A positive comment on the E61!

I tend to agree with you. I have been unable to update my firmware to v2 but frankly don't really feel a need to anyway. Both my E61 and E70 work quite well as is, and now that I've spent some time with them and learned a bit more of their quirks and quarks, I've gotta say these are pretty slick units.

I have posted a few complaints about my e61 in the past but I must also pitch in and compliment Nokia on a great job all things considered. Its a excellent phone and PDA and goes a long way towards making me independant of location. Who knows what the future holds? With a pull out e-ink screen and a laser keyboard we'll pretty soon not need to lug around large bulky devices. I can't resist getting in a minor moan though - if the mobile industry is serious about taking on the 'multimedia computer' market they'll just have to get the bugs rate down. Or at least fixed!

This phone, the E61, is the dogs bollocks! There's no question about it!! 😉
But how do I get it to play video? It doesn't seemt o play any streaming video off the web, and I tried loading some .mpeg files and it wouldn't play in RealPlayer - is there another way?

If you look at technical message boards for almost any popular product, it's full of people complaining because the ones who don't have a problem don't feel any need to post.

But as this thread has been started, I have to say the E61 is the most stable smartphone I've ever used, it's never once crashed on me or frozen. It's also very fast at actually doing things (one of the frustrating things on previous models was the few seconds it took to go from one screen to another).

Thanks for the added comments people... nodding in agreement. 😛roud:

One thing I left out since I wrote the first post was that I have been looking for the right cover for ages, but realised that this E61 is so very thin that it doesn't really need one, as you can put it into any pocket and it doesn't detract from comfort (unless you try to sit on it!). If it gets damaged, a whole new housing on ebay is about twenty bucks, so I opt for the "luxury" of not having anything making it thicker. I look at anything thicker in phones now (like a mate's blackberry) and quitely think "no way!". Another friend with a trio saw my E61 for the first time and vowed to get one immediately purely on the thickness aspect--undoubtedly a by-product of dealing with the trio's unweildy girth.

Movies? see http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum//forum/thread/51599/
for more info on running movies on the E61. Smartmovie is a great prog , and the DivX player seems to be exactly the same program to me... maybe I have added all of the codecs but it seems seamless and have watched a few movies without any grief at all.

firstly its worth noting that the two main reasons for people posting on hardware specific forums is:
1. To complain
2. To ask for information about doing something

Except for the odd email (usually in reply to a complaint), people don't write in to say everthing is going well. Which means that given the device is selling 1000s, there is little complaint (look at ipod lounge for the treble distortion issue on seriers 3 ipods to see what I mean).

I personnaly think the E61 is a breakthrough device. I have had plenty of PDAs (see below) and I know none that have all the following features:
1. Sync. with Blackberry Connect
2. Sync. with MS Exchange
3. Light
4. Decent Battery life
5. Thin and fits in shirt pocket
6. Made of aluminium and steel and plastic. Feels robust
7. Fantastic screen.
8. Usable keyboard
9. Small
10. Best mobile browser
11. Takes memory cards (miniSD)
12. Sync. With notes & outlook seemlessly out of the box (my diary is work notes, contacts are home outlook)
13. Wifi
14. 3G
15, Edge
16. VOIP SIP stack - Truphone works very well
17. Loads of software bundled free (inc. cool golf game)
18. Opens and edits word & excel docs
19. Displays adobe and ppt
20. Loads of software available (handango, symbiangear, etc.)
21. Usable joystick
22. Fast menu button and task switcher (unlike WM5)
23. Yes, its faster then WM5 (with static memory problem). Need v2 software to find out
24. Symbian designed to conserve battery
25. Can install apps entirely on mem card (not like WM5 which still buggers with registry)
26. Power phone hard codec links embedded in kernel. Truphone sounds great
27. Easy to use (except for a complete muppet - they tend to like Palm 😊
28. Easy to write apps requiring data stream

I could go on, but you know the drill.

as for Palm:
1. File system is primitive and does not support full frame video etc.
2. No serious add on apps, tons of lightweight games
3. OS has problem with streaming. No voip or other apps written for it.
4. Palm OS has run out of breath. Its time is numbered. Its capabilities are limited. Even Treos are going to Win Mobile.

as for WM:

Functionality Windows mobile is great, but except on the excellent HTC smartphones (with OMAP) the battery goes quickly. and WM5 has alot of glitches to be sorted out. And its slowwwww

as for RIM:
is a one trick pony. Email is good but PDA, browser, available apps and UI is pants. The Blackberry 8100/Pearl is the best attempt by RIM. Its great as a phone and using bb email. But the app, browser and compatability problems remain.

