One thing I have been meaning to do pretty much since I got the Nokia E61 (months and months ago) was to review it.
Now, first I will say that I am an impatient person. The network Three always seem to be the last to offer new phone’s, even though they are probably one of the more advanced networks.

Now, I will first start with where I found out about the Nokia E61.
I was watching the TV Show, Weeds (fantastic show) and the main character was reading a text on her mobile. As soon as I saw the screen I knew I had to have it. Big, Bright and the font looked fantastically smoothed.

So naturally I googled something along the lines of ‘What phone does Nancy have in Weeds’ hoping that someone had asked. I was lucky, they had. The result, the fantastic Nokia E61.

I immediatly went directly to Three figuring I’ll upgrade early. No chance, they didn’t have it (and it turns out they wouldn’t for a further 5-6 months). Ok, next stop, e-bay. Bingo. Found one, bought it, love it.

The downside to buying it from e-bay was that the Z and Y key’s are bound the wrong way around (the physical buttons are placed correctly but each will display the opposite letter), and most of the special characters are in the wrong places (Thankfully full stop, comma and colon are in the right place) and there was nothing I could do about it really. I considered asking 3 to repair it for me but considering they wanted to charge me £55 to stick a new joystick on my N73 (I got one off ebay for £2) I figured that they would charge me a hell of a lot more to actually get someone with an IQ somewhere above 3 to look at my E61.

Anyway, on with the review.

The phone is fantastic.
Ok so I should probably write more.

Anyone who has used a relativly modern Nokia phone will have no problems in using this one. It uses the standard operating system found on all modern Nokia’s and everything is in the same place as on the other phones so I won’t be going into detail on all the common functions. I will instead cover the functions that are more unique to this phone.

Wifi
This is kinda like when Bluetooth had just appeared on the mobile scene. Few phones had it and those that did were in demand.
I would have bought the E61 whether it had Wifi or not, but it is a massive selling point. Supporting all the standard wireless encryption such as WPA, and works well (very well once you have setup the access point).

Web Browser
Having a capable web browser is obviously a big selling point and the one on the E61 (and other Nokia devices using the same OS) is very good. It’s fast, especially when your browsing through Wifi. I browse websites of all sizes and have no trouble in navigating them thanks to the zoom feature, and also after you have scrolled for so long, a semi-transparent window will appear showing you a thumbnail of the entire page you are looking at, and your viewpoint outlined in red so you can get an idea of where you are on the page.
The only letdown that has affected me personally so far is the inability of it to be able to use my Webmail (Squirrelmail). This isn’t so much of an issue as I have since setup my email accounts directly using IMAP (Supported, and supported surprisingly well) on using the phone’s email software.

Camera
Obviously this isn’t a feature as there is no Camera, but it is important to make that clear.
On the recently released Nokia E61i, this has been resolved so that a 2mp camera is included, as well as numerous other minor changes.

Keyboard
Keyboard’s are important to get right on phones. The sizes of the buttons are important as is the spacing between the buttons in terms of how comfortable, and how easy the phone is to use.
I find this keyboard pretty much spot on. Sure a few minor tweaks would make it a little more comfortable to use, but generally speaking I’d say about 95% on the mark.
Aside from the key’s on my particular model which are a bit here and there, I have now got used to that and when typing a message, or using Agile Messenger (MSN/AIM/YIM/ICQ etc all in one) I am able to hammer out messages with more speed than I can on a standard phone keypad.

Multimedia
Firstly the built in speakers are pretty good and can go quite loud although the bass is a little off and the sound can become quite tinny, but generally speaking if your just playing a song for a friend or something then it’ll more than serve the purpose.

In terms of video I’ve only played a few as I’m not one for watching anything of any length on a screen this small (even though it is still giant for a phone), but the few short clips I have watched have played in real player without any problems. I encoded one myself (Catharine Tate with Tony Blair for Comic Relief) and watched that back, and that played perfectly and the quality was fantastic.

Naturally for additional storage there is a card slot which supports cards up to 2gb should you need any more space.

Messaging & Email
Naturally, the full keyboard makes a significant difference to standard keypads. Typing a message with both thumbs is very fast after you’ve gotten used to it.
One handed its a bit more of a struggle (maybe my thumbs are just short?) but it is doable as long as your not attempting to type out anything lengthly.
The support for Email is very good, supporting both POP3 and IMAP perfectly well.
I do use Yahoo mail as well so I’m looking forward to the release of Yahoo! Go 2 soon (It still says coming in April for the E61 so should be anyday now really).
I’m running an ongoing personal mission which is to get 1000 text’s in my Inbox, so far I’m nearly at 900) and generally speaking it’s still quite responsive. Sure its slowed down a bit especially when first entering the inbox, but considering the amount of text’s in there, it’s still pretty responsive.

I have probably missed somethings off this review, and it is quite late considering the rest out there but i’ll add to it as I remember anything else, or get requests for information on anything.

One thing I will be offering on this blog is if anybody would like to see a particular screen etc, just post it in the comments and I’ll take a screenshot for you (Might help you make buying purchases etc). Also, any questions about the phone I will be happy to answer.