Nokia E7 is arguably the best Symbian smartphone ever made. Some folks may prefer the N8 for its superior camera, but even they would like E7’s bigger screen and maybe the physical keyboard.
That said I had some time to play with Nokia’s flagship device and there are 5 things I like about.
1. Keyboard
I’m not sure why it took the Finnish company that long to finally make a decent keyboard. The one Nokia N97 and N97 mini have sucks, big time. In sharp contrast, typing on the E7’s keyboard rocks. Keys are not that flat, allowing you to type pretty fast in no time at all.
2. Form factor
You may think there’s nothing new and unusual about side-slider shaped phones, but that’s not the complete story. Engineers at the Finnish giant managed to make a decently sized (i.e. not too bulky) device which packs both a large screen and full QWERTY keyboard. Usually that keyboard makes phones too big to carry around, but that’s not the case here.
3. Build quality
One could instantly tell we’re talking about a flagship product. The E7 feels rock solid in hand, giving you the feeling it’s worth every penny spent on it. Nokia is well-known for making high-quality products and in that sense E7 continues this tradition. As a matter of fact, after using the E7 other side-sliders feel like cheap Chinese clones.
4. Multi-tasking
Nokia E7 comes with real multi-tasking which works like on your PC. You can easily switch between the running apps using the visual app switcher. Simply hold the home key to see all of the apps running, and switch or end running processes. Unlike Android, Symbian won’t kill your running apps when it thinks it needs to.
5. Screen
What can I say about E7’s screen? It’s awesome and there are few apps that actually take advantage of its AMOLED battery-saving capabilities, showing useful information when phone is in the standby mode. Moreover the ClearBlack technology allows reading even on the direct sunlight.
And that’s about all good I had to say about Nokia E7. Next time I’ll be talking about its downsides. Stay tuned…