Review by Spiridonov Anton (smape.com)
The review of Nokia E66 can be shrunk down to a few words: a slider version of Nokia E71 with a standard
numerical keypad and an integrated motion sensor. Nothing more.
We had a long-lasting experience with Nokia E71 before we realized what the thing was actually alike. Lots of testing and discussion covering certain aspects of ergonomics took place before we could finally say how
well the device would fit the owners of E61(i). It turned out that the good things prevailed over bad ones by a large margin.
Things are a way simpler as far as E66 is concerned. It's a very conservative sequel to E65 which offers no compromises in the field of ergonomics, every single parameter being better than in the predecessor model.
The quality of materials and assembly, the size, the screen, the audio quality, the functionality, the keypad – everything is improved. The owners of E65 now get what they were dreaming of. A switch from E65 to E66
is fully justified. The GPS- and Wi-Fi bearing, elegantly looking E66 slider encased in a perfectly assembled steel body ought to attract a lot of new potential buyers, expanding the audience of the E-series product
family. It enjoys a zero direct competition on the market. One of the latest Samsung smartphones (L870, if I'm not mistaken) is a poor match for E66, save probably for a good-looking design and a metal body. The rest
of the features are a mean compromise (naturally, coming at a lower price) It remains yet undisclosed when Samsung will actually start shipping it, so we can't tell you even an estimated price. One thing we can say
for sure that L870 will sell very poorly even if they cut the price down to the limit. However that's a subject for another article, which is yet to be published. Let's get back to Nokia E66 for now – essentially being a huge
fix to all the issues originally present in E65.
Let's get back to Nokia E66 for now – essentially being a huge fix to all the issues originally present in E65.
Design and ergonomics
The size of E66 has been optimized: now it's 2 mm less thick. Some people wouldn't take it for a great improvement, but when you hold the handset in your hand or carry in the pocket the difference can be felt. The
width was left unchanged yet E66 in a mysterious way feels wider than E71, probably that's a purely psychological point. The length is increased by 2.5 mm – though this increase is hardly ever felt. Judging by the
official specifications, the two handsets ought to be identical, yet this is not the case when it comes down to real life. E66 is a slim handset while E66 is average-sized. In the open state, E66 is slightly shorter.
Moving on. The sliding mechanism is now smoother, the bottom part of the slider makes a convenient finger rest. To my opinion, this feels and looks better than the earlier solution, however some people would see
little difference. The slider rails, by the way, no longer scratch the metal basement of the keypad as it used to happen with E65, for it is no longer made from metail in E66.
The paint coating of E65 was a serious criticism point. When you first touched it, it felt like a soft-touch surface; but after a couple of months of active usage the paint began peeling off, exposing the underlying layer of
a brighter colored plastic. In E66, all of the problems spots have been reinforced with metal plating, and as you know can't peel off. Still, E66 has less metal than E71 due to constructive peculiarities. The side
surfaces, as well as the top and bottom ends are made of a dark gray plastic: unpainted, very firm, obviously sporting a high quality, with a sliver-grayish glare. By the way, the handset is available in two color variants:
black and white. Both plastic and metal parts look different in each variant: the one which comes in black plastic has the metal parts texturized in a dotted pattern while the white plastic version comes along with a
striped texture for the metal parts. Both solutions look good, yet the white one has a touch of ethereality that the black one is missing. The etched texture on the metal parts helps to disguise scratches.
The side elements also have peculiarities of their own. The memory card slot is only accessible while the battery bay cover is removed. The left edge of the casing hosts a microUSB slot protected with a plastic flap.
Nokia E71 is equipped with weak rubber flaps which won't serve for too long, while E66 has this issue sorted out. The onboard IRdA unit is an archaic addition, the only reason why it is found in Nokia E66 is the
compliance with the established business standards. Just nearby you will find a 2.5 mm headset socket (no adapter coming in the box, so you are advised to check a retail store to get one) The wristband hole is
located on the bottom edge, which is also home to a 2 mm charger slot. The right edge is where the volume, voice recorder and camera buttons are located. There's only one speaker in this model, positioned on the
back side and not too loud.
The back surface also hosts the 3.2 Mp camera lens (auto-focusing), accompanied by a flash and a self-portrait mirror. The battery bay cover is fastened with two locks sitting on either side, so it will never get loose.
Its interior surface has a special padding providing for a tight contact with the battery. Just like E71, E66 feels like a monolith, thanks to an ideal quality of materials and assembly.
Screen
The screen is improved from what we had in E65. It grew to 2.4'' inches (against the old value of 2.2''), the brightness and quality of the matrix were boosted up. It no longer displays bad behavior when exposed to direct
sunlight even regardless of the thick protective glass (which in fact isn't too annoying), all of the screen info remaining pretty legible.
Keyboard
The keypad was left largely unchanged. The numerical buttons have their move slightly increased. The Home icon now came to replace Nokia's traditional Ying-Yang icon as the signature symbol of the Eseries product
line. Once clicked, it always brings the user back to the desktop from the currently opened application window; a second click will bring up the main menu.
