Customer Reviews

Nokia E51 Unlocked Phone with 2 MP Camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, MP3/Video Player, and MicroSD Slot--U.S. Version with Warranty (Black Steel)

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The E51 is sleek, built for style and productivity...a rare combination that means popularity with true merit. So I'm quite puzzled that this phone isn't being pushed as much as the N95.

It's got the right dimensions, not too heavy in the shirt pocket, feels good in my hand, the keypad has excellent touch and layout with 1-press keys for Calendar, Contacts, Email, Bluetooth (on/off) and Silent/General mode.

It's real cool that the 1-press keys for Calendar, Contacts and Email have different modes.
Short press starts the app (Calendar, Contacts, Email).
Long press starts a new record within the app (new calendar entry, new contact, new message).

I've re-assigned the 1-press key for Email to start the Messaging app, and long press starts the CryptoGraf Messaging app to encrypt my messages.

There's WLAN internet access with a proper browser. The camera, with just 2 MegaPixels, is good enough for my needs.

The screen is crystal clear and good for viewing video and images. BTW, I thought it gets scratched quite easily, but that's just the plastic screen protector. I removed the screen protector and the screen stays scratch free even after I put the phone in my trouser pocket along with my keys.

Another feature that makes the upgrade from E50 to this E51 a great idea...there's a font setting for adjusting the menu font sizes to Large, Medium, Small.

Voice call quality is quite good. The speakers are also quite good but they're awkwardly located on the back.
The volume controls on the side of the phone are not easy to use...it's quite confusing that the 'cursor key' acts as a volume control for the media player, but the voice call volume control is on the side of the phone.

The CPU is very fast at 350MHz, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, Mini USB 2.0, 2.5 mm A/V connector. The BP-6MT 1050mAh battery gives me great talk time and standy time even with liberal use of bluetooth and WLAN.

After owning the device for a month now, here's my quick rundown of the positive and negative aspects of the phone.

Pros (in order of importance):

+ Excelent feature vs. price ratio. You'll be hard pressed to find another mobile device offering the same feature set, smartphone capabilities, and strong community following, for the same price. This is arguably the best bang for your buck smartphone on the market right now. After researching for quite a while before purchasing, this was a big deal-maker for me.

+ Slim, stylish, classic candybar design and quality construction. The phone feels sturdy and the noticeable weight provides confidence it's not going to break if you happen to drop it accidentally (I can personally attest to this).

+ High-quality screen. Sure, it's a bit on the small size compared to other Nokia offerings, but the QVGA resolution and 16M color display more than make up for it. You'll have a hard time watching full-length movies on it because of the size, but the pictures really look great and the UI is a pleasure to look at, especially with your choice of 3rd-party themes.

+ Excelent performance. Plenty of CPU power and RAM to run several resource intensive games and application, at the same time.

+ Symbian OS 9.2. This is a tried and tested smartphone OS. You just can't beat the huge application library available on the platform. Coupled with the performance bit above, the OS just flies through anything you run. Very responsive and stable.

Now, onto to the negatives.

Cons (in order of annoyance):

- Weak battery. If you plan on using any of the features aside plain voice calls, get used to carrying the charger with you at all times. The battery is seriously underpowered, and a few hours worth of WiFi (for VoIP calls and light web browsing) on a full charge will last you--at most--24 hours. And don't even think about turning on Bluetooth for your wireless headset, since it will drain a full charged battery in about 5 hours--no joke. This is really a shame and it's one of the most frustrating aspects of the phone.

- Application certificate: mandatory. The S60 3rd Edition Symbian OS makes a requisite that all installed applications must be signed with a proper certificate. This reduces the amount of software you can install on the phone by a large amount, since most freeware or small apps you might run into are usually unsigned. The only way I have found to remove this "feature" is to effectively hack your phone, with the risk of corrupting your system. Thankfully, all went well and I'm able to install all I want now, but this security measure is simply too restrictive for the end user. If you want to take advantage of the best aspect Symbian has going for it, get ready to perform this procedure.

- Bugs in the current firmware. Although Nokia regularly updates the firmware of most of its lineup, it has recently set all their efforts on their flagship N series devices. The latest E51 firmware (200.34.36) was released on April 24, 2008, and has some major issues with the SIP client and browser, yet no update is in near sight.

