The Nokia E62 is an amazing PDA phone and is targeted for business professionals. With all the new Smartphones being released by HTC, Motorola and Samsung, Nokia had to jump on the bandwagon too. The E62 is one of the latest successors of the Nokia E-series. The E62 runs the Symbian OS 9.1 which has many great features. The E62 is almost the same as the E61 but does not offer features like Wifi. Overall which is better Windows or Symbian OS? Is the E62 a good competitor with the Moto Q, Cingular Blackjack or T-Mobile Dash? READ ON TO FIND OUT!!
The E62 looks like a blackberry device but at the same time looks very unique. The E62 has a full QWERTY keyboard along with a 5-way joystick. Overall the keyboard is excellent because the keys are spaced out so you can easily type. Compared to the Dash/S620 the keyboard is much roomier but overall the device itself is bigger too. The 5-way directional joystick is great. You can easily maneuver from menu to menu but at times you accidentally push in the joystick and select the wrong option.
The side volume keys are fine but the voice record button is directly under them. Many times you start recording a conversation accidentally when on a call. In my opinion the record button should have been a nice distance from the volume buttons.
The back of the phone is a bit awkward because it gets thicker from the top. If the phone's width was consistent throughout the phone I think it would have looked much better.
The numeric keypad is directly in the middle of the QWERTY keyboard. The * # and 0 keys are not at the bottom of the keypad but on the right side. This I found a bit weird at first but you do get used to it.
The speaker on the E62 is fine but the way it's placed is uncomfortable. At times when you?re on the phone you cannot hear properly because the speaker is not aligned with your ear. Compared to other phones (especially Nokia) this has never been an issue.
Overall the E62 looks great but is a lot bigger than other devices in its class ie. Blackjack and T-Mobile Dash.
The E62 is great for media. In the menu there is a dedicated media folder which contains; gallery, real player, music player, voice recorder and flash player. The gallery application lets you view images, video clips, music tracks, sound clips from voice recorder, streaming links and more. The built in real player also works great. You can not only view saved video clips but also stream videos straight form the web. Real Player supports the following file extensions: MP4, MPEG ? 4, 3GP, RV and RA. Compared to Coreplayer or TCPMP for Windows Mobile the file types are very limited in Real Player.
Another preinstalled program is the Music Player. Although you can use Real player for music, the music player has many more options. When you open the application it automatically searches for music saved on either the device or memory card. The Music Player app also has an equalizer setting in which you can select presets for acoustic, bass booster, hip hop, pop, R&B and Rock.
The phone also has a flash player built in. The flash player is Flash Lite 1.1 which is not the greatest because it does not support all the new types of flash files. Although this program comes pre-installed, you can install the newer Flash Lite 2.1 on the E62. You can download it from the Adobe site here for free but you need to make a login if you don't have one already:
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=flashlite2_1_symbian_download
If you get ?certificate errors? when installing this application or others you can get around the problem by looking here:
http://www.e-series.org/archives/192
The E62 also comes with a suite of Office applications. With this suite you can view or edit Microsoft Excel, Word and Powerpoint files. The suite also includes a ZIP program in which you can easily compress files before sending them via email.
The E62 also has a built in navigation program called TeleNAV. Although the phone does not have built in GPS, it relies on a Bluetooth GPS receiver. If you have a GPS receiver there is no need for third party GPS applications.
The phone also has a cool voice aid program which read out everything on the display. With voice aid you can hear your recent calls, contacts, voice mailbox, time and even numbers. This feature is not a voice dialing application and does not take voice commands.
The E62 has an excellent display but is not touch screen. The display measures 59 x 44 mm and has a resolution of 320 x 240. Compared to other Nokia phones the E62's display is huge. The display is excellent for viewing webpages, but takes a bit longer to render to the display resolution.
The E62 is excellent for listening to music. The phone comes equipped with 2.5mm Nokia headphones which are excellent quality. The headphones have a built in microphone and button to answer and end calls. The headphones design is where one is longer than the other. The right headphone is supposed to around your head. I personally do not like this style and prefer headphones which are the same length but some people prefer this style. If you do not like the headphones you can always buy a 2.5mm to 3.5mm headphone converter for under 10 bucks so you can use any normal headphones.
The E62 is excellent for messaging because of the amazing QWERTY Keyboard. With the E62 you can have Push email service with Blackberry connect, have access to Microsoft exchange servers, POP/IMAP email access and more. There is also a dedicated key for email and messaging. You can customize it to which ever you use more. The E62 has AIM, MSN and Yahoo instant messenger built in and you can have them running in the background while doing other tasks.
The E62 is great for internet surfing and the included web browser is amazing. Although the E62 does not have WiFi you will need a data plan if you?re a) planning to use Blackberry Connect and b) planning to use the internet excessively. The web browser is great for rendering the size of the website so it can be viewed properly but I found at times that even though there was a fast connection, the web pages took long to load.
The E62 has many connectivity options. The E62 has built in Bluetooth, infrared, Mini USB connectivity and computer syncing capability. The E62 does not have WiFi but the E61 European version does.
The Bluetooth is version 1.2 and does not offer features like A2DP (stereo over Bluetooth). Although the E62 does not have advanced Bluetooth profiles it does standard profiles just fine. You can connect a Bluetooth headset or GPS device quickly and easily.
When you plug in the phone to your computer via Mini USB the phone asks you to select either PC suite or data transfer. The PC Suite is included with the phone and allows you to exchange data and sync with your computer. A downside is that when you click data transfer you cannot copy files directly to your device, instead you can only copy files to your memory card. The E62 supports mini SD and you need to open the back cover to access it.
Another amazing feature built into the E62 is the Blackberry Connect program. With Blackberry connect you use the E62 like a blackberry device. You can have access to instant push email services no matter where you are. Like Blackberries you need a data plan and charges vary depending on your service provider.
What's in the box?
The E62 comes with the following:
Overall I found that the E62 is way too slow for me. When you press a button the delay is at least 1-2 seconds which I found quite annoying. Overall the OS has a very slow response time and especially when there are applications running in the background it gets extra slow. Compared to Windows Mobile devices which have powerful processors the E62 is too slow.
Another downside for many is the fact that the E62 does not have a camera. Compared to other devices in it's class the Blackjack, Dash, Motorola Q, all have mega pixel cameras included.
The E62 is similar to the Motorola Q and Blackjack in terms of looks but is missing a key feature for single handed use; scroll wheel. If the E62 had a scroll wheel it would have been much easier to navigate with one hand and would be excellent for scrolling when viewing web pages.
The Nokia E62 is offered by Cingular for ZERO dollars with a service agreement. If you?re a Nokia/Symbian fan and looking for a new PDA device, look no further. If you?re signing a new service agreement with Cingular and want a little more processing power and more features I would recommend the Cingular 8525. The 8525 is 199.99 with a service agreement but offers a 400 MHz processor and has WiFi built in.
