update on e51

I’ve had the e51 for a few days now and I’ve clocked up 8 hours of calls on it and it’s worked flawlessly each time. I think the keyboard on it is just great. The buttons are a really nice size and have a nice feel to them too. I sync my e61i with my calendar via bluetooth and that works great, I sync’d the e51 with my calendar today as well. I kept my fingers crossed that there would be no duplicates or any other horrific nightmare, but it worked just fine.

Battery life is OK, two days no problem and those two days are pretty tough on it.

The screen is I have to confess on the small size, I think I’ve been spoilt by my e61i, my n800 and my N95 though. It works fine, I just think I’m not used to have wide black bars down the side of the screen.

So week 1 with the device over and I still like it a lot.

e51 has a Bluetooth key

It’s taken me two days to notice that the e51 has a Bluetooth key, the star key (bottom left) if you hold it down turns Bluetooth on or off. This is great, I hope they role this out to the other handsets or even make it work via firmware, holding down the has key turns on the silent profile, why not let the star key toggle Bluetooth on and off?

Nokia e51 from WOMWorld

I received a Nokia e51 two days back from WOMWorld and here are my first impressions of the sleek device. As I menioned a few days further back I’ve been using the e61i as my work phone and the N95 as my personal phone. The reason being, the e-series is aimed at business and the n-series at the creative minded amongst us.

There are some slight differences in the OS between the e-Series and the n-Series such as the way messages are announced, the e-Series adds a discreet notification into the active standby screen list, the n-Series does the whole big pop window alert thing. The reason for this is I assume with email alerts coming more frequently a more discreet way of managing the notification is more appropriate. Alternatively, being a busy person you may want to continue with the phone functioning until you get time to deal with the messages, as oppossed to having to deal with the message then and there in the n-Series.

There are a few more active standby differences between the two devices, along with more somber themes and more business like ring tones. Otherwise it’s a very familiar experience, which makes using the two devices together extremely easy, no pauses while you remember how to switch to a silent profile for example.

The phone itself is very thin and it’s got a lovely weight to it, it feels if it’s a solid chunk of metal, which is an extremely nice reassuring feel that I like. The numeric buttons are pretty big and easy to use which is great, typing SMS’s is easy and quick. I’ve found the green and red call handling keys to be a tad small for my fat thumbs though, there a little too small on the e61i too, maybe they think all business people have skinny fingers.

The battery life so far hasn’t been outstanding but the battery hasn’t been broken in yet, but it last just over a day with 3 hours of calls some of which on my Jawbone. Call quality is very good as you expect from a Nokia.

So so far so good, I’m trying to sort out push email to my e61i in work when I get a chance, but if it doesn’t work out, then I wouldn’t think twice about bouncing the e61i and getting an e51.

And finaly thanks to WOMWorld for lending it to me!

Dell’s day is over

Looks like Dell is hitting a tricky patch. This is the second article I’ve seen chronicling the demise of Dell $3bn saving is a big job and when you’ve had razor thin margins like Dell and a pretty slick operation already, there’s not going to be lot’s of fat in the business to get that $3bn. The anecdotal evidence I have is that we can’t get any Dell laptops right now. Orange buy’s it’s laptops from Dell and we just can’t get them, if I recall correctly a 3 month wait, which is just mad in today’s on demand world. How long Dell stays our supplier is anyone’s guess.

As a PC they are fine, a piece of design they suck, gray and black, extremely bland. I’ve thought about just buying my own and using that, something a bit smaller and not so damn thick. Anyway, looks like my next PC when it get’s refreshed could be something different, I hope it’s a Lenovo machine, fingers crossed.

Nokia e61i is the business phone (and the jawbone is good too)

I managed to pick up an e61i a week or so back and I put it into action as my main phone for the weekend. The e61i is not a multimedia device, that’s for sure, the camera is OK in the right light, but the video is a joke. It’s two wide, my daughter asked why I was I putting a coaster to my ear. So, the N95 quickly regained it’s crown as the best phone for every single situation and for photo’s and video’s there’s nothing that can touch it.

So the e61i has been put into service as my work phone, the symbian S40 device 6233 or whatever has been consigned to the phone basket. The e61i is a killer business phone the battery is great, but not as good as I’d hoped, I’m getting at most two days out of it, and that’s without any data, just calls and bluetooth. I’m sure it’d last longer on less busy days and a very long time with light days for sure.

That’s the battery, the keyboard is getting easier to use and typing out text messages is a dream when you’ve got two hands. The size isn’t an issue as I’ve got a jacket pocket to drop it into as opposed to trying to put it in a jeans pocket. the fact it’s very flat also helps with the lines of your jacket, no unsightly bulges here.

I’m trying get my hands on a Nokia Intellisync license and connect it up to our corporate mail and give it a whirl as the anti-blackberry, which should be fun. The message lists are nice and small which will allow a lot of messages to be seen on a single screen.

So to sum up, the e61i makes a huge amount of sense as a work/corporate device it’s got a lot of great attributes that make it a great device. So the ‘e’ series really is best for business and not for fun.

That’s not the end of my exceptional brief and very personal review of the e61i, oh no. I paired the e61i with the replacement Jawbone and it works a dream. My first Jawbone had a problem, I sounded like a darlek with which ever phone I used, so it went back. The new Jawbone turned up and has been flawless ever since.

My recent Nokia and plantronics headsets have been OK, but whenever I’ve used them people have very quickly asked me to mute the call as the background noise is too intrusive. Since using the Jawbone, no such requests. I can leave the call un-muted when driving and just chirp in whenever I feel like it. This is great, muting and un-muting a call whilst driving is dangerous so this is a great improvement.

I haven’t been able to determine whether people I’m on a headset or not so far, but a bit more use and I’ll determine whether the sound quality is up to scratch, but the sound isolation so far is fantastic.

The BBC steps into the net neutrality debate

The BBC has stepped into the debate and is on the side of the consumer and not the telco’s. It’s an interesting position and one that puts ISP’s in a tricky situation. There’s no mention of net neutrality in the Register post and I wonder if Ashley Highfield even knows what it is. Nonetheless it’s a pro consumer stance and one that maybe has enough clout to have an impact on the likes of AT&T who are pro a tiered Internet. [via]