Tue, 01 Jul 2008
E51
On the mobile devices front, I have decided to buy Nokia E51 phone and a n810 tablet PC. So far I have got only the phone, so this is my experience after using E51 for a week or so:
- It is fast. Having seen E50, the user interface is much more responsive.
- The UI is good and configurable. For example, having a separate "Delete" key can make some operations fast. Configurable buttons and icons are also nice.
- The web browser works even with javascript.
- I have not figured out how to display letters from foreign alphabets. Probably a full unicode font has to be installed, but I don't know how to do it. Some sites suggest putting it to
E:\System\Font\Ceurope.gdrand reboot the phone, but it did not work for me. - Gnokii supports only identifying the device, not the data and contacts transfer. OpenSync gives an error when trying to synchronize contacts. I hope they will fix it soon.
- Useful apps include cCam (a third-party camera capture program, which features no fake shutter sound), and Symbian Ogg Play (an audio player with Ogg/Vorbis and FLAC support).
- It has a SIP client, which is well interconnected with the Contacts list. I have been able to phone home over SIP over WiFi. On the other hand, I have tried to call the E51 over SIP: it started ringing, and when I picked up a phone, it has crashed - I had to remove and re-insert the battery. But having SIP is definitely a step in a right direction.
- The 2.5mm headphone jack is a disadvantage as my headphones have 3.5mm one.
- The battery life sucks. It has died after two days of usage. Maybe I am leaving WiFi on or something.
- Custom ringtones are nice, but they still have to be an MP3, not Ogg.
- The only Japanese dictionary for S60 is a commercial software.
I have decided to try what it means to have a supported commercial non-free OS, and asked the Nokia technical support about unicode fonts. Their reply was something like "we do not know, use a freeware sites if you want."