Nokia has done it again ! Take a great product and replicate it to suit all pockets. It's what they did with the N97 ( n97 mini), the 5800 XpressMusic (5230, 5233, 5235 etc) and now they are doing the same with the the Nokia N8. The Nokia E7 looks exactly like the N8 and runs the same OS - Symbian 3 ; which is only the second model ever to get the cutting edge OS from Nokia. It features a full QWERTY slider keyboard and the same beautiful 4inch AMOLED touch screen.
Externally, the only differences one notices, between the Nokia N8 and E7 is the slider QWERTY keyboard, a quick scrutiny of the phone's back and one will also notice that the camera is downgraded to 8 mega-pixels from 12 and the phone's size is a little bigger than the N8 due to the additional slide out keyboard (Picture on the right shows the E7 vs the N8). The camera downgrade also means that the cost of the E7 might be lower than the N8 , that's the same thing that Nokia did with the 5800 XpressMusic; take a high-end model that costs 15000 rupees remove the flash, downgrade the camera from 5 mega-pixels to 2 mega-pixels and price it at just 7000 rupees. It's a win-win situation for the customers and for Nokia.
Both the phones are similar in shape and have the same anodised aluminium chassis, in apple iPhone fashion the battery is now non-removable and the SIM card can be inserted in a pop-out tray on the side, plus there is no micro-SD card slot, however with 16GB on-board memory it isn't all that important. The phone runs on a 680 MHz ARM processor which is lower than the 1 GHz processor on the N8, (which again cuts the costs down ) however there is hardly any noticeable change in performance when using the phone.
More than the cool looks and thing about this phone is however the Symbian 3 OS which replaces the S60 5th Edition OS. The Symbian 3 OS incorporates all the great features of iOS 4.1, Android as well as Nokia's own s60v5, this means that you get the best of all worlds plus the reliability and intuitiveness that is the hallmark of Nokia phones. The Ovi store , which is Nokia's version of the App store is also ver nicely integrated into the OS, for example when you add a gadget to any of the home screens you get an option to go directly to the ovi store and download an application directly as a widget. As of now the applications available for Symbian 3 are very few and far apart, however as newer models are launched this should improve.
There are 3 home screens , each allows you to edit and add upto 6 widgets or individual apps. Compared to iOS 4.1 this isn't much , however this is keeping in Nokia's symbian 3 UI style guide . Making it easy to use applications and keeping the user interface intutive was one of the priorities for the developers and they have been very successful in doing so.
If you like Symbian or of you would like to get an easy to use phone – then you would love the Symbian 3 OS. It has everything that the S60v5 platform had , plus it now incorporates the same features that many of the next generation platforms like android and iOS offer.
Also included is Ovi Maps with free car and pedestrian navigation, compass for correct orientation. This is a good use of the Integrated GPS, A-GPS receivers and wi-fi positioning systems. And since this is a 3G phone (HSDPA Cat9, maximum speed up to 10.2 Mbps, HSUPA Cat5 2.0 Mbps), there is also a front facing VGA camera (640 x 480 pixels). The standard micro USB port and 3.5mm audio jack is on the top of the device alongside the HDMI port. The micro USB port also doubles as the charging point.
Keep in mind that this is not the last we will see of the N8 kind phones , if experience has taught us anything , Nokia is not a company that will easily kill off a model without first extracting all the potential that a design has to offer. So we may still see even lower featured and low priced models than the E7 probably for a cheaper market. However if you want to get on the Symbian 3 bandwagon , the E7 is the best bet.
With its 16:9 nHD 640 x 360 pixels AMOLED display, Symbian 3 OS, slide-out QWERTY keyboard and an 8 megapixel cam this will be an amazing phone if made available at a price of about 12000-15000 rupees. The E7 is supposed to be out in the first quarter of 2011. Do share any thoughts that you might have about the symbian 3 platform or the Nokia E7.
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