Nokia E66 in Smartphones

There is another small advantage to owning an E66 over an E71 - it has a sensor inside, like the iPhone's and the HTC Touch Diamond's, that will flip the screen from landscape to portrait mode automatically as you move the phone around in your hand. Flip the phone over when a call arrives and that same sensor will silence the ring for you - handy if you're a bit forgetful about switching to Silent mode for meetings.

The only other difference in terms of significant features between the two phones is the E71 includes a fully activated version of QuickOffice where the E66 does not. This means you can only view Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents rather than edit them, but then this is less of an issue with a phone that has a numeric keypad.

Weaknesses

Battery life is a bigger concern. Where the E71 included a monster 1,530mAh lithium polymer battery which lasted three to four days of light use, the E66#s battery is only 1,000mAh. On a single charge you'll be lucky to get more than two-and-a-half days of light use out of it - above average for an HSDPA-equipped smartphone, but nowhere near as impressive as the E71.

There's also no BlackBerry client available for the E66 just now, an omission we hope will be remedied in time. And it's worth pointing out again that the E66, like the E71, can't be charged over USB. The prevalence of the new skinny-plug Nokia charger blunts this somewhat - there's usually someone nearby with one to hand - but we'd still like the option to be able to charge while we sync without having to connect to the mains.

Conclusion

So the E66 turns out to be a bit of a mixed bag in the end. It's a beautiful phone, no doubt, and a very capable one at that. It's stuffed full of features, including the essential push email via Microsoft Exchange, and it is nippy and easy to use.

Its weaker battery life and lack of any kind of fast text entry means that it can't be considered a serious contender for the crown of best smartphone ever. But if you're resolutely against QWERTY keyboards by all means put it on your shortlist.

Author: Jonathan Bray