=== Added on 2008-12-26 ===
- I forgot to mention the very annoying case of the side buttons (volume, mute, power, PTT). They're EXTREMELY hard to press. You literally have to hold the phone firmly with one hand, while you push forcefully on a button with your other hand. It also helps if you have long nails to dig into the buttons. Not sure why Nokia decided to have them so difficult to press.
======

- The following are not so much of an annoyance, as me nitpicking. The only feature missing from the phone that's not a gimmick (touchscreen, accelerometer, etc.) and would come in handy, especially in business oriented devices like the E series, is A-GPS. But since this would certainly drive the price way up, I think it compensates quite well despite not having this feature. The other feature gripes, like no flash or autofocus on camera, would really be pushing it, since this is not a camera phone, but it's still worth mentioning. One other small thing, is that the phone gets considerably warm during prolonged usage (15min+), be it WiFi, voice calls, video playback, etc. You can still hold it in your hand just fine, but I got worried the first time I noticed it. It's no big deal, really, once you get used to it.

In summary, the one thing that soures up the experience of using this phone is the battery. For that fact, I'll have to give it 4/5 stars, but I'm completely satisfied with my purchase, and will surely consider another Nokia smartphone in the future.

Most of the cameras today are aimed either for kids (like the chocolate), fashion conscious adults (the big hit razr), or business people (the bulky blackberry or treo).

What if i want a phone that is sleek but also loaded with all the important business tools? well the E51 was a Godsend.

This sleek phone comes with high speed 3G internet and WiFi connection. Gone are the days paying $15 to connect to the internet at airports and hotels. Simply use the mini usb cable or download a symbian based modem application and you can use your phone as your modem.

The camera is decent (2mb) and since micro sd cards are so cheap nowadays (i bought a 4gb Kingston one at Amazon for $14) you can use this phone also as a portable mp3 player (stereo ear phones included).

The best part of all though; it runs on Symbian. Download Opera mini and Google Maps (with a neat 'show current location function) and you have the capability to browse html pages and use the phone as a water down gps device.

You are either going to love this phone or hate this phone. I love mine. But I am going to write this review with an eye towards scaring away people who will hate this phone.

This phone's feature set is balanced differently than most other phones in its price class. Other phones in this price class emphasize megapixels, music, video, and fashion. This phone emphasizes productivity and connectivity. If you want productivity and connectivity, here is your phone. If not, there are plenty of others to choose from here on Amazon and elsewhere.

Let's start with what this phone does well -

This phone remotely synchronizes with Microsoft Exchange. If your company uses Exchange, you will have one phone book, one appointment calendar, and one e-mail inbox equally available on your computer and your phone. Updates in either place show up in the other. The Nokia implementation even handles contacts that have a company name but no first-name or last-name fields. My Motorola RARZ2 V8 failed this test.

The phone has Wi-Fi. I didn't know how much I would use Wi-Fi on my phone until I had it.

The phone can display word, excel, and PDF documents. It runs Google Maps very well, but without a GPS chip, you can only locate your position within about 900 to 5000 meters.

The phone has a real message waiting light. Why is this feature disappearing from modern phones?

The phone supports high speed 3.5G data on two bands. This is a lot for a European phone, especially one that came to market last year. Sadly, high speed data service is pretty much nonexistent here in the United States, and much of what does exist is on a band this phone can't handle. But will you get EDGE data (and voice) nearly everywhere in the United States and abroad. Indeed, reception in fringe areas is significantly better than my wife's Nokia 6086. I have connected to ATT's HSPDA network in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Madison, and Minneapolis. I can't connect in Chicago because the network runs on an incompatible frequency there (1900Mhz).

Battery life is outstanding, especially for a thin phone.

Now lets move on to this phone's weak points -

The camera is only 2 megapixels. And it is fixed focus at that. And it doesn't work well in the dark. And there is only one of them [most phones capable of sending video have two - one facing outward and one facing you]. The camera is good enough for me, but I would never put shots from it in the family album.

The music player doesn't display album art. No flashy light show either. And you are limited to the built-in speaker or a 2.5mm audio jack (I think it helps 'em keep the phone thin - forget about it and use A2DP if you want headphones). I must admit, however, that I really miss gapless playback. Music loads into the phone very slowly on account of the older 1.5 megabyte per second USB limit.

The phone will record video. I have not been able to record video at Nokia's claimed quality (15 fps QVGA). I think I have been lied to. I think Nokia means either 15 FPS or QVGA, but not both at the same time.

The phone will play video, even from YouTube, but not at high bitrates.

Be prepared for plenty of British spelling in the menus and applications.

This phone's idea of fashion is understated basic black. I like it, but then again I am this phones target audience.

