back to article Nokia E6 smartphone

Touchscreen phones are where both manufacturers and punters are spending now, and all other categories are seeing rapid declines in market share. But if the most important applications you use involve phone calls and messaging, all of the new, whizzy devices fall short. None do voice particularly well, or messaging …

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  1. Anonymous IV

    Suggested price is £100?

    Amazon has it listed SIM-free at £299.99, with the "list price" being £100 more...

  2. Insane Reindeer

    Verizon and USB OTG

    Given as this, and seemingly most new Nokia's since the N8 are pentaband does this mean they will work on the Verizon network in America? Or for that matter any of the other networks around the world that work on the same infrastructure as Verizon's?

    Also does this phone support USB OTG?

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Verizon

      It won't work on Verizon because they use CDMA and EVDO. The five bands might mean it gets a 3G connection on T-Mobile US as well as the more usual usual AT&T.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No thanks

    As an E71 user I can say - I am almost sold. Almost. Close, but no cigar. In fact, if I am given this phone for free I will definitely not turn it away. Pay for it... No... Do not think so... 319.95 on mobilefun. Definite NO.

    So I would probably be buying the refresh of the Xperia mini pro when it is out in August instead (or just staying with my E71 until it dies). It will be 50+ less, will do the same stuff, will have a keyboard. It will be shorter on battery life, but hey, you cannot have everything.

  4. Nick Kew
    Stop

    Oy!

    "I doubt if anyone felt an emotion resembling affection for their E71"

    I love my E71! As a phone I'd choose it over any iphone or android model I've encountered. Comfortable in the pocket and in the hand (physically small), fantastic keyboard, and a decent battery life (like, my battery is well over two years old and I still get a week if I'm not using it too much for heavier tasks like GPS).

    When it dies I want the replacement to be just as compact and comfortable, and to have as nice a keyboard! And preferably battery life, too!

    1. Jolyon

      E71

      Yes, still the best phone I've ever had and wins out over iPhone and Android largely because it will do everything I need for a week on a single charge.

    2. Chris Parsons

      I thought I was alone

      I ditched my E71 for a Desire Z about 5 weeks ago. It has now packed up so I'm using my E71 again. As a phone, and for messaging, it's like a breath of fresh air. As you say, the battery life is brilliant - lucky to get a day out of the Desire. Yes, the Desire is much flashier, and great for internet, but as an actual business tool, the Nokia is much, much more useful. Anyone want to buy a Desire Z? I'm assuming they'll fix it.

    3. Lamont Cranston
      Thumb Up

      Damn right.

      My E63 does everything I need it to do.

  5. tin 2

    Rediculous

    A business phone where it's difficult to always successfully answer a call?

    Score: 0%

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Business phone?

      This looks very similar to one of the Blackberry models to me - which is also a favourite with text mad teenage girls.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        BBM

        But the BlackBerries have BBM, which is really all the teenage girls want.

      2. Robert E A Harvey
        Thumb Up

        mmmm...

        ... mad teenage girls...

    2. jason 7
      Meh

      Happens with HTC/WinMo too

      Had many a time I pressed the green answer button only to have the call cut off instantly.

  6. peterkin

    The charger may be clever

    but it's not all all that new. My year-old Nokia featurephone has the same charger. It's not innovative white, though, just old-school grey.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Score

    70 % for an obsolete platform and a great feature:

    "My review E6 didn't always answer phone calls - with the phone hanging up before I had a chance to answer it"

    OK - it's only £100, but you'll be hard pressed to get any new apps in 12 months time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Many many people don't want apps

      So not sure not having them in 12 months is a problem.

      Although the call answer issues is a biggy.

    2. Neil 7
      Go

      It runs Qt apps

      Where Qt is concerned, it's not about Symbian.

      You write a Qt app, it can run anywhere - you don't write the app specifically for Symbian, or MeeGo, or S40, or Android (yes, Android), that's simply where the app gets deployed.

      1. fch
        WTF?

        write in Qt, run anywhere ...

        ... as long as someone bothers to actually compile and package it up for the target platform.

        Hasn't this "write once, run anywhere" thing been an early 90s' marketing slogan for some sort of hot and bitter californian caffeinated beverage, and everyone moved on since ?

    3. ToonArmyBarmy
      FAIL

      £100

      A quick search on Google Shopping brings back a lowest price of £300. Might have bought one at £100 just to stick my work sim into.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re "you'll be hard pressed to get any new apps in 12 months' time"

      I use a 5 year old Nokia E61 (Symbian S60) and still find new apps and updates for same, sufficient to keep it a satisfying thing to use.

