First announced in October 2005, the Nokia E-series is targeted mainly at business users and IT professionals with its suite of powerful applications. The exclusion of a built-in camera on the E61 is either a love-it or hate-it situation, though it would have been great if the Finnish company had a similar smart phone but with a camera. Its inexpensive price tag will also appeal to not just the target audience but also mainstream consumers who are looking for a multifunctional handheld that isn't too clunky.

Design
While some people may find the E61's design boring and somehow not as sleek as the Samsung i320n or Moto Q, its matte-silver chassis and overall simplistic appearance make it ideal for most business users.

Size-wise, this Nokia nearly matches the ultraslim form factor of the Moto Q, but the girth of the unit is not uniform all around. For instance, the slimmest portion is at the bottom of the handset which measures 12mm and it expands to a maximum of 16mm at the top edge of the unit. The E61 is also slightly wider than the Moto Q by about 6mm.

For those who like thumbing their text messages, emails and documents, the E61 comes with a QWERTY keyboard that illuminates in a cool shade of blue when activated by the ambient light sensor. We may be nitpicking here, but the relatively tight layout of the buttons did result in occasionally pressing the wrong keys. However, we got used to the plastic keys which provide a nice tactile feel. The joystick, though useful for navigating the menus, was a tad too stiff for our liking.

The E61's large 2.8-inch QVGA screen is one of the few smart phone panels capable of displaying up to 16 millions colors. Users have an option of settling with the default blue-themed background or download additional ones. Poking at the display is not advisable since this is not a touchscreen phone, and you may want to invest in a screen protector to prevent scratches on it.

Users can configure the top row of applications to those most frequently accessed such that these appear when the phone is in idle mode. The left and right softkeys can also be customized to the desired programs.

The earpiece sits between the Power button and the email indicator which lights up once an email has reached your predefined inbox, while the speaker is placed on the left side of the screen. Also on the left are the standard volume rocker and a dedicated key voice record/dial button, which doubles as the Push-to-Talk button. We found all these keys to be easily accessible with the left thumb.

The rest of the connection points (DC-in, infrared, and Pop-port) sit on the underside of the E61. When you slide open the back casing of the unit, you get a miniSD slot hidden on the side. The good thing is the memory card is hot-swappable without having to remove the battery.

Features
Targeted at mobile professionals who need to access their documents while on the move, the E61 supports the most common features of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint (Microsoft Office 97, 2000, XP and 2003). In addition, it is also compatible with Zip manager and Adobe Acrobat reader. Those working in sensitive industries will appreciate Nokia for dropping the camera from this system.

The Nokia E61 runs on Series 60 Symbian OS which, unlike its Series 90 counterpart, does not offer touchscreen capabilities. What you do get is a suite of software applications which are preinstalled on the E61. These programs are also available on Nokia's support Web site and more can be found online.

For the absent-minded, the security model on the E61 protects data using the onboard device wipe and device lock management tools. So if you are storing sensitive data in your smart phone, you can rest assured it remains protected even when the device is misplaced or stolen.

The E61 provides support for a variety of email solutions including native email client, Intellisync Wireless Email (purchased separately), GoodLink, Seven Always-On Mail, Visto email technology and push email like BlackBerry (needs subscription). Our review unit came installed with SingTel's BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) and setting up our email accounts was done in a jiffy. Obviously, being able to receive emails like regular SMS text messages would be a boon to mobile professionals who are always on-the-go. For general users, they can configure the E61 to access their POP3 or IMAP4 accounts instead.

In addition to email capabilities, the Nokia E61 offers full phone functionality. It supports GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100 (3G) networks in Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America. There's 64MB of built-in memory and you can opt for more storage space with optional miniSD cards. The commercial unit comes packaged with a 64MB miniSD media.

If you are in a meeting and it's inconvenient to answer incoming calls, there's also an option which allows you to reject calls with a text message. Other capabilities include conference calls, voice dial, vibration alert (which is sorely missed in the Nokia N9300i), speakerphone and dedicated key for Push-to-Talk. You can also enable the Say Caller's Name function which interjects your phone's ringing tone with the name of the calling party. It's not 100 percent accurate, but it certainly helps to recognize the caller without having to look at the phone's display.

Unlike the Moto Q and Samsung's i320n (both are touted as slim handhelds featuring a QWERTY keyboard and running on Windows Mobile 5.0), the E61 comes equipped with wireless LAN. Connecting to hotspots was a breeze and we were up surfing the Web in a matter of seconds. Our main grouse was still with the stiff joystick which became a little uncomfortable after prolonged use. There were no options to scroll diagonally on the screen.

What's really useful, though, is the Mini Map browser. When surfing the Internet, a transparent square box with red borders pops up to give an overview of the entire page, making it really intuitive to browse Web pages on a small screen. You can shift the square to select the portion of the site you want to view in detail and zoom in on the necessary areas. You can also select the Page Overview option and the Web page will be resized to fill the entire screen on the E61.

Additionally, the device can be plugged to a PC and used as a modem to connect to the Web. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 1.2 (allows up to a maximum of six connections concurrently), infrared, and USB full-speed. As with most other smart phones these days, you can synchronize your E61 with your desktop via either of these connections.

The E61 also matched our expectations in terms of multimedia capabilities as well. We were able to play back our MP3 tracks, flash videos and MPEG-4 movies. In addition, we could store our favorite images to play back either on the phone's internal memory or on the miniSD card.

Performance
We tested our Nokia E61 with SingTel's BlackBerry Internet Service and were able to send and receive emails within minutes of setting up our email account. The square keys of the QWERTY keyboard were a pleasure to type on, except that we did encounter times when we hit the adjacent key instead of the one we intended.

Unlike dedicated BlackBerry devices, the E61 is well-equipped for both work and play. There's a music player so you can play your MP3/AAC tracks, RealPlayer for your videos, and a Flash player for your flash files. We also had no issues with synchronizing our contacts and calendar on Microsoft Outlook using Nokia's PC Suite software.

Battery life of the E61 matched our expectations as well. We left the phone on without using it for a week and it remained with a full charge. According to Nokia, the standby time of the unit is rated for between nine and 11 days. We had no issues with phone reception and call quality. The built-in loudspeaker was sufficiently loud and reasonably clear. On moderate usage, we managed to use the phone for nearly four days before we had to recharge the 1,500mAh Lithium-ion battery.

Conclusion
At a recommended retail price of S$738, the Nokia E61 could be one of the more affordable yet powerful handhelds on the market. The full-size QWERTY keyboard allows for easy text messaging; Wi-Fi for hotspot connections; office applications and push email for the mobile professionals; not to mention that all these are packed into a rather comfortably sized form factor. It would have been ideal if Nokia had also offered a camera version of the E61.