New Nokia E61 phone and how not to move contacts

AA Navigator 2006 for Ireland »

Sep 20

New Nokia E61 phone and how not to move contacts

Nokia E61 I have stuck steadfastly with my old phone for over 2 years despite it failing time after time. The Sony V800 offered me everything I needed and a few items I didn’t.

Sony V800

Top of my list was good reception, long battery life, email connectivity, Bluetooth and robustness.

Bottom of my list was a camera phone, despite it proving invaluable on a few occasions; more and more companies refuse to let you into sensitive areas with a camera phone. This can be a real pain if you are going in to trouble shoot and need your phone with you for contacts.

However I am on my third V800 each of the preceding phones failing in the exact same way. Errors including starting to miss calls, dialling out failing, occasionally at first, and more and more often as time goes on. Diverts to voicemail if phone in use also stops working. The first two were replaced under warranty, and this weekend as my current phone started to act up I decided it was time for a change.

My first instinct was a Blackberry. Email, good battery and reliable. But a visit to the local phone showroom uncovered a Nokia E61. The bit of the blurb that jumped out at me was “Exchange Mail Connectivity”. I was shocked. A quick perusal offered some other titbits such as Bluetooth, 4 band, infrared. Wireless!!!! VoIP!!!!!
Subsequently I have found that you can get a USB cradle as well.

And it was cheaper than the blackberry as well. I was smitten.

Having had the phone for a few days the following lists the pros and cons (some of the cons are a direct result of the pros)

Pros

Qwerty keyboard – and it works. (I hate texting and predictive text)

Wireless – works flawlessly.

Talks to my exchange server – and using the wireless network no data charge.

Readable screen – complete with auto backlight if it’s dark.

Auto update of firmware and software from Nokia site.

Calendar, meeting, memo functions very easy to use
Syncs contacts and info with Outlook/exchange without corruptions like truncating text – This is the best sync with Outlook I have seen on ANY phone.

Battery that last ages and ages. One charge so far and still going after 3 days heavy use (it’s a new phone ; of course usage is going to be heavy

)

Spare parts are reasonable and everything on the exterior that can break, scratch and dent can be replaced.

Cons

Its big – I have heard it described as like holding a slice of bread up to your ear and that’s not a bad analogy. But that’s the price of good keyboard and screen.

No auto lock feature as per Sony – there is a security one but it requires your pin every time.

Alarm function limited to one alarm.

If you want to get some background info and themes etc have a look at E-Series.org

Currently the phone is set up to sync with exchange via wireless. In addition I can sync with exchange on the move using GPRS but that’s expensive in Ireland so it’s something I have set up but will only use if required.

To do list is…

Get a case – vaja do nice line in cases but they are expensive.

See if mobile carrier will give me a price on unlimited data, then promptly visit hospital looking for oxygen and a heart transplant and see if I can sell some organs.

Figure out how to get Exchange to push emails properly ala Blackberry.

Have a play with voice commands – unlike older phones you don’t have to record a voice tag first, the OS has voice recognition so you can make calls, enable bluetooth etc at the press of a button and speaking the command or name.

One thing I did make a mess of was stripping the contacts list out of the V800 with a view to transferring them to the new phone. I had backed up the contacts about 6 months ago anyway but since then the list had grown somewhat.

So I found the USB cable for the Sony hooked it up, fired up the sync software and off we went. Except I had forgotten that the sync software was set to overwrite the phone with the contents of Outlook!!!!!!!!

So all the contacts in the V800 were overwritten with a 6 month old contact list. The moral of the story? Check your settings before doing a sync.

All in all I am a happy camper. Let’s hope reliability is better than the V800 but in fairness to Nokia nobody ever accused them of making shoddy phones.

Technical specs.

