Nokia E6 Review

You could be forgiven for mistaking the Nokia E6 for a BlackBerry at a quick first glance, thanks to its compact QWERTY keyboard. However, it is far more than just a clone and has plenty of its own features to offer the user. We know that there has been some question over Nokia’s software recently, but there is no questioning the quality of the hardware.

The E6 has a glossy white fascia and Nokia has managed to avoid it looking rather brash which often happens with these white handsets – although it is available in black if you prefer. It looks pretty classy thanks to the phone’s silver reverse and metallic trim.

Screen test

We were surprised to see that the phone has a touch display, and in the bottom corners you’ll find Options and Menu commands. It took a bit of getting used to because it’s not what we’re used to on Nokia phones, however, the display is vibrant and responds well, and we enjoyed the excellent graphics. However, it’s a shame that it is only 2.46 inches, because you can’t do too much with it.

The small screen size also results in a lot of scrolling when surfing the net, plus we experienced a lot of juddering when browsing – this was especially so when using the D-Pad to move the virtual cursor. Web pages were speedy to open, and we could pinch and pull to zoom easily. Realigning the page is achieved by double tapping, but when we did this some of the text disappeared off the edges of the screen. It’s a shame that the keyboard wasn’t used for shortcuts – for instance, being able to press the F key to find, rather than delving into menu settings would have been great.

Keyboard

The keyboard itself is a neat size, and the keys go right to the edge of the handset. It means that the phone maintains a decent size, and Nokia has managed not to make the keys feel too cramped. The keyboard glowed when we used it, and there is a useful lock switch on the right of the device. The number keys sit in the centre of the keyboard (they each share one key with a letter). 

D-Pad

Sitting above the keyboard is a D-pad, which is raised for ease of use. It feels like it should be able to carry out diagonal moves, but in fact simply carries out four-way movements. On each side of the D-pad sit a pair of flat panels that offer three functions each. The left-hand panel allows you to access Calendar, Home and Call. The other is for Email, Contacts and Email. You’ll need to handle these with care, as there’s not much space between them.

Operating system

The Nokia E6 runs on Nokia’s own Symbian Anna. It’s not as user friendly as Android, but still offers three customisable home screens. However, some icons cannot be removed and you have to position them according to the tab system. There are preset tabs – one of them is Ovi Social, Nokia's social networking integration feed. It works quite well, bringing all your social media feeds on to the home screen (you can also view Twitter and Facebook feeds separately). However, it was not so clever at uploading photos over a data connection – we had to switch back to Wi-Fi to get any results.

What we were impressed by was the E6’s sat nav experience – it has an incredibly accurate A-GPS as well as Ovi Maps, which we love. The small screen lets it down a bit, but it still offers really quick rerouting speeds and clear voice instructions.

The snapper also impressed us, thanks to its dual-LED flash. It offers fixed focus and our pictures stayed blur-free despite our best efforts.

The verdict

Despite the fact that the E6 sports the latest version of the Symbian OS, we’re still not keen on it, and look forward to the first Nokia Windows Phone 7 device being launched. However, the Nokia E6 has enough in the way of features to be a phone that will certainly appeal to the masses.