The power in hands of mass-Nokia E5-Unboxing and first impressions

“Sir! you got a parcel” – I got a call from the security in-charge of our office and I knew that it came.

It would be wrong to say that I was not expecting the same. Great people at @WomWorldNokia and DHL both are transparent in their operations and being in New Delhi always come as advantage because I never had to wait for more than 4 days, once WomWorld people give it a go.

Happy to see a review unit back in house after a little pause. Thanks WOM people, thanks again.

This time, I thought to ask my friend Krishna to come up, so that I could get a fresh hand opinion from someone else as well. So, all the back ground stuff ends here …

So this was the shiny and slim blue box, we got for Nokia E5-00 and this time it was a white one. So it was the second white device to me in a row after Nokia N86.

After opening the box, I was greeted with the regular Nokia Accessories with white Nokia E5-00 taking the middle place.

If you go by the specs, then a 600 MHz processor with 256 MB RAM that too with such a nice QWERTY, so reliable S60 V3 FP2 OS and an extended battery life with 1200 mAh battery sure deserves a price. Still for keeping the prices down, I was not expecting much of the goodies inside the box.

Again that small tiny USB cable. I bet no other manufacturer would have been shipping such small cable. Oh! Com’on Nokia, it wouldn’t kill you if you keep on shipping those longer length USB cables.

Matching with the colors of the device, we got the white stereo headsets as well, though for a surprise, those adjustable ear buds are not included in the package. May be price compromise. Fine with it.

The charger was a UK one (Indian package would be different), but with a socket as well.

When taken out of the box, the white color was a real piece of beauty for my surprise otherwise, I always been a fan of Black/ Dark Gray devices due to rough nature of my work most of the time.

* Obviously the pics was taken after setting it up but this was a beauty, isn’t it?

The front of the device has a nice speaker in front top and a light sensor at its usual place.

At the bottom, there is a tiny microphone and obviously none of you might be asking for some noise cancellation second microphone here considering the price of the device that is around 11.3k INR.

A richer and comfortable QWERTY with a longer space key in the middle and a metal plate featuring six buttons namely Left and Right Selection Keys in first row, Home keys and Messaging key in second row and finally Call key and End\ Power key in last row.

I am trying to avoid the comparison, but let me mention few differences between Nokia E72 and this one. For me almost all of them been very positives.

1. It removes Calendar and Contacts buttons (I wasn’t using them much in Nokia E72 either)
2. It brings green and red colors to Call and End Call keys, which were plain in Nokia E72.
3. It brings extra width for space key

If we rest of the device, then Nokia seems to have taken a very minimalistic approach in design.

Not many buttons are around and as we already have seen power key been already merged with the Call End key (though I Haven’t been favour of this compromise, but its about habit only). There are two plastic buttons on the sides, which pushes the battery cover out, when pressed. There is no camera/ Gallery buttons neither many would have preferred so for not camera centric device. The Navi Key works as a Camera button as well.

Upper portion has the volume key on the right side, for which I will say that the feedback could have been better as current one feels a bit extra tougher.

While there is nothing on the curvy bottom side, the top has the 2mm power jack, 3.5mm headset jack and one MicroUSB port covered with a plastic cap. Did I told you earlier that I always preferred devices without the plastic cover as such caps are always susceptible to be broken, but still I understand that many wants this to be in place as well.

The back of device features the 5MP Full Focus Camera, a single LED flash (works as video light too) and a stereo speaker. Though I would have argued over the placing of speakers on the back, but the volume is such crisp that I still doesn’t mind it. We also find Nokia E5-00 engraved at the bottom of battery cover, that’s cute.

The same 1200 mAh battery that I criticize up to some extent in Nokia N8-00 and E7-00, I seems to be loving in Nokia E5-00 for sure. You can really really rely on this device for the whole day and night too.

And may be many don’t stress over it, but for me placing of SIM slot always been important. We got exactly the same SIM slot as was there in Nokia N82 means no scratches over the SIM or struggling to put it right at first instance.

While there are many arguments over the Full Focus cameras, but one thing is sure. Some casual snappers seems to be even liking it as I took opinion of some. No wait for getting focus right and you just have to keep the hands straight while taking pictures. Unbelievable for me, but many seems to be liking it. By the way, being a S60 V3 FP2 device, it also has advantage of having panorama mode inbuilt in camera.

Some of the random shots in day light

And in night light. Yeah I will post Flash reactions later on.

And at the end, let me tell you guys, just for sake of getting exact feeling of Nokia E5-00, I am keeping my Nokia N8-00 as retired and Nokia E5-00 has taken the driver seat. You know its not an easy job, is it?

So, these were some of my first impressions on Nokia E5-00. All I can say is, this is a brilliant piece of hardware in a superb and very very well justified price. A device that you could live with for sure and still never regret like you never regretted with most of the E-Series devices.

You should expect some more coming in next coming days. Be tuned in ….

Nitish Kumar

http://nitishkumar.net

http://scifireviews.wordpress.com