Review: the tiny and super-stylish Nokia E51

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with the Energy Profiler app. I have similar symptoms, but can add the following: The battery life seems to drop very quickly at odd intervals, seemingly after a wifi call, but not confirmed.

Tonight for example lost 5 bars of charge in an hour, with warm battery as you describe. After a shutdown, battery removal (just to be sure) and reboot, no loss of any further bars after 2 hours.

I had this down as either a rogue app or perhaps a battery fault, and have been keeping it under surveillance. After reading your post I am coming down on the side of a rogue process associated with wifi / internet calling - was never really convinced by the battery explanation.

Following a note about the E50 battery life, I have set the dual mode preference to "GSM Only". Will check back in a few days.

My E51 with just GSM, no WLAN, no 3rd party apps gives
3.7 hour talk time
30.3 hours standby [in a total of 34 hours before a recharge]

But with WLAN scanning on but i never used internet the performance was horrible
10 mins talk time
6 hour standby. this was a nightmare with no phone in office for half day.

now i need to figure out how can i use the e51 features (like browsing with WLAN) and still make the phone work atleast 18 hours.

i want to know how is the battery life for others who are using WLAN feature to browse the internet say 30 minutes a day atleast.

Unregistered wrote:I'd be interested to hear how you get on with the Energy Profiler app.

I have similar symptoms, but can add the following: The battery life seems to drop very quickly at odd intervals, seemingly after a wifi call, but not confirmed.

Tonight for example lost 5 bars of charge in an hour, with warm battery as you describe. After a shutdown, battery removal (just to be sure) and reboot, no loss of any further bars after 2 hours.

I had this down as either a rogue app or perhaps a battery fault, and have been keeping it under surveillance. After reading your post I am coming down on the side of a rogue process associated with wifi / internet calling - was never really convinced by the battery explanation.

Following a note about the E50 battery life, I have set the dual mode preference to "GSM Only". Will check back in a few days.

Where do you set that?

I've got WiFi scanning disabled; I use Handy Wi to select an access point.

What about the sound quality of E51's MP3 player? Any comment?

Thanks!

AndyM (and all those interested),

To answer your question directly: Set Dual Mode to GSM in Menu/Tools/Settings/Phone/Network/Network Mode. It does seem to have increased battery life away from wifi access points - I can now spend a day in the country without losing a single bar on the charge meter.

I have made some further progress in trying to nail this down more closely but first a little background on my usage patterns (since I am not likely to change these for the sake of experiment):

I use wifi access at home solely for VOIP, and have set up my home access point as default. WiFi scanning is off at all times, but even here the weird behaviour sets in. Sometimes it finds my home access point automatically and connects, somes it finds it only and does not connect and sometimes I have to scan manually before it connects. At work there is no GSM or UMTS signal at all - a black hole - but there is a wifi point to which I have not yet set up the necessary security keys. Home Wifi reception is always a full three bars, home GSM is variable 5 to 7 bars.

I have observed the following behaviour with some regularity over the past few days:
* VOIP calls seem to use a good deal of power. 20 minutes sees the battery warm up to around 35C on a digital infrared thermometer (sad, yes, but I have one)
* I have checked - battery is the warmest component that I can observe without dismantling the phone completely. All other components are at lower temperatures, the warmest being the closest to the battery warmth, so I am comfortable with the conclusion that the battery is the source of the heat.
* If I shut down and remove battery for a minute or so after each VOIP call session then the power usage seems to drop and the battery seems to cool off - most of the time. I have had a couple of exceptions.
* If I leave the phone on and merely shut down the VOIP call, the battery warms and loses charge noticeably in an hour. It seems, but I have no firm data yet, that the longer I leave it the wamer it gets, and the faster it loses charge.
* If I do not use the call for VOIP calls after coming home and connecting to wifi, battery charge loss is relatively low, but I have again a suspicion that there may be a tendency for the temperature gain and charge loss to accelerate. For example, I came in from the great outdoors 2 hours ago and the battery temp is 24C, indicator is still full. But I have had cases where the phone has warmed to 34C and battery drainage started in 2 to 3 hours.

