Nokia E61 review

As already noted, mobile email is a key feature of the E61. You can set the handset up to deal with personal email accounts and it also has support for plenty of options for companies wanting to send email updates to handsets over the air automatically.

Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and infrared are all built in, and we found using Wi-Fi for Web browsing worked a treat, thanks to the E61's relatively large screen.

A smart phone like this would be nothing without calendar software, and true to the third edition of Symbian's Series 60 operating system, there is indeed calendar software on board. Nokia's PC Suite software for synchronising this and other data with Outlook on your main PC is included. We often find using the calendar on Series 60 handsets frustrating due to their screen size, but in this case the large screen comes into its own. We would be quite happy to work with this device instead of a dedicated handheld organiser.

There's oodles of other software here, including a word processor, a spreadsheet and presentations creator compatible with Microsoft Office software, and, just for fun, a music player. There's no FM radio though, which is a shame.

There is 64MB of built-in memory and Nokia provides a further 64MB in a miniSD card, which should be enough to get you started. with what is, quite probably, likely to be Nokia's most compelling alternative to the BlackBerry.

Performance
We had no trouble maintaining a 3G signal with this handset, and voice conversations were loud and clear. The volume output by the loudspeaker when playing music was so loud at its maximum that we had to put the E61 in a drawer to tone it down. Audio quality was acceptable, but not outstanding.

Battery life, on the other hand, was outstanding. We got a shade more than fourteen hours of music playback from the E61. Unsurprisingly, it survives on standby for days on end.

Thanks to Expansys for providing a review sample of this phone.

Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Nick Hide