles takes a few seconds, but the feature is a welcome addition and is implemented very well. It's good to see Nokia recognizing that business people have a personal life after 5pm.

The main menu of the E66 consists of a series of folders and application icons that can be completely reorganized by the user. New folders can be created, and applications be moved in and out of these folders. Multi-tasking is accessed by pressing and holding the Home key for a few seconds. You can then choose from the list of currently running applications, or highlight one and press the 'delete/back' key to close it manually. From the standby screen, the left and right softkeys can be programmed to application shortcuts, as well.

The Nokia E66 uses themes to customize the entire interface, including the various icons. Unfortunately, the E66's set of default icons are very retro, looking like they were stolen from Windows '95. It's disappointing to see Nokia take such a giant leap backwards in terms of eye candy, even on a business phone. Flash animations can be set as screen savers, though, which is a fun feature.

3 megapixel camera

The camera is one element where Nokia E66 really fails to impress. The 3 megapixel resolution, the LED flash and the self-portrait mirror might seem appealing but their performance quickly ruins the good impression.

The lack of lens protection is the first problem to come to mind. This means that the camera will get scratched in no time unless you use the leather case (or any other case) all the time . At least, the E66 has a dedicated camera key which makes using the autofocus snapper much more comfortable than on the E71.

In fact this key and the camera user interface is the best part about the E66 imaging capabilities. The UI is the same as on high-profile Nokia cameraphones, offering more than extensive settings. From manual white balance and ISO sensitivity to exposure compensation, gridline, sharpness and contrast settings, as well as various effects.

The sequence mode and self-timer are no news. Sequence mode can come in handy for making time-lapse movies. The flash can be set to four positions: automatic, always on, red-eye reduction and always off. Small font tooltips are displayed to indicate what the phone is doing at each specific moment.

The picture quality however is below average. Pictures lack detail and noise levels are very high. The colors are also far from precise and contrast is well behind the best in business. Even in great light conditions we could hardly produce decent pictures. Hard as we try, there is little good we can say about image quality.

Video recording is another disappointment with the E66 camera. Once again, the business mindset lets the E66 get away with the otherwise poor video maxing out at QVGA at 15 fps. As a whole, the camera is the one feature of E66 where you shouldn't expect a lot. It outranks the E71 by only the dedicated shutter key and that's the only improvement. Otherwise, it's the same awful picture quality as the QWERTY-sibling; thumbs down for the E66 camera.

GPS navigation

One of the last things to cover in Nokia E66 is the built-in GPS receiver. Its sensitivity isn't the best you can find on the market but it can do the job if you aren't on a hurry. Our guess is that the receiver itself is the same as the one used in Nokia E71. It takes its time getting initial lock and that can be as much as 10 minutes if you cold-start it in a moving car.

The added A-GPS functionality can notably reduce this time but still won't do wonders. However, this is not a Navigator, so we probably shouldn't be too demanding. Anyway, initial lock time with A-GPS is significantly better and rarely exceeds a minute.

Nokia E66 comes with Nokia Maps application pre-installed. The 2.0 version is nice to work with and has very detailed map coverage of a huge number of countries and a lot of extras such as traffic information, voice-guided navigation and so on. Furthermore, Nokia E66 comes with a free three-month license for voice-guided navigation. The rest of the extra features however have to be purchased separately.

Nokia Maps is not bad though and, with the complimentary license included, we see no reason for changing it. It has decent looks and easily customizable route planning algorithm. Toll roads and motorways can be avoided and so can tunnels and ferries. Route selection can be set to either fastest or shortest. The app is also usable for pedestrian navigation or you can switch the GPS receiver off and simply use the phone as an electronic map.

The overall impression of the Nokia E66 GPS functionality is positive, with only the chip sensitivity allowing room for improvement. Still, the E66 can do the job just fine, except for those rare occasions when you will be in such a hurry that 5 or 10 minutes might be make or brake.

We already mentioned that the E66 went on for 6 hours in our dedicated GPS test. An impressive number by all means and you can check it against some other phones we have put to the same challenge.

Conclusion

To begin with the upgrader's point of view, we'd say a jump from E65 to the E66 is totally worth it. The phone has improved in nearly every area compared to its predecessor and addresses most of its issues. The price tag is still slightly on the steep side but we guess it will be a great bargain in no time. And even as it stands now, the Nokia E66 still is a great purchase.

Maximizing the reach with one and the same styling and feature sets used across different form factor is no news in the industry. Think Nokia 6500 classic and slide, or the Samsung Soul lineup, if you will. With Nokia E66 and E71 though, it's so easy on the user with almost complete replicas available in different design.

In general, Nokia E66 is as good for business as its QWERTY peer. It might not have the stamina and keypad of the powerful E71 but that was hardly the objective in the first place. We like the E66 for being a worthy alternative in terms of shape and looks, without compromising performance. It adds a pinch of fun to the whole thing too, coming out as more of an all-round device than strictly a business tool.