Nokia E63
Maxabout Review
Cheap Alternate to E71
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Nokia E63 is undoubtedly a trimmed-down version of the E71 and almost a return to the E61i roots - with a 2 megapixel camera and no built-in GPS receiver. Its appearance is more casual, replacing the metal with a high-quality plastic. Hopefully, the build quality doesn’t suffer from this and is still very high-end.
E63 feels great in the hand, virtually undroppable and very robust. Yes, it's thicker than the E71, but not unduly so. The screen is hidden behind a layer of tough plastic and the 2 megapixel camera is semi-protected by a raised camera surround. The form factor of the E63 has also been designed for ease of use with just a single hand in mind, even while typing as the phone only measures 114x57x10mm.
The full-sized QWERTY keypad is made up of small oblong keys, which are raised and bevelled for a decent responsive feel whilst typing. These unfortunately have a bit of a plasticky feel to them and a distinct squeaking sound that sounds something like running a damp cloth over glass.
The screen comes along at the same size as the E71, that’s 2.36-inch, 320x240 pixels display. It’s clear and wide enough to read emails, SMSs or browse the web. Its quite clear that Nokia is aiming the E63 at young professionals, who need email at work and whilst on the move in their own time.
For that purpose, Nokia has provided a dual-home screen feature to the handset. One of the setups shows off all the work functions needed, with the other is easily switchable to show shortcuts and features of leisure, including social networking functions.
Pressing the spacebar on the keyboard for a few seconds activates a light on the rear of the handset, as if it were a torch. The very same light used by the camera on the phone when in poor lighting conditions. Pressing that key again, turns it off. Although with the phone locked, hitting the space bar only turns the light on briefly.
The colors are also more liberal and instead of the boring grey and black, here we find the fresher blue or red. The E63 has gotten a bit thicker and is now 13 mm, instead of the E71’s 10 mm. There is virtually no change in the other dimensions and as a whole the size is pretty decent for a QWERTY phone.
Main Features of Nokia E63:
- Quad-band GSM support
- 3G support
- Landscape 2.36" 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
- Symbian 9.2 OS, S60 UI with FP1 (sprinkled with some FP2)
- 369 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB of SDRAM
- 2 megapixel fixed focus camera with LED flash
- 120 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion
- Standard 3.5mm audio jack
- Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP support
- MicroUSB v2.0
- Full QWERTY keypad
- Remote Lock and Wipe feature
It runs on Symbian 9.2 with Feature Pack 1, just like the E71. The option of switching between two modes is also present here, reminding us of the fact that the E63 can easily turn into a business assistant. As such, it offers perfect organizer functions; phonebook, e-mail client and Internet browser. The last one lets you check your favorite page, and for a fast connection you can use either the 3G or Wi-Fi network.
Overall the E63 is a good handset and comes in at nearly half the cost of the E71. This is with almost little or no sacrifice at all. The handset can serve both as a good budget business phone, whilst being useful socially too.