Tentative conclusions then:
* Wifi is using a LOT more power than the GSM mode. Not surprising since the literature on the phone contains warnings, but the degree of relative inefficiency staggers me. This might be explained if the aerial in the phone is designed for 850/900 and 1800/1900 MHz, and they merely ramp up transmitter power to reach acceptable levels at the 2400 MHz of wifi. This would possibly also explain the 1.4W/kg SAR rating that is a little surprising for a modern phone.
* There does seem to be something that does not return to normal after a VOIP call, be it a rogue process, or the transmitter power not being reduced, or some such - I am not really able to suggest what, but use these as illustrations. This leads to vastly increased power usage.
* There are circumstances under which the power drain and battery temperature increase starts without anything other than background wifi comms - no VOIP use.
* The accelerating loss of charge over time, if it is true, could be explained by either a rogue process starting, or the transmission power being ramped up, or by battery efficiency reducing at elevated temperatures.
* I can't yet rule out the battery itself as a cause. It clearly has some high demands placed on it. It may be that Nokia are struggling to power wifi connections, have used a large battery and are taking it to the limit. It may be that there are some quality issues on these high capacity low voltage batteries, as has happened before.

I really like the phone. I works very well, it does everything I want it to and bought it for.

BUT having the battery run flat in an hour or two is unacceptable in a business phone.

I am hoping that there may be a software upgrade that will overcome this.

Since this is a Symbian forum, does anybody have any idea how we might press Nokia for some (constructive) explanation, comment or action?

I have just purchased my E51 yesterday. Have tried many features, and E51 works very well. I am totally impressed with the Setup Wizards, which can guide you through setting up all essential parts of your phone. Also, the upgraded and much improved version of Nokia PC Suite really helps me in synchronizing this phone with my notebook and Lotus Notes with no problems at all, which is much surprise for me.
So far, I think this phone will stand for a very long time, despite its lack of multimedia and fancy features like in N-Series. This phone is very well suited to be called "business smartphone".

Try to set the lower TX level in Phone's WiFi settings from 100 to 10 or even 4 mW in the WiFi advanced options/settings. If access point is near you, then you should be fine. There can be much interference causing your phone to transmit at the higher TX levels, hence, try to set Your WFi's router to another channel from 6 or 11, say to 8 to reduce the interference from other access points.

Try to turn off WiFi scannings, Bluetooth, Infared, put phone in GSM mode only. Decrease display brightness to min. Silence keypad beep sound, turn off the vibro and increase the volume of the Ringtone instead. Exit all applications. If you get 2-4 days, then it is OK for this phone.

There is a free software called Nokia Energy Profile which can tell you the Capacity of your battery. If it is significantly lower than 1050, then change your battery to a new one.

Unregistered wrote:AndyM (and all those interested),

To answer your question directly: Set Dual Mode to GSM in Menu/Tools/Settings/Phone/Network/Network Mode. It does seem to have increased battery life away from wifi access points - I can now spend a day in the country without losing a single bar on the charge meter.

I have made some further progress in trying to nail this down more closely but first a little background on my usage patterns (since I am not likely to change these for the sake of experiment):

I use wifi access at home solely for VOIP, and have set up my home access point as default. WiFi scanning is off at all times, but even here the weird behaviour sets in. Sometimes it finds my home access point automatically and connects, somes it finds it only and does not connect and sometimes I have to scan manually before it connects. At work there is no GSM or UMTS signal at all - a black hole - but there is a wifi point to which I have not yet set up the necessary security keys. Home Wifi reception is always a full three bars, home GSM is variable 5 to 7 bars.

I have observed the following behaviour with some regularity over the past few days:
* VOIP calls seem to use a good deal of power. 20 minutes sees the battery warm up to around 35C on a digital infrared thermometer (sad, yes, but I have one)
* I have checked - battery is the warmest component that I can observe without dismantling the phone completely. All other components are at lower temperatures, the warmest being the closest to the battery warmth, so I am comfortable with the conclusion that the battery is the source of the heat.
* If I shut down and remove battery for a minute or so after each VOIP call session then the power usage seems to drop and the battery seems to cool off - most of the time. I have had a couple of exceptions.
* If I leave the phone on and merely shut down the VOIP call, the battery warms and loses charge noticeably in an hour. It seems, but I have no firm data yet, that the longer I leave it the wamer it gets, and the faster it loses charge.
* If I do not use the call for VOIP calls after coming home and connecting to wifi, battery charge loss is relatively low, but I have again a suspicion that there may be a tendency for the temperature gain and charge loss to accelerate. For example, I came in from the great outdoors 2 hours ago and the battery temp is 24C, indicator is still full. But I have had cases where the phone has warmed to 34C and battery drainage started in 2 to 3 hours.

