By Damian Koh
25/04/2007
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051199,40142722p,00.htm

More than a year after the Nokia E-series was announced, the E61i succeeds the award-winning E61 with a slimmer side profile and a 2-megapixel shooter. The inclusion of a camera to us, however, is a mixed bag. With the E61i, business professionals are now divided into those whose job scope requires them to take field pictures, such as insurance agents, architects and engineers, and those who work in sensitive industries that prohibit the use of camera-phones.

Editors' note: This review highlights the differences between the E61 and the E61i. You can read our full evaluation of the E61 here.

Design
The mocha E61i easily stands out over the nondescript E61 and the aluminum battery cover on the older E61 has been replaced with a solid steel piece. Although the current model has a slimmer profile, in our hands, it still feels as sturdy (if not more so) as its predecessor.

	Left to right: E61i and E61

There are some cosmetic changes on the E61i so it's actually easy to tell it apart from the older E61. On the front now are two additional dedicated buttons: One for your contacts; the other you can configure as a shortcut to access various applications on the handheld. The model name is also nicely engraved into the metallic face plate below the power button.

Unlike the E61 where we can distinctively feel the menu keys above the keyboard, on the E61i, it's easier to press the wrong buttons because there's considerably less space between each key and the surface is slightly flushed. The joystick on the E61 has also been replaced with a four-way rectangular border with a central Enter key which, fortunately, is just as efficient.

	Closeup shots of the E61 and E61i

The QWERTY keyboard, other than having more room between each key, remains largely similar to the earlier E61. What we don't quite fancy about the new buttons are the less pronounced. The rubbery surface also makes a squeaky sound when we run our fingers on it. However, it's a minor gripe and we soon got over it as we breeze though typing a full text message on the E61i.

Features
The E61i retains most of the celebrated features on the E61, and then a bit more. There's now also a 2-megapixel shooter on the rear (no front-facing camera, though) and some new applications on the smart phone. You may want to know that the E61i uses the smaller microSD cards instead of miniSD media on the E61, although you still have to remove the battery cover to get access to the slot.

Rather disappointing is the barebones feature set of the camera on the E61i. We can't help but feel that Nokia could have done better in this aspect. While there's Night mode and settings to adjust the white balance and color tone, there's no built-in LED light to act as a flash unit. Admittedly, the light output from an LED is poor in comparison to flash modules on standalone cameras. But this could have been helpful in providing some illumination for low-light situations. Image quality isn't stunning. In fact, our test shots bordered on just average even for daylight snaps, but it should suffice for those who simply want a snapshot from this mobile.

Like its predecessor, the E61i is chock-a-block with connectivity options. The quadband (850/900/1800/1900MHz) handset is also 3G-enabled (UMTS 2100MHz) and is capable of hooking up to Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) networks. It's just a pity it doesn't come with HSDPA considering that we're already seeing an increase in the number of phones and PDAs which support the faster data connection. Of course, there's also the usual Bluetooth, infrared, USB and Nokia's proprietary Pop-Port to connect via cable for some PC-to-phone synchronization with the PC Suite.

	Screenshot of WidSets 1 | 2

While the hardware changes are not what one would call revolutionary, Nokia makes up for this by having several programs preinstalled on the E61i. One of those we like most is WidSets. If you're familiar with the desktop widgets on the Mac OS dashboard, think of WidSets as the mobile version. In a nutshell, WidSets is able to download byte-sized information from the Internet to the E61i. Of course, you'll need to be connected to the Internet for that to happen. But the strength of WidSets is really its ease of use, simplified user interface and ever-growing list of widgets available.

	Nokia Team Suite

Another program we find interesting, but don't use quite as frequently, is the Message Reader that reads out our text messages. English is the default language, though Nokia representatives we spoke to said support for other languages could be available in the near future. There's also Team Suite, which is like a souped-up version of Groups under Contacts. We can set up "teams" for mass text messages or holding conference calls.

Probably the most useful for business users are programs such as QuickOffice (for reading and editing Word, Excel and PowerPoint (read-only) documents), BlackBerry Connect and Mail-for-Exchange. The good news about all these additional programs is that they can be downloaded from the Nokia Web site. So if you're using the E61, you can still have these applications on your handheld.

Performance
Although the Lithium-polymer batteries on both the E61 (BP-5L) and E61i (BP-4L) have rated 1,500mAh capacities, Nokia has managed to slim down the cell on the E61i, meaning you cannot swap batteries between the two smart phones. Battery life, as expected, gave us similar performance as on the E61.

Conclusion
With the Nokia E61i, it goes to show how market forces can warrant the introduction of a phone that is a clear successor to the E61, but which doesn't bring to the plate very significant differences save for the inclusion of a 2-megapixel camera, a much better build quality and a slimmer profile.

While the E61i probably won't appeal greatly to the current E61 crowd unless they are looking to upgrade for the camera feature, it should attract a new group of users who not only want a phone for work but also leisure.

Notably missing from the E61i is HSDPA connectivity which some manufacturers have begun to include in their smart phones such as the Samsung Ultra Messaging i600, Dopod C730 and the Motorola Q q9. Although the Nokia E61i is still one of the best and most robust smart phones with a full QWERTY keyboard right now, we can't help but feel disappointed that nothing much has improved significantly from the previous model. It is a good phone, but it's not fantastic like the E61 when it first came out.