Nokia E5-part 2

Features

The E5 runs the same S60 3rd Edition software with Feature Pack 2 like the E72. However, there are a number of differences beyond that. The E5 has a lower 18-bit screen color depth (24-bit on the E72), 50cm to infinity camera focus range (10cm to infinity on the E72), and lacks an onboard accelerometer. On the bright side, it has twice the amount of RAM at 256MB and a larger F2.4 aperture (F2.8 on the E72). The fixed-focus camera on the E5 also has the Extended Depth of Field feature, which increases the distance of the depth-of-field, keeping more objects in focus.

On the connectivity front, the E5 comes with HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS for satellite navigation. Its maximum download and upload speeds over the cellular network are 10.2Mbps and 2Mbps, respectively. Take note that these are theoretical limits and actual transfer speeds will depend on your operator's network.

The interface on the E5 will not confuse anyone who has ever used a Nokia S60 device. There are six different options for the home screen. The different versions are the default panels from older versions of the S60 interface, so we expect that most users will be able to find one they are familiar with.

Pressing the Home button will bring up the familiar grid-style menu interface. Folders can be created and apps rearranged to your liking. As it has been capable of for years, Nokia's Symbian OS allows multitasking--just press and hold the Home button to see a list of programs running in the background.

Though the browser is usable, the small 320 x 240-pixel display means Web surfing isn't very enjoyable. Third-party applications are available for Symbian S60, but these aren't as plentiful as what's found on the iPhone and Google's Android OS. If games and programs are important factors in your buying decision, going Symbian probably isn't the best idea.

To Nokia's credit, it has made getting your email on the smartphone a simple task. The setup wizard has presets for the most popular email services including Gmail, Yahoo, Exchange and Lotus Notes. You can also configure a service manually if the preset is available.

The 5-megapixel fixed-focus camera on the E5 gave decent image quality with acceptable sharpness and good color rendition. We noticed a slight blue cast in the middle of the photo in our test shot, but this should not be too obvious for small, Web-quality snapshots.