Tentative conclusions then:
* Wifi is using a LOT more power than the GSM mode. Not surprising since the literature on the phone contains warnings, but the degree of relative inefficiency staggers me. This might be explained if the aerial in the phone is designed for 850/900 and 1800/1900 MHz, and they merely ramp up transmitter power to reach acceptable levels at the 2400 MHz of wifi. This would possibly also explain the 1.4W/kg SAR rating that is a little surprising for a modern phone.
* There does seem to be something that does not return to normal after a VOIP call, be it a rogue process, or the transmitter power not being reduced, or some such - I am not really able to suggest what, but use these as illustrations. This leads to vastly increased power usage.
* There are circumstances under which the power drain and battery temperature increase starts without anything other than background wifi comms - no VOIP use.
* The accelerating loss of charge over time, if it is true, could be explained by either a rogue process starting, or the transmission power being ramped up, or by battery efficiency reducing at elevated temperatures.
* I can't yet rule out the battery itself as a cause. It clearly has some high demands placed on it. It may be that Nokia are struggling to power wifi connections, have used a large battery and are taking it to the limit. It may be that there are some quality issues on these high capacity low voltage batteries, as has happened before.

I really like the phone. I works very well, it does everything I want it to and bought it for.

BUT having the battery run flat in an hour or two is unacceptable in a business phone.

I am hoping that there may be a software upgrade that will overcome this.

Since this is a Symbian forum, does anybody have any idea how we might press Nokia for some (constructive) explanation, comment or action?

Madi123

Many thanks for the pointers. I will certainly try them and check back in.

That ties in with some other observations - regarding how the phone picks up many more wifi points than my laptop, for example.

Do you have any insight into the differences between power usage when active on-line, and when merely maintaining the connection? It seems that there is a huge difference - I can get 48 hours standby time, even with no GSM signal, as long as I don't try to actually use the wifi (before the settings you suggest).

Update on the above.

I found no obvious sign of interference, but did not have a full analyzer - I used Netstumbler.

The 4mW setting worked in my envirionment with no apparent problems. Battery life is now 72 hours (with 2 bars remaining) with normal usage. Battery no longer runs hot.

I have to say I am a bit puzzled by Nokia's approach to power management in wifi, but that is a longer discussion. I hope they modify the default TX power setting on future releases of this phone - I'd hate it to get a bad rep because it is now everything I ever wanted in a phone.

Many thanks Madi123.

A problem has surfaced with my E51. is it peculiar to my unit or general?
Event happens intermitantly: Click Menu key - No menu. Restart unit - menu reappears.
Event happened once: Click Contacts key - No contacts. Reset unit - not resolved. Saved data to PC and reinstalled software - problem resolved.

I talked to a Nokia rep in the store in Manhattan. Nokia does not currently have plans to make the phone HSDPA-compatible in the US. Edge only.

As far as I know the frequencies for HSPA are set by international convention in the 2.1GHz range.

I seem to recall that US has licenced those frequencies for something else (I forget what), so the issue is not with Nokia.

E51 is actually a nice phone well packed with pros for respective class of devices but I can't miss pointing out the Nokia marketing guys' policy that is extremely annoying and unfriendly to users. You can see that this phone is practically identical to 6120 Classic at a bit higher price range, with following differences:

E51:
+great ergonomics
+nice materials and good case quality
+wlan, it even works without problems
+(at last) a decent battery 1050 mAh, 2 full days on (mine) average usage...
+enough memory, at least allowing normal usage of applications
- no videocall (and secondary camera)
- camera is totally useless in darker environment

6120 Classic
+decent camera, of course far from good photo quality but pics are about average level
+video call
-battery again inadequate, needs recharge every single night because can't stand for 2 full days
-wlan
-crappy materials and very cheap look and feel of the case
-memory may not be enough for the applications at a heavier usage

So - the choice is yours... The user is always missing something.

I have been using the E51 for the past 2 weeks, and I am overall happy with the performance. However, I have two major problems. One is the battery life; it gets discharged within less than one day of use, while my previous phone 6230 used to last for 2 days easily at same amount of usage. Probably it takes more power due to WLAN, 3G etc, but then the battery should have taken this into account. Second, I am not able to figure out, in the 'predictive text' input, how do I correct a word that is chosen by the phone wrongly. For example, in 6230, if I wanted to type 'go', the phone would give 'in'. I would then go to options>matches, select the correct word. Here in E51 I do not find that option. Other than that, the phone is a dream to use.

"The E51, like the rest of the Eseries range, has fabulous battery life, (...)" Where did you get this from, Nokia? My e60 doesnt long 24h, and there ist no camera in there!

Hello to everyone
I've just bought a brand new Nokia E51 and i was more than satisfied with it. WiFi works perfectly, it's rather fast, a lots of memory and a perfect, although-small screen!
Opera browser which i downloaded from the official site doesn't working but ok...

problem is that you can't REALLY use WLAN if you can't download enything but .sis or .sisx.!!!!
When I try to download .rar or.exe or simply enything else, movies, songs, ..etc the browser shows : FEATURE NOT SUPPORTED!!!