It terms of a mere sample of my previous PDAs:
HTC Universal, HTC Hurricane, HTC Tornado, Nokia 9300i, Dell Axim x50v, Mio 201, Blackberry 7100, Treo 600, Sony clie, etc, etc. So I have used them all.

In summary IMHO E61 is breakthrough device for people who need to stay connected.
a. Small and light
b. I sync my diary with work and my contacts with home
c. My free MSN client is great (HIER)
d. Truphone VOIP for (zero!) cheap international calls to landlines
e. Cool games
f. Oh yes, it works great as a phone.

Yes it would be great to have the cpu running at 250Mhz instead of 150Mhz, but I prefer the battery life. It only really effects me when opening apps. Once running they are speedy. And Yes, the Palm interface is easier for the first 4 minutes of usage!

Its just a pity the cell structure in the US is so fragmented. And cingular has killed Wifi on the E62 just for their own reasons.

Have to go, got an email ......😎

colonel, I agree with everything you have said here. I don't have an E61 but my business partner does. I have an E60 and most of what you said about the E61 goes for the E60 as well. Just FYI, the E60, E61, and E70 all have 220 MHz CPUs. Actually, it is my understanding there are two CPUs in these devices, one for running the phone and one for running the user interface/applications. This is probably why Nokia's are much better phones that WM/Palm devices.

I have also used a number of PDAs, including the Axim x30 and the Axim x50v, which I still have but I rarely use it any more. I have a clock screen saver for it and it sits on my desk and tells time. Also based on the number of crashes, soft resets, and hard resets that I've had to do on the Axim, I can't understand why anyone would want to run Windows on something as important as a phone.

Mark

silly me - wrong Mhz

Other PDAs (like Universal) have loads of extra chips. They just don't seem to use them as well as Nokia. I think Symbian has been designed (or re-designed from the Psion days) bottom up for COMS and codec plugins. WM5 still has a way to go. Although WM6 will be real time, which means they might have tried to address the Kernel issue. Time will tell.

The E61 is indeed a fantastic device. And the firmware update is really recommended but even without it it works great aswell.
I have an Ipaq 4700 aswell which is great etc but I more like the E61 already, I have him for a few days and I'm now used to the keyboard which types better then the one from my BB 7290.

The wifi and bluetooth are always on and indeed, the battery is still good for 3 or 4 days so thats great. A lot of people say you have to recharge the battery each day or after 2 days!!! I don't know what they do with it then.

Also if you don't know symbian, no problem you lurn it and is available in a lot of languages. But if you know symbian very well its even more GREAT. Especially with all those apps you can install on.
And a lot of them are freeware! Quickreader, read books on the big beautiful screen. Divx player, watch movies in 16million colors!!!

The only thing I need to find out is to stream music from a webradio
We can go for hours about this phone

If we really push it further, OK, it would be great Nokia would make an E61i or something with fm radio and camera(s) for videocalling and photos.

Liquid_Li0n wrote:
The only thing I need to find out is to stream music from a webradio

The built-in RealPlayer can do that: http://www.e-series.org/archives/115

For MP3 and AAC radios, have a look at the free Nokia Internet Radio application: http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/s60internetradio/ClientPage.html
Its UI is a bit rough, adding new streams is a pain as you have to create a .pls file on your PC first but once it's set-up it works perfecty.

Liquid_Li0n wrote:
If we really push it further, OK, it would be great Nokia would make an E61i or something with fm radio and camera(s) for videocalling and photos.

http://www.symbianwatch.com/nokia-e61i-e65-and-e90-communicator.html (rumors)

thx for the links elp
I will test those apps when I'm at home.

Its great that Nokia will release an E61i, thats why I love Nokia, they make where I dream of 😊

Liquid_Li0n wrote:

The only thing I need to find out is to stream music from a webradio

LCG Jukebox does this in a very user friendly manner.