  8. James Hughes 1

    EDOF camera

    My understanding is that this DOES have a 8MP EDOF camera. Would be interested to know if that is actually the case....

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: EDOF camera

      It's EDoF after all - just better than any I have used. The copy now clarifies this. Thanks.

  9. AndrueC Silver badge
    Joke

    Nokia still make phones?

    ..what's all that about then?

  10. Ant Evans
    Meh

    Deja vu all over again

    Good to see Nokia trying to develop a natural successor to the E71: a smartphone designed as if battery life mattered.

    Bad to see that Nokia still can't design smartphones as if software mattered.

    Since I am not interested in an MS phone, I guess my E71 will have to live forever.

    (My 6310 tried, but, through no fault of its own, it ended up at the bottom of the river Wey. To avoid a recurrence of this unfortunate outcome, I moved to Germany. So far, so good.)

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Deja vu all over again

      Once that call bug is fixed, the E6 is the natural upgrade to the E71 and vastly superior in almost all respects.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        Once that call bug is fixed...

        But for this ever-so minor bug (that you can't use him to make or receive phone calls), my dog would make an excellent phone.

        Reg Score For My Dog: 75%

  11. Stuart 22

    Hello, hello .....

    A phone optimised for make phone calls. Shirley sum mishtake?

    Yep making calls is a pig on both my Androids. But as I use it more for other stuff I will sadly not be returning to Nokia. Hopefully Google, ZTE, HTC, Huwei et al will be issuing the E6 to their developers to show what they need to do on the voice front.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Shurley a mishtake

    MY android gets 48 hours standby if nobody calls me, I dont see how these battery life figures can be right

    1. dansus

      Welcome to Android.

      Welcome to Android, its a battery munching pig.

    2. Pperson

      Re: Battery life

      No mistake - that's simply how much juice Android phones and the like suck down in comparison to Nokia's E-series phones.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    "if Nokia can fix the bugs"???

    Well, I know the answer to that one. The E50 I used to have was perfect except the bug where randomnly calls would get automatically answered and on speakerphone with the only recourse being to pull the battery.

    That "small" bug was never fixed to this day.

    No, its ok Nokia you blew "business phone" with me on that one, together with not being able to make non-camera versions of any of the newer ones, despite promising it.

    BTW I'd love to know what sort of "business" the reviewer is in whereby you can classify issues with using a phone, as a phone, as a minor niggle. If thats the case, buy a gameboy or an ipad or a blueray player or a toaster or something, a phone is clearly not what you need.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Nice in some respects not so nice in others

    AC since I agreed to a beta test NDA and want the opportunity to do testing again sometime.

    Got one of these sent out by Nokia for testing with an earlyish firmware revision and I too noticed the massive problem of not being able to pick up calls all the time. Upgraded to latest firmware just before I had to send it back and that problem was still present.

    Good points - very nice screen, good camera, felt speedy, HTML e-mail, touch - to an extent - soft keys weren't consistent but lovely for scrolling on web pages, build quality, photo gallery

    Bad points - Locked / froze quite a lot even with only a couple of apps open. Non-push E-mail download seemed a lot slower than with my old E71, even with text only stuff. I added my corporate e-mail to it which has a PIN code and encryption policy, worked well. However once I removed the e-mail and unencrypted I still couldn't remove the PIN which was very annoying.

    I'd say superior to the BB Torch even though screen is smaller, Torch is clunky when you slide it open and build quality feels pretty poor.

    If I was offered it for free (assuming call issue fixed) I'd take one. £300. Hmm, cheaper than BB 9780 but difficult to decide since Symbian is of course dead.

  15. Gerry Doyle 1

    What, no torch?

    Looks like I'll be sticking to my E63 then, the best, most reliable, most useful phone I've ever seen.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Pfff... Moore's Law.

    E71 = 369MHz ARM11

    E6 = 600MHz ARM11

    So still using old SOC designs, and only 256MB of RAM - at the £100 you seem to think it costs this would be a bargain, but at well over £300 it's decidedly not.

    Whilst Symbian may be smooth I fully expect the Nokia affliction of slow app and web performance is in full effect here.

    This then is a mobile PHONE, don't expect it to be a smart or super phone. And if a phone is all you need then there are cheaper options...

  17. Select * From Handle
    Thumb Down

    I think this will fail...

    why?

    because this is the first time i have herd about this phone. as good as it may be, nokia need to advertise more...