Usage modes Voice dialing, voice commands for menu short cuts, keypad lock and profiles Enhanced voice commands (SIND) Dedicated voice key for easy use of voice recording, voice dialing, and Push to Talk Power management Battery: BP-5L Capacity: 1500 mAh Talk time GSM: Up to 4.3-9.5 hours; WCDMA: go to 2.2 - 5.0 hours; VoIP: up to 4.4 - 4.6 hours Standby time GSM: Up to 13-17 days; WCDMA: up to 13 - 19 days; GSM/WCDMA and WLAN: up to 8 - 9.5 days Call management Push to Talk Internet call over WLAN Voice dialing Speed dialing: Up to 8 names Automatic redial (max 10 attempts) Call waiting, call hold, call divert, call timer Automatic and manual network selection Caller identification with image The name of the calling party (spoken caller line identification) is mixed with the ringing tone. The functionality is enabled/disabled through profile settings. Fixed dialing number, allows calls only to predefined numbers Conference call capability (up to 6 participants) Vibrating alert Integrated handsfree speaker Data transfer EGPRS (Class B, MSC 11) GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) Multislot Class 11 GSM Circuit-Switched Data up to 14.4 and 43.2 (HSCSD) kbps Connectivity Pop-Port™ interface USB port full speed supported via Pop-Port™ Remote and local (peer-to-peer) synchronization over Bluetooth technology, IR, cable Bluetooth wireless technology 1.2 Video and audio streaming (3GPP and RealMedia: Real Video and Real Audio) WCDMA (3GPP Release 99) Multiconnectivity: WLAN connection can be shared by multiple applications at the same time. For example: email, browser and synchronization. Possible to use WLAN, Bluetooth technology, USB and infrared at the same time. Maximum six Bluetooth technology connections in use at the same time. Note: only one for Bluetooth wireless connectivity for audio Memory functions Up to 75 MB of fixed user data memory Expandable memory: 64 MB hot swappable miniSD card Email Email client for connecting to personal and business email Mail for Exchange* POP3/IMAP supported in native email client Settings via OMA Client Provisioning, OMA Device Management Supported email clients: Intellisync Wireless Email, Visto email technology, BlackBerry Connect, GoodLink and Seven Always-On Mail Attachments viewers and editors support the most common features of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel (Microsoft Office 97, 2000, XP and 2003). Compatible with Zip Manager and Adobe Reader** *Mail for Exchange is a Microsoft proprietary technology that enables synchronization of email, calendar and contacts between Microsoft Exchange servers and mobile devices. ** Adobe reader and Zip manager software available in MMC Messaging Instant Messaging client (Yahool, AOL, OMA) SMS distribution list Multimedia messaging (MMS) Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS, ver. 1.2) for text, voice clips, video clips and still images receiving, editing and sending Distribution list Navigation Two soft keys with five-way joystick, power key can be used as profile key Configurable right and left soft keys Input method: full keyboard Active standby enables user to configure 7 applications for fast access Symbian operating system OS 9.1 S60 software on Symbian OS Dimensions Weight: 144 g (with Nokia Battery BP-5L) Dimensions: 117 mm x 69.7 mm x 14 mm, 108 cc Display Active matrix display Supports up to 16M colors within 320 x 240 pixels Adjustable display brightness and contrast control Ambient light sensor for keypad display lighting control Operating frequency GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100 (3GPP Release 99) networks in Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific, North America, and South America where these networks are supported Automatic switching between bands Speech codecs: AMR, FR and EFR, NB-AMR Advanced device management Personal shortcuts Customizable profiles Alarm clock Music Player (MP3/AAC) Notepad for short notes Auto lock for keyboard Calculator Get Your Free Score & Report Today!

Trackback address for this post

8 comments

§ adam said on : 2006-09-21 @ 03:47
I'm thinking of replacing my SonyEricsson with a Palm Treo 650 atm, didn't even think of these yokes as I thought they'd be very expensive. Size would be a concern though, as would Vodafone. I'm trying to get away from those scumbags, not lock into them for another year! :)

Keep us updated on progress please John.
§ adam said on : 2006-09-22 @ 08:24
I'm an oddity John, I buy expensive phones quite late in their cycle and rarely use them to the best of their ability. Contacts is the killer for me, and in my experience it's only phones like this - again, expensive ones - that do it right. That means I'm useless at data - although I'd /kill/ for push email - and thus my opinion is useless! The only consolation is that my bills are tiny, ~€25/month.

My issue with Vodafone was that I pretty much live in a hole, so my coverage is terrible. And it was terrible in my last gaff, and terrible in the gaff before that. But the real problem is their handling of my complaint, in that they effectively told me to go f*ck myself. So I'll do the same.
§ melvin said on : 2006-10-17 @ 17:42
Dear Melvin

If you want to use my site to advertise, get in touch, my rates are reasonable.

IP Address 82.205.243.46 Country Nigeria Region - City - ISP Assignment Or Turner Technologies Nigeria Returning Visits 0 Visit Length 22 mins 7 secs VISITOR SYSTEM SPECS Browser MSIE 6.0 Operating System Windows XP Resolution 1024x768 Javascript Enabled

dear oh dear,
§ David said on : 2006-10-27 @ 13:51
Having problems setting up my wlan at home - have been seeing comments that some phone companies have disabled/made less user friendly this feature on the e61. any comments?
§ adam said on : 2007-01-14 @ 02:54
Bump! How are you getting on with the E61 John? I lost me faithful P910i, so it's time for a new handset.
§ JWT® said on : 2007-01-16 @ 11:11
Pretty good Adam,

Apart from it still feeling like holding a slice of bread to your ear its doing pretty well.

Only major complaints are...

The length of time it takes to boot from cold, 30 to 60 seconds.

Synching up to an Exchange server over wireless LAN bombs out sometimes but telling it to retry fixes everytime (happens once in 20 synchs I would guess)

Adding entries to the calendar defaults to private which means it doesn't synch to exchange, changing the entry to public does synch it but thats just a nusiance more than a problem.

Once I changed the softkeys and shortcuts to suit me I killed most of the other usability issues.

Battery life, signal etc are good but still nowhere close to the Nokia 6210 which is still my benchmark phone for battery, signal, robustness etc.

All in all if I killed the phone tomorrow I would get it again.

John
§ Will G said on : 2007-05-28 @ 05:05
this is actually a question. Do you need a sim card to use this pda. I only need it for school and i dont want to use it as a phone because i already have one. And also do you also need a sim card to connect to the internet?
§ Will G said on : 2007-05-28 @ 05:07
do you need a sim card to connect to the internet, or even use the pda features?

Comment feed for this post

Stall The Ball