Nokia E51

Nokia E51

Frazier Barretto, Feb 01, 2008 1640 hrs IST

Here's the new and improved big bother of the E50. Let's take a look at what this has to offer.

Great Business Phone, Good Connectivity, Good Screen, Great Alphanumeric Keypad, Fast and Responsive interface

Poor tactile side buttons, Poor Camera

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Build & Layout

The Nokia E51 has the best build quality among the many Nokia phones that I've used. It sports a metal body with an all gloss finish. Although this finish attracts a lot of fingerprints, it is what gives E51 the executive looks that it possesses. Unlike the E50, the E51 is a flaunt device. Apart form the slimness, which was the only flaunt factor for the E50, the E51 is a bit slimmer and offers a lot more. The battery cover of the phone has a neat abstract design which blends very well with the class of the phone. The E51 is available in 3 color options and each of these has a unique design.

Now let's get down with the nitty-gritty regarding the layout of the E51.

The face of the phone has a sharp 2-inch screen. Above the screen is the earpiece; next to it is a white LED which denotes notifications like SMS, Missed Calls, etc. Below the screen is a 5-way D-Pad for navigation. Around this, there are 4 new shortcut keys - Home/Multitasking Key, Calendar, Phonebook, and Messages. Keeping these keys pressed individually for a couple of seconds allows you to instantly add an activity to the schedule, add a new contact, or write a new SMS.

All these shortcut keys and the D-Pad are placed on the inset of the 2 menu keys and the calling keys which are placed on the corners of this navigation set. In between the call keys there is a backspace key. Below the cramped navigation set of keys follows the alphanumeric keypad of the phone that begs to be punched. It's a breeze to type out text, be it an e-mail or a 160-character SMS. I must say, even though I'm a right-handed person, I found typing with only my left hand easy and hardly any typo errors.



Also to be noted that the "*" key doubles as a shortcut key to activate/deactivate Bluetooth, just like keeping the "#" key pressed activates the Silent/Vibrator Mode.

The right side of the phone has the volume keys and between them is a hands-free button. On the left side of E51, there's a voice recorder hotkey. All these buttons have rubber protection and are pretty difficult to access unless given visual attention.



The top of the phone only has one button, the Power/Profile button. Even this button shares the same nuisance as seen with the buttons on either side of the phone.

The lower end of the device has 3 ports for connectivity - headset jack, charging jack, and a miniUSB for data connectivity.

The back of the phone is plain and holds only the camera which is placed at one end of a glossy plastic strip, the gloss plastic makes for good reflection while capturing self-portrait images. Above the camera is the loud-speaker.



The fact that E51's memory card slot is placed under the battery cover is acceptable with me because it's hot-swappable and also offers protection to the card slot. Only a change of SIM will require turning off the handset; the SIM's slot is right beside the battery and requires the battery to be taken out. And yes, Nokia did a smart thing by providing a memory card with the phone.



The E51 is a clean and neatly designed phone, except for its navigation keys and the rubber-coated buttons around.

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USER COMMENTS

iam using e51i for 5 months , keypads strucks frequent ,battery drain quickly, its a worst phone for me after nk 5610xpress i dont understand why nokia is in still outdated phones r bringing next phone will be my htc touch

by irfan, chennai, on Nov 17, 2008 07:31 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Hi, I am unable to make my 'LG HBM-300' bluetooth headset detectable in my E51 mobile. What is the option in E51 to select, in order to search the bluetooth headsets. The bluetooth search option searches only the bluetooth mobiles but not the headsets.

by Chinmay Anand, Hyderabad, on Aug 29, 2008 05:38 PM, Report abuse   Reply

What is the price of HTC 730? And which is better HTC 730 or Nokia E51?

by Ashish, NOIDA, on Feb 07, 2008 11:48 AM, Report abuse   Reply

Ashish, Is S730 available inIndia? Pl. let me know the price. All nokia phones are not able to charge from laptop/desktop using USB( abig negative point for business/software prof.) Rest it is best phone if u donot craze for camera phones like the junta.

by Sanjay, Pune, on Aug 02, 2008 11:29 PM, Report abuse

I have heard that the sound is low as in 3500,3110 .Is it so?

by nchoudhury, guwahati-1, on Jul 25, 2008 10:15 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Can someone let me know if the boxp-packed leather pouch for E51 is available anywhere in the market? Unfortunately, I've lost mine.

by T. Basu, Bangalore, on Jun 26, 2008 04:56 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Superb phone.. Just started using it.. and i found it very USER FRIENDLY device.. specially key pad and its connectivity is amazing.. Well i've used lot of business phones including E 50 and even blackberry.. but would rate it the best device and moreover if u get it for just 12K odd.. then its too good.. Even looks are catchy and very handy phone...

by Saurabh, Hyderabad, on Jun 16, 2008 12:51 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Wonderful fone. Using almost like blackberry, using mail for exchange which offers pushmail at GPRS rates. FM radio is great in voice clarity and loudness in Bangalore. In short, awesome!

by Anand Sharma, Bangalore, on Jun 04, 2008 11:42 AM, Report abuse   Reply

Why don't they make a complete phone which is all the best functionalities of music player, business features and camera? Does a music lover never do business or a businessman never click pictures?

by Aashish Agarwal, Mumbai, on Feb 02, 2008 09:12 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Yes, there is : it's called the Sony Ericsson W960i. Check it out ...