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    My two penn'orth

    I daily use a 5yr old E61, a predecessor of the E6, and feel sad about Nokia's lack of a red-blooded app ecosystem despite vast expenditure (some will draw an analogy about central planning vs ... whatever the Apple app store thing should be called). And sad about this orphan OS.

    Yes Nokia call quality and battery life is greatly superior, and that's important. But if I'm anything to go by (and I'm sure this sounds plenty dysfunctional, but, anyway), then, the internet, and mobile internet, are tools almost to get distance from people, in terms of reading news stories and endlessly shopping around, and mucking about with programs, wherever I am, rather than put me in touch with real people. And Apple with its thriving app ecosystem, makes this process one of endless discovery of innumerable apps and non-human variety, if you like.

    I wonder if there will be a vast cull of Apple app developers when they realise the long-run profits are only there for a few - and IOS end up in a few years with the stripped-down choices which Symbian users now have, ironically?

  19. dansus

    E6

    Had my E71 since release, still use it today. Will pick this one just to see how it goes, im sure they will iron out the quirks.

  20. Andy 97
    Thumb Up

    Feature phone with a decent camera and proper keys...

    And a decent battery life too?

    Does it have a decent camera [yes]

    Does it make work as a phone [sort of yes]

    Can I get my email [yes]

    Does it look like an ugly business phone [yes]

    Can I put it in my pocket [yes]

    Only 300 groats too?

    Just hope they fix the phone call issues.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A jack of all trade but master of none?

    It appears that Nokia is trying to master the basics which apple and others seem to have forgotten while they chase the masses.

    Its actually a good strategy when you think about it.

    Apple and others rely on the price breaks that they get when the telcos subsidize the phone in exchange of a new contract. But if your phone breaks before the contract is up, they will gladly renew your contract, so if you have 1 year left, you'll be stuck on their network for the next 3 years or pay a now hefty penalty to exit your contract early. IPhones break easily. I have a friend who goes through an iphone at least once a quarter. My wife destroyed her crackberry in a year. The Nokia phones, while not indestructible tend to outlast the 2yr commitment.

    But lets get back to the issue. A phone is first and primarily a phone for voice and sms/email texting. There's a growing population of people who don't do facebook or other 'social networking' sites. Nor do we feel the need to tweet about the latest bowel movement we've just had.

    A camera is sometimes handy, as well as internet access to help look up an address or phone number. So a phone that keeps to the basics and tries to master them is going to be a worthwhile product.

    Note I'm not saying that Nokia phones are perfect. (No they really do have some major flaws.) But following the crowd really won't help the company survive.

  22. Neil C Burns
    FAIL

    bum

    I have a e6 too. i was so glad to hand it back and return to my e71

    the camera i use on e71 is good to reproduce biz cards clearly and has a mechanical focus. the e6 dont, and is crap. buggy. plenty of other issues too, but nda'd.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Phone?

    "My review E6 didn't always answer phone calls - with the phone hanging up before I had a chance to answer it."

    You're holding it wrong.

    Sorry, I'll be on my way...

  24. Adam Nealis
    FAIL

    I thought it was a Crackberry at first.

    Complete and utter FPOSPhone!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As sad as it may seem

    I think that it looks OK, especially for the price. The biggy for me (except of course for the inability to answer calls) would be hew the gps map stuff look on such a small screen. Does it work ok or not?

  26. John 62

    4-key spacebar?

    looks like 4 key-widths in both pics.

    Also, is this like the Rover 75? A well-received car and then boom! Bye-bye, Rover...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: Rover 75

      Ah, well, I gather Rover only had 3 good cars in the latter half of the C20th - the P5, the SD1, and the 75, none really great. Whereas Nokia really set the bar for mobile phone physical and interface design and call technology for quite a while. So I hope you're wrong anyway! Cheers

    2. David Precious

      The E72 had the narrow spacebar

      The keyboard comparison images are of the E6 and the E71; it's the E72 which halved the space bar.

  27. David Precious

    No USB charger?

    I'm mildly surprised that Nokia continue to use their own proprietary charger plugs, rather than using mini/micro USB sockets like pretty much everyone else seems to have standardised upon these days. Mini/micro USB chargers and leads are pretty ubiquitous these days, making it easier to borrow a charger/cable when needed. (Granted, Nokia chargers were everywhere at one point when Nokia ruled the mobile phone market, but not so much any more, at least in my experience.)

  28. Nick
    Unhappy

    What about the message alert light?

    I've read reports elsewhere of this being so dim as to be useless unless in a fully dark room.

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