Please tell me is there anything i could do to???

TNXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

PLEASE EMAIL ME AT [email][email protected][/email]

Think I was one of the very early adapters for the E Series when I got my E61 in August 2006, wasnt a good experience however when I had a lot of bugs (the golf game wont open at all unless I reboot my unit) + lot of other niggles.
Nokia service centre sent the unit thru out the country to their service centers and then returned unit saying they werent capable of handling the E Series as it wasnt yet a hit in India.
After going thru a lot of hell, have been using SE W950i without much trouble, but I am being tempted back to own a E51 as well.
Specs are cool and I have always felt havinga good keypad (qwerty or not) is a must for typing out messages / mails fast wherever, whenever instead of having to depend on some polymer key pad like in the w950i or pull of a stylus when doing the running around to poke at the screen.
Can some Indian Friends (Bombay) using E Series phones tell me if the service for E Series has improved ?
Best
Mahesh ([email protected])

Hello to everyone
I've just bought a brand new Nokia E51 and i was more than satisfied with it. WiFi works perfectly, it's rather fast, a lots of memory and a perfect, although-small screen!
Opera browser which i downloaded from the official site doesn't working but ok...

problem is that you can't REALLY use WLAN if you can't download enything but .sis or .sisx.!!!!
When I try to download .rar or.exe or simply enything else, movies, songs, ..etc the browser shows : FEATURE NOT SUPPORTED!!!

Please tell me is there anything i could do to???

TNXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

PLEASE EMAIL ME AT [email][email protected][/email]
_______________

I recently got my E51, and i could not download any .rar or .exe files which prevents me of using my phone as a storage device. any ideas to solve this?

how to connect to Internet via the hsdpa? not available in the connection

Awesome phone. I've had windows mobile device before this phone & I can tell symbian os is far superior. UI is fast. No lags, slim design (very elegant).the camera is not so important I barely use it. Ideal for business purposes, it's also light. Definitely worth the money.:icon14:

Yes, switching from E61i after one year, I miss the keyboard but the size of the phone, the speed, the integration and usability just made the E61i looks like a beta product. Yes, the E51 is better in every way. The wifi hookup is much smarter and faster, the delete key in the mail for exchange automatically move to next line below, VOIP via Gizmo hook up every time, unlike E61i, you login some time but not the other. UI and menu load faster, media load faster, it just feel great without the wait. Hope there will be a E61i follow up with the FP1 or FP2 to make it a great product again. Sorry, E61i, you gotta go.

AC

"The E51, like the rest of the Eseries range, has fabulous battery life" Most E60 users (myself included) need a daily recharge. Go on a weekend, forget the charger at home and you won't be able to call from Saturday night on (happened to me exactly last week). Calling this "fabulous" makes this review very hard to trust.

Until they get me a week without recharging, like I got in the good old 6310i days, they're just missing the point of "mobile" in "mobile phone".

E51i has captivated my imagination from the first day I saw (read about) it. Itz gazillion features along with sleek and stylish body make it must for a ardent cell phone user.

I'm switching to E51i right now !!

how can i install internet explorer to my e51 .. there are some websites that i cant visit and it says i have to intsall interenet explorer ???? any help ???

gran telefono eccezionale

I must have missed something. It acts as a GPS provided it has a GPS with which to communicate vis BlueTooth? I am not getting this...if you have a GPS why would you want the Nokia to duplicate that function?

nokia 6120 is a crap compared to E51
after a few minutes of a phone call it gets so hot that it is not possible to leave it close to the ear

my 0.2 cents

In my German version of the E51 I can't find audio themes, in the themes menu there are only General, Menu View, Wallpaper and Power saver, but no audio themes. Can anybody hlp me?

I have good through this review for several times! Excellent review, as always! But now after so many months of it's existance in market, some shortcoming of this gem is noticeable, and if improved, the new improved version is sure to be regarded as the PERFECT Phone!
The most important shortcomings are:- i) small screen for a business device, ii) read-only version of quickoffice! iii) camara is too poor-performing.
So, I am sure that if the next upgrade of E51 comes with 2.4 inch screen, quickoffice premier-5, and a better camera with flash and auto-focus (but plz, not like below-average camera of E71), and preferably with the improved gallery of N series, the next upgrade will be a killer one.

Any one interested in the E51 should check out Nokia's UK site http://shop.nokia.co.uk