Early in May I wrote about the Symbian Operating System which is used in more than 50 percent of the smartphones worldwide.

I decided to have a look and see what was available in the US with regard to a smallish Symbian smartphone, in a reasonable price bracket. It appears that none of the US cellphone carriers currently carry a Symbian smartphone (although there is a rumor that AT&T may be offering the Nokia N95 later this year). This means no subsidized Symbian smartphones, so you pay full price.

Initially I had a brief look at the highly acclaimed Nokia N95. Somehow I had expected that the dual-slider design meant it had a QWERTY keyboard. Instead it had a phone keypad and music controls. Since the N95 is well over $500 (anything cheaper than this could very well be a Chinese knock-off), I gave it a miss and looked for something cheaper.

I found out that I should be looking at the Nokia E Series of cellphones. According to Wikipedia the Nokia Nseries “is a product family consisting of multimedia smartphones“, while the Nokia Eseries consists of “business-oriented smartphones, with emphasis on enhanced connectivity“.

The first smartphone I came across was the Nokia E61. It has a “Blackberry” look to it, and a QWERTY keyboard. There is also a Nokia E61i, which is an update to the E61. It has a 2 megapixel camera and an improved design. The Nokia E61 looked promising until I compared its size with the Treo. Then it looked uncomfortably wide. The Nokia E61i was also over $300, a bit more than the $200 to $300 price range I had in mind.

The E90 Communicator I discounted because of it’s price and the fact that it was a brick.

Then I came across the Nokia E51, quite an unlikely looking smartphone. A candybar style phone without a QWERTY keyboard, it is easy to use just as a phone. Delve into it’s menus though, and this is a powerful business tool which can browse the web or read your emails to you. Compared to a Windows smartphone, this one flies!

Posted on June 7th, 2008 by mervyn