Nokia E63: What I think of it

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Hello!

After speculating and introspecting for quite sometime on whether or not I needed a business phone, I finally purchased the Nokia E63 a few days ago. And to be honest, I'm loving this powerhorse!

My criteria was simple: I needed a phone where I could configure my corporate mail box, because it was now getting increasingly necessary for me to be able to receive, read and reply to emails on the go. I also could do with a decent application editing for instance Word, Excel, presentations. I have never been a fan of the 'Touch' phones (probably the only exceptions would be the iPHONE and more recently, the LG Cookie), and I definitely didn't want a high-end PDA; and definitely not one with a touch screen. Another important criteria was a good QWERTY keyboard and WI-FI capabilities. Finally, my last criteria was the budget. I only wanted to spend a maximum of INR 15k for my upgrade from my N81 with which I was very happy.

Features like camera, music player, games etc were not at all a top priority for me. However I wouldn't want their total absence; basic camera and music player would've worked for me. And I was willing to forego games on my targeted phone.

So after Goog'ling for such a phone, I got to know of the Nokia E series. And then the E63. It fit my bill to the T.

I purchased a red E63 for INR 12,679/- from The Mobile Store, and like I said, I'm loving it.

The feel and grip of the phone is good. The robbery finish on the keypad is nice, and the phone is fingerprint resistant.

There are a LOT of customizable attributes here as you'd expect, and it works like a charm.

Touted as a stripped off version of the E71, the E63 doesn't leave much to be desired, except a metallic body, and GPS. Both devices use the same battery, and this means that the battery backup offered by the E63 is on par with the E71, and that is good.

The QWERTY keypad is nicely built, and quite easy to type. However it's taking me some getting used to - but that's expected since this is my first such keypad.

The Nokia website also touts the E63, praising it's messaging abilities, and all for a good cause. The dedicated messaging button makes life even easier for novices like me and I love it!

The Symbian 60 OS works fast and is very responsive. There is hardly any time lag between pressing a button and waiting for the function to start. And that's awesome.

As expected of any Nokia phone, phone quality and reception is good. The loudspeaker though not the best, does hold up good.

However, coming from an N series device, I do miss the dedicated volume keys at the side - the E63 doesn't have them. The camera is pretty ok but you can't really expect much from a 2MP camera, can you? But the lack of even a basic image editor quirked me. Nothing there except rotate. Sad.

Well as for the QuickOffice, I've typed this entire piece on the document creator there using my phone's QWERTY keypad. And coupled with the predictive text, life got much easier! :-)

My final comment would be that if your criteria matches with mine (stated above), then the Nokia E63 comes highly recommended. It's the perfect low-end business phone to start with, much like jumping from digital compact cameras to DSLR's.