Q: When did you get a Blackberry? A:Its not, its the Nokia E63 (Nokia E63)

Member Name: dosftw

Product:	Nokia E63
Date:	03/10/09 (102 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sleek, confortable to hold, good email and messaging software, amazing Java support

Disadvantages: The headphones that come with it, the media player does the job so ISNT a disadvantage

A lot of you will have read my review on the Nokia N95. And seen that I loved it, well I have some rather unfortunate news for all of you, It has died. Yes it died, but 3 years worth of service from one phone is a lot for a 20 year old. Unfortunately it was mortally wounded at this years Leeds festival, it still works however the 2,* and cancel button no longer function. As such it was time to retire my trusty friend and get myself a new contract!!

I have to say I fell in love with this phone from the moment I clicked on the link on the 3 website (I will mention now, that my model of the phone is black not blue like this picture, I feel the black model looks far superior) everything about this phone screams out refinement. The phone is very comfortable to hold, much more so than the the e63's bigger brother the e71. Unlike the e71 its body is made of plastic instead of metal and I feel that this gives it a much better look and overall finish as the e71 was horendeously prone to smudges because of the metal surface. This phone is very light for what it is, all of that capability at next to no weight, it is a mere 163 grammes and I feel this is nothing, for comparison I would say that my old Nokia 6230i weighs more than the e63.

This phone is quite wide for a mobile but it is still smaller than an average Blackberry, with dimensions of:(WxDxH) 58 mm x 13 mm x 37 mm. This phone fits snuggly in your hand and pocket (thats if you ever want to put it down because I never do, its rarely out my hand)

Now the phone its self is a Symbian S3 processor, which is amazing, this phone can handle true multi-tasking, you could play on a game, write an email and be on MSN on this phone all at once, and without any noticeable loss of performance. And because it is symbian, there are a host of Java apps out there on the interweb for your every need! Games, applications, you name it this phone can handle it. This leads me onto the software, which is superb, the built in mail client is fabulous, all you're text messages, multimedia messages and emails can be accessed in seconds.

The phone its self supports GSM and UMTS bands on these bands: GSM 850/900/1800/1900

I have never had any signal problems with this phone and I travel all around the newcastle/monkseaton/whitley bay/most of tyne & wear on a regular basis. And for added perspective, I am on the network 3, which is 'apparently' renowned for poor signal and dropped calls/texts never being delivered, I have had perfect performance through this phone so far.

The phone doubles as an mp3/mp4 player and I feel that the software is adequate but nothing more, it does the job without all the fancy frills the like of the iphone can offer, if you are after a multimedia phone, this phone isnt your choice, go get an iPhone 3Gs. This phone was designed to be an internet and email phone aswell and for instant messaging with built in MSN Messenger (atleast it was on mine because 3 gives free MSN for life? comments and feedback as to this on other networks would be appreciated (: )

The loudspeaker on the phone has very good audio quality, however I feel that the inbox headphones that come with the phone are severely lacking in quality, they are OK to use but they are a little 'tinny' to listen with. But for what they are they are useable. I will stick to my iTouch for music and video though :)

Whilst we have been on the subject of using a phone as a media player and to play games/go on MSN messenger and receive your email. I think that the battery life on this phone should be mentioned, the phone has Nokia's 1500 maH battery and this phone has an outstanding amount of life in it, I can go about 2 and a half days without charging it (and since I have had it, it has never died on me yet) and during these 2 and a half days there will be a lot of email retrieving/sending and a lot of MSN usage as well as an absolute boatload of texting and other keypad intensive activity. To put this against another device, my iTouch which does not need to symultaneously connect to the cellular network will give me approximately 3 hours of internet browsing time. So I think you can all see that this phone really knows how to pace its self.

Speaking of browsing, the e63 doesnt have full rich near instant loading times like the itouch/iphone but the pages are extremely 'viewable' and pleasant to view unlike other internet phones that severely reduce cabability. The e63 supports Java and Javacript so you get colourful and well presented pages, you just have to scroll a little obviously because of the smaller screen.

The phone is very speedy to navigate around thanks to 4 dedicated keys on the pad, once for the menu, one for calender, one for contacts and another for messaging (email, text, etc) These can be reasigned to opening the camera or whatever you want, however I feel these are best left as they are because the e63 supports Nokia's new 'mode switching' which is very useful. You can asign 6 on screen thumbnails to be instant shortcuts to those programs or utilities. for example instead of having to trudge all the way through tools and menu's to get to the bluetooth settings I can assign it to the 'desktop' and the same for the camera and MSN messenger and (for my personal taste) Facebook application. Now the great thing about this is that you can have 6 of these 'profiles' which aslong as one of the 6 thumbnails is assigned as the mode switching one, it is possible to switch over to a second profile with another 5 easy access thumbnails assinged on screen (assuming one of the 6 is the mode switcher for ease of use) This is very useful as is means, as college I can have a different set of applications that are easily and very quickly accessible and then for home or away from college I can have a completely different set without having to completely reassign my desktop every time I go to college, I just have to switch modes and they are all still there. :) Very useful.

I have heard a lot of people say that the QWERTY keyboard on this phone is difficult to use, because of the small buttons, however this is not the case as the buttons have a 'domed' shape to them so there is definition between buttons, so I say that these negative reviews are coming from people who simply didnt give it a chance and did not use it long enough to get used to the QWERTY kewpad rather than your 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 pad. It does take a little bit of getting used to, but everyone hated windows XP when that came out and everyone preferred XP over Vista at first. Guess what, you just need to try something and have an open mind. :)

Overall I feel that this phone is superb, if you are looking for a music player/multimedia player phone then go to the iPhone. Good signal and reception on the phone and very sleek and aesthetically pleasing appearance, definitely one of the best looking phones out there on the market at the minute.

Summary: A smart and well presented that has all the functionality of a blackberry. But more affordable