Nokia E55 review – Very thin

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Thin profile, 3.2 mp camera, standard 3.5 mm jack, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth. The phone is inexpensive and has good call quality.

Thumbs Down:

Keys feel a bit squishy; the hybrid keyboard might not go well with QWERTY fans.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM
Band: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone design: Candy bar
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Text-to-Speech (text recognition), Radio Data Service (RDS), PictBridge direct printing, Push-to-talk mode.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Nokia E55 has a 2.4 inches display which gives a resolution of 240×320 pixels. Supported audio formats are AAC and MP3. Bundled memory card is 2 GB. The E55 has a 3.2 megapixel camera. Special effects include Sepia, Normal, Vivid, Black & White and Negative. Videos are recorded in resolution of 640×480 pixels. Videos storage options are MPEG-4, H.264.

Supported video formats are H.263 video and AMR audio, H.264, MPEG-4 and 3gp. Messaging/Data features include Microsoft PowerPoint support, Macromedia Flash support, Microsoft Excel support, Microsoft Word support, Zip Manager support, VoIP client and PDF support. Supported email protocols areIMAP4, POP3 and SMTP. OS is Symbian OS 9.3 / Series 60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2.

The 1500 mAH lithium ion battery has talk time of 480 minutes and standby time is 696 hours.

Razzle Dazzle:

Nokia says the E55 is the thinnest phone ever. We don’t think that is true but the thin profile of the phone is really impressive. The handset is 4.57 inches long, 0.39 inch thick and 1.93 inches wide. It weighs just3.47 ounces and feels solid in the hand. There are two color options for this phone: White and Black.

Inside Dope:

Nokia E55 has a 2.4 inch display which supports 16 million colors. It is both colorful as well as vibrant. The screen comes with light sensing feature which automatically adjusts the brightness display according to the ambience light. Adjustable features on the Home screen include theme, background image, backlight timer, font size and menu layout.

The E55, just like most E series phones comes with Personal and Business mode which you can use to switch according to the situation. The latter gives you work related tools on the and the former is relates to multimedia applications. This is a bit superfluous, because you can always get access to the apps regardless of the mode but some people might like it.

Below the display, you get a navigation array which is made up of Talk/End keys, Back key, shortcut buttons for Calendar, Home, and E-mail, and finally the four way toggle with OK button in the center. Below this series of buttons there is the semi QWERTY keyboard which has 2 letters on the same key. We first saw this type of keyboard on RIM phones and we like this format a lot. The handset comes with predictive text which guesses the words as you type them. The buttons on the Nokia E55 are slightly slanted as well as well placed which makes it easy to dial by feel. We have one gripe though, the buttons feel a bit soft.

The left side of the phone has a power jack and on the right there is camera button, volume rocker key and a shortcut key which is user programmable. Bundled materials with the phone include an AC adapter, USB cored, wired headset, 2.5mm headset adapter, and manual.

There is no limit to entries in the phone book, you can fill up as long as the memory permits. A single entry can take multiple phone numbers, email ID, Web URL, street addresses, important dates, etc. Photo caller ID is also supported and there are fifly polyphonic ringtones which you can choose from. Other features on the phone include text and multimedia messaging, speed dial, voice commands and speakerphone. For advanced users, there is VoIP support, quad band GSM world roaming and support for conference calls.

Nokia E55 runs on Symbian S60 Third Edition operating system which is quite similar to what we saw on E63 and E71. It supports push email solutions, IMAP4 and POP3 accounts, and Microsoft Exchange Server. Nokia’s     QuickOffice suite lets you edit and view MS Office documents. PIM apps like Adobe Reader, currency converter, notes, calendar, voice recorder, etc are all there. The handset also supports Instant Messaging, our review unit came with just Windows Live Messenger but you can download other IMs as well.

Nokia E55 has 3G but it will work only on AT&T’s network and not on T-Mobile’s. The handset also has Wi-Fi. Bluetooth on the phone supports file transfer, dial up networking and stereo A2DP streaming. Just like most E-series phones, the E55 comes with a-GPS which gives you real time traffic and weather information with the Nokia OVI Maps.

Nokia is known for its multimedia offerings, but we were surprised that the manufacturer included all of them in E55, a business centric phone. The player supports formats like eAAC+, AAC+, AAC, W4A, WMA and MP3 along with WM DRM and OMA DRM 2.0 protected tracks. The player segregates the tracks by albums, artists, composers and genres. The player also has the ability to edit and create playlists on the fly. Other goodies include podcasts category, FM radio and built-in equalizer. The video player supports 3GPP and MPEG4 encoded files.

Just like E71, Nokia E55 comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera. You get LED flash and the features include exposure settings, autofocus, digital zoom, variety of scene modes, color effects and white balance presets. In the video mode, there are just three settings for quality but other than that, the editing features are the same. The picture quality of the camera was impressive. Images were sharp and colors were both bright as well as vibrant.

Nokia E55, when tested for quality, was really impressive. Our friends sounded clear and crisp, there was no distortion while on calls. The volume got sufficiently loud and we could talk clearly even noisy environments. Speaker phone call quality wasn’t as good, our friends sounded hollow. On their end, people said gave us similar results. They said we were natural, smooth and voice could be clearly heard. There was occasional hiss but other than that, they said call quality was just like landline. Speakerphone calls had a echoes in them.

Nokia E55 comes with eight hours of battery life for GSM and six hours in 3G. Standby time is 23 days in GSM and in 3G it is 29 days.

Nitty Gritty:

Nokia E55 is wallet friendly and is packed with features. It will attract both youth and business men.