Nokia E55

Nokia has done it again with the new Nokia E55; it is a thin phone which looks pretty much the same with its predecessor E52. It is a phone specially created for business people and not only, it can satisfy the requirements of any user. The keyboard is very similar to the ones on SureType from BlackBerry, having two letters on each button. The purpose was clear, to make typing messages faster, without adding a slide QWERTY keyboard. A simple look on the specification list made me wish to start the tests faster on this phone.

The phone comes inside a box with normal sizes inside of which we will find the standard accessories. Besides the device we found the charger, a microUSB cable, handsfree headset and an adaptor. You get some manuals too and the software comes on the 2 GB memory card. The sizes of the Nokia E55 are almost identical to the ones on E52, having a length of 116 mm, a width of 49 mm and a thickness of only 9.9 mm. It is exactly as I was expecting it to be, weighing under 100 grams and more precise 98 grams. The phone is available in more colors: black, gray and red.

The front side has the 2.4 inch big screen and on top of it there are the speaker, the ambient light sensor and the camera for video calls. Under the screen there is the keyboard, a big enough metallic D-pad surrounded by another 8 keys big enough and easy to use. These keys are offering you fast access to some functions like email, calendar, agenda and so on. Under these keys there is the keyboard with 5 keys on a row and not 3 as we were used on a normal keyboard. It has two letters on each button.

On the top side there is the on / off key of the phone which can also be used to fast switch the profiles. Also here you have the 3.5 mm audio jack, a great position if you want to keep the phone in your pocket while you have your earphones connected. The right side has the volume control keys, the key for vocal commands and the key for photo / video capture. The keys are easy to press. The lower part of the phone has the support for the wrist band and the microphone. In the left you have the microUSB port which is protected against dust.

The back side is remarked by a beautiful steel cover. It is immune to fingerprints and it gives you the impression that the phone is made out of high quality materials. Also here you have the 3.2 mega pixels photo camera equipped with LED flash and the speaker. The cover hides the Li-Polymer battery with 1500 mAh. With such “power plant” the phone is capable of autonomy of up to 672 hours in stand-by and 8 hours of calls. Although I used it a lot, I charged it only once every three – four days.

The operating system is the one used by Nokia on all smart phones with no touch screen, Symbian S60 3rd Edition. The ARM processor reaches 600 MHz which is very good for the work speed of the phone. The menus are moving fast with no delays. Nokia E55 has new icons similar to the ones on the Symbian S60 5th Edition. The main menu is displayed under a matrix with 4 lines and 3 columns. This can be displayed as a list also, and the accelerometer can automatically rotate it. The waiting screen is not different from the E52, you can add different fast commands to applications and you can display on the screen notifications like new messages, events on your calendar and so on.

As on the recent Nokia business phones, the Mode Switcher function is still present, which alternates by a single press between two different profiles. You can create a special profile for work and another for your free time. The vocal recognition function works pretty good and it is useful in the moment you are driving because it allows you to dial someone without touching any buttons. The function to lock the phone from distance is still present. This is useful if you lose your phone rather than if it is stolen. In order to lock it you have to send a SMS with a certain code. If on the phone is introduced the code wrong three times, all the personal data is deleted. I don’t think that any thief keeps the SIM so in case it is stolen you know won’t know on which number to send the SMS.

The display of the phone has 2.4 inch and it offers a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and 16 million colors. It is a high quality display which is offering excellent brightness and contrast. It is perfectly visible in strong sun light. The quality of the calls is great. The sound made by the speaker is loud and very clear even in very loud areas you can hear what you are talking to your friends. The signal level is great also even in areas big signal problems.

The agenda is great. It is offering you unlimited storage space for the contacts and a lot of fields for different additional information associated to each contact. For example you can add birth date, home address, email, home number, fax number and so on. The contacts can be stored either on the phone or on the SIM card. The call history shows you the last 20 received and made calls. The agenda can synchronize with Microsoft Outlook.

Nokia E55 is great with all kind of messages. It supports SMS, MMS and email. The SMS and MMS editor is the same. A message transforms into a MMS when you add a multimedia file. The email client is automatically configured if you are using Yahoo or Gmail.11