by Zaphod, Bombay, on Feb 02, 2008 11:32 PM, Report abuse

check out the P1i frm sony ericcson.

by vardhan, mumbai, on Apr 25, 2008 04:21 PM, Report abuse

Is E51 compatible with blackberry service...as airtel does not support the same.

by harvinder singh, gurgaon, on May 03, 2008 06:17 PM, Report abuse

i was using the E50 and now wanting to buy the E51, there were other sites that said that were no Notes and ToDo options on the 51, is that true cuz you've said that in the Office department there are notes etc... have a backup of my E50 on my comp, can transfer all data including my notes to the E51? Pls relpy

by Joe Mathew, Thiruvalla, on Feb 16, 2008 02:20 PM, Report abuse   Reply

In fact the notes application in E51 is even better - it comes built-in with Active Notes which saves your notes in HTML format. Makes it easier to share. The To-Do is the same as in the E50. I transferred all my data from my E50 to the E51 via BT in less than 3 minutes. You can select what all you want to transfer.

by F.R.Choudhury, New Delhi, on Mar 17, 2008 11:08 PM, Report abuse

im a e 50 user, who upgraded to the e51, and i find it to be the fastest in the market currently. if you are a heavy caller, sms a lot, the keypad is a blessing, and i find the delay/lag in the other s60 phones, n series included, totally missing in this. the finish, the look, everything makes it standout in a sea of phones.

by Jaideep Malhotr, Gurgaon, on Mar 14, 2008 06:11 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Navigation key is small, difficulty in browsing

by Kamal Kishore G, Khanna, on Mar 01, 2008 11:00 PM, Report abuse   Reply

is it availabe in silver colour in india or not

by ashu, mumbai, on Feb 27, 2008 07:54 PM, Report abuse   Reply

This Phone is really Amazing, I can Do everything i need to. I am Happy after buying it. Thanx to Nokia

by Raj, NEW DELHI, on Feb 09, 2008 01:42 PM, Report abuse   Reply

quite true

by manir, chennai, on Feb 19, 2008 07:31 PM, Report abuse

"Can the E51 provide the power that many users expect with its conservative design?" Frazier what is the connection between power and design? Why use a posh sounding sentence that is meaningless?

by Emil, Mumbai, on Feb 07, 2008 12:48 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Except for the small side buttons I think this is a awsome phone

by sandhya, cgebbau, on Feb 03, 2008 12:22 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Good one i love too buy

by james, bangalore, on Feb 03, 2008 11:55 AM, Report abuse   Reply

cool..i also like slim n executive design E50..these are phones primarily for calls with wide network support n g8 symbian OS..n also battery life>which is most important

by satyanjoy, ahmedabad, on Feb 01, 2008 09:31 PM, Report abuse   Reply

I agree with E50 comment. Its very smart phone it has all the features except WLAN when compared with E51 and I use E50 for as my Blackberry device,Voice phone,Camera,Music only thing might be missing is touchscreen which is Ok else this is Great Phone for Smart peoples. Note: this is my thoughts which i'd like to share. Cheers, Velu.V

by velu, Bangalore, on Feb 03, 2008 08:29 AM, Report abuse

i have been adddicted to this phone, i sold it off first and was waiting for the silver version come, but sad new came that the silver was not gonna come to india, so again went for it, very comfortable, easy to use, elegant looking handset, which has the trademark sophistication of nokia technology.

by Bhuvan Chowdhar, Pune, on Feb 03, 2008 04:08 AM, Report abuse   Reply

You should compare this phone's specs to the E90 Communicator rather than the poor E50. You'll be surprised to find that the E51 is a more powerful machine in terms of processor speed and memory than the E90. The connectivity features are the same in both. E90 has the advantages of a built-in GPS and the dual-screen. I don't think these two additional features do not command an additional 25000 bucks over the E51

by Faridur R Choud, New Delhi, on Feb 02, 2008 10:25 PM, Report abuse   Reply

The phone has, really, a very good music output. But what is lagging in the sales package is a smart earphone. This can be overcome with 'sony fame ... into ear' earphones (eg. Nokia ad 44, creative ep 63x series)... Interfaced with 2.5mm to 3.5mm converter. But comes at an extra cost ... Indeed :-(

by Pradeep, coimbatore, on Feb 02, 2008 09:37 PM, Report abuse   Reply

I am a pride owner of E51 It is an excellent phone Worth to the price

by Dhan Bang, Mumbai, on Feb 02, 2008 07:25 PM, Report abuse   Reply

howzz the sound quality? does it has any comparison with N73 music edition(m talking earphones) does it has pop port?

by aashish.7, Mumbai, on Feb 02, 2008 09:14 PM, Report abuse

Well like to exchange with trade in of E50? Any offers please.

by c.r.nanda, Pune, on Feb 02, 2008 04:13 PM, Report abuse   Reply

what the hell is this? did E51 launched now in India very late to review a product, E51 is now old phone in Indian market please be active to review similar good product or else we always have CNET.

by harsh, pune, on Feb 02, 2008 03:20 PM, Report abuse   Reply

This phone has a SAR rating of 1.4 which is very high and could prove to be a deal breaker for many.

by Naresh, Mumbai, on Feb 02, 2008 01:04 PM, Report abuse   Reply

good expression

by raajaraman, chennai, on Feb 02, 2008 10:55 AM, Report abuse   Reply

This is an AWESOME phone.

by Vivek Thomas, Cochin, on Feb 01, 2008 09:21 PM, Report abuse   Reply

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