I had been following the E50 & E51 phones and I am quite happy with this phone. A smart phone has to be a good phone first. This one come pretty close. Small form factor, does not feel heavy in pocket, decent battery life, quad band, speaker phone, 3G, and wifi. I love the small light that blinks to let you know of a missed call.

Cons:
1) Speaker volume is low, compared to other Nokias I have had.
2) If you are a heavy user of the Wifi you might find the screen size small
3) Does not charge by USB cable.

I thought hard about buying the E51 or the iPhone. I think the iPhone wins overall, but I will never buy it so long as Apple arm-twists me into signing a contract with AT&T or any one phone company.

I've owned the Nokia E51 since January, and I can easily attest to the convenience, power, and versatility of this all-in-one powerhouse. I was initially attracted to it due to its relatively high amount of on-board memory and slim form factor, both of which are hard to come by in the world of Symbian S60 operating system phones. It's a very responsive device and very easy to carry in one's pockets. The built-in WiFi capability allows for Gizmo5 VOIP calling (calls on the cheap) whenever you are near a WiFi hotspot. I've also used the A2DP stereo music player with my bluetooth headphones on many occasions as a fill-in for my iPod. And the amount of freeware S60 applications that are available as well as the powerful PIM capabilities of the phone add to the incredible usefulness of the phone. The battery life is more than adequate, with ample on-screen and audible warnings before it becomes exhausted. The only serious negative for the E51 is the quality of the internal 2Mp camera, which is relatively poor. Otherwise, the E51 is everything you want in a phone, minus the gimmicks.

The nature of my work makes me move and stay to different countries for months at a time so i needed an unlocked phone. I found that's not something easy to get in US. Phone stores would even sell you a locked phone at a full prize if you don't buy a contract, that's ridiculous. I've been to he Nokia store in NYC and I would have paid 100USD more than on Amazon for the same product. I'm very happy with my purchase, the phone came in perfect condition in a sealed box. The Symbian program allows you to synchronize documents with your computer, it's a great tool. I would recommend buying a protection for the screen, gets scratched easily (Invisible Shield is great)

No need to comment on the Amazon transaction - everything went smooth and as expected.

The phone is great! Compact and yet has all the features which I need. One thing which could be improved is the battery life - compared to my old Nokia phone, the battery on this one lasts only about half, but still gets me through 3-4 days between charges. I travel between USA and Europe and can use the phone everywhere. The 3G connection is usable at this point only in Europe but perhaps some day it may be useful in the USA. The Wi-Fi in that aspect is a great fallback. I even installed Skype on the phone and am making cheap/free calls whenever am in a Wi-Fi hotspot. I stuffed a 4GB MicroSD card and now have a very convenient portable flash drive which is always handy - transferring the files over the USB or Bluetooth is a breeze. From time to time I even use the radio and it works beautifully. The built-in MP3/Video player is also quite good but is useful only if you add a good size MicroSD card for the filestorge.

I have used the phone for more than 3 months now and have dropped it a few times - no problems, just works! The Nokia contacts management utility which ships with the phone could be improved a bit (it is a program which you install on your computer to help you with the management tasks of your contacts) - it does help though entering all the contact details on a normal keyboard instead of trying to thumb them on the phone. The necessary USB cable ships with the phone but any standard mini USB cable will do too.

Some of the office-type apps pre-installed on the phone are not that great - for example, the Adobe PDF reader does not allow you to flip the screen horizontally, but there are tons of third-party apps available for that OS which you can download and install. Many good games are available too - I installed Backgammon.

Overall, I am very happy with the phone and recommend it.

I bought this phone only a few days back and I couldn't have made a better choice.
It has all the features I was looking for but I love the fact that its design it's not too flashy.
WiFi works great, I spent hours yesterday watching YouTube videos on it.
Great choice for those who want functionality, not stylish design.

It has all of the important features of its larger cousins...
After having it for a couple of months I decided to upgrade to an E71. Well I've used the larger one for some three months again and I'm switching back. My reasons:
- The E51 is really compact for a smartphone... I think this is very attractive.
- I didn't use the qwerty keyboard as much as I thought I would. As a matter of fact, I found it too crowded, and hard to use without looking at it. It was also hard to use it one handed. Since having a good tactile feedback is one of the reasons for not switching to a touchscreen device, I think the numeric keypad is much suited to my needs.
- The E71's screen is larger, but still not as large as I would've liked it to be... I think the small extra in real-state is not used well enough, and thus sub-utilized.