In addition to a standard set of keys, Nokia E66 offers a few 'One Touch' buttons working as customizable application shortcut. They surround the navigation button (just like in Nokia E71), its size and tightness are
quite balanced for quick and easy operation. The associated applications are Calendar, Contact Book, Messages. You can easily rebind the buttons so they would call on something else, an option unthinkable of in
E65. The buttons response to instant and prolonged pressing in different ways, and both types of response are configurable. Thus, a button may launch Application X on a quick tap and a totally different Application Y if
you hold it pressed a few moments longer. In this way, three One Touch buttons works as six different shortcuts.
In the middle of the navigation button sits the missed event indicator. It doesn't just flicker in an idle manner, like in N78, but when you see it flicker you get to know that an event was left unattended, something like a
missed call, a missed incoming message, an MMS or an e-mail – a total of four kinds of events. If an event is missed, the indicator starts winking at you every 5 minutes or 2 hours, or at any other interval between
these two extreme values, configurable in the settings. Disgracing all the rumors, I also have to add that there's no Navi Wheel just because it's simply non-existent in this model.
Battery
The supplied BL-4U battery sports a capacity of 1000 mAh, the same kind exploited by models like 8800 Arte, 3120 Classic and others. The difference from Nokia E65 is a mere 50 mAh, which leads to almost equal
results in battery life tests. The power consumption was optimized for a number of modes, resulting in a three extra hours of mp3 cycle, for instance; this is of no critical value but still a very pleasant bonus. The
manufacturer claims some 7.5 hours of GSM talktime or 264 hours of standby. A normal duty cycle (about a hour of talking, two hours of listening to the music, an hour of camera work, an hour and a half of menu and
misc application interaction) lasted for about 2.5 hours, which is a pretty good score. The model scores results comparable to those of its predecessor and outpacing it in a few particular modes. If you limit the usage
of Wi-Fi and GPS to a few occasional sessions, the battery can stay alive for 3-3.5 days.
| Phone
|
Nokia Е66 |
Nokia E65 |
|
| Standart usage
|
2,5 days |
2,5 days |
|
| Multimedia cycle, video (3GP)
|
3:12 |
3:05 |
|
| Multimedia cycle, audio (MP3)
|
12:56 |
9:25 |
|
| GPS
|
4:05 |
- |
|
Connectivity
The model offers a wide range of communication features. The smartphone has a data cable microUSB slot, a 2.5 mm headset jack and a slim charger slot. The USB version is 2.0, the Mass Storage mode is fully
supported – adding another option to the general choice of the connection type: Mass Storage / PC Suite / Media Transfer / Connect PC to Web. Both the memory card and onboard storage are available in any of the
modes. Even if engaged in Mass Storage mode, the phone retains the full functionality and may be used in any other way simultaneously.
According to the specification sheet, the Bluetooth version is 2.0 + EDR, all the generic profiles are supported:
- A2DP
- Audio/Video Remote Control
- Basic Imaging
- Dial-up Networking
- File Transfer
- Generic Access
- Generic Object Exchange
- Handsfree
- Headset
- HID
- Object Push
- SIM Access
- Serial Port
The support for the A2DP profile allows for a wireless stereo headset to be used with the device, and in practice this works just as well as supposed.
The Bluetooth data transfer rate around 100 Kb/s. The Bluetooth device visibility period is configurable with the limit of one hour, the least possible value being one minute.
A Wi-Fi b/g support is commonly found in business smartphones, a rule to which E66 is not an exception. The WLAN availability check can be done automatically every 1, 2, 5 or 10 minutes if configured accordingly
in the options; the corresponding status icon is displayed at the top of the screen. These network checks drain the battery power, so excessive checking is not always advisable, to say the least. The WLAN Wizard is
a simple yet effective application which helps to configure a network connection as quickly as possible. The available security standards are WEP, WPA, WPA 2. IP telephony is a technology which uses to transfer
voice signal and data through the networks utilizing the IP protocol, in our case this stands for a walkie-talkie functionality: the phone is available to broadcast the signal not only over GSM/3G networks, but using a
local Wi-Fi connection as well. This is implemented through the use of SIP protocol, developed by the MMUSIC (Multipart Multimedia Session Control) expert group of the IETF committee (Internet Engineering Task
Force). The available settings are switching between automatic and manual VoIP system login, a choice between GSM and IP networks to set as the default signal carrier on pressing the Dial button.
A SIP address is the new field which every contact record has in the phonebook. According to the SIP protocol specifications, four alternate spellings are allowed:
- name@domain
- name@host
- name@IP address
- phone number@gateway
Performance and memory
The performance rates of Nokia E66 is practically identical to the rest of the company’s smartphones based off the single-chip ARM11 platform running 369 MHz CPUs. That’s a long leap forward from the results of
Nokia E65. The difference in speed is so pronounced that you can’t force yourself to use E61/E61i once again after you’ve switched to E71. Messages, menus, gallery pages, phonebook and the rest of standard
windows open up almost instantly. The low performance was the weakest spot of E61/E61, which is gone for good in E71.
| Phone
|
Nokia Е66 |
Nokia E65 |
|
| Jbenchmark 1.0.1 Score
|
5767 |
3481 |
|
| Text
|
1655 |
966 |
|
| 2D Shapes
|
1389 |
901 |
|
| 3D Shapes
|
804 |
493 |
|
| Fill Rate
|
366 |
212 |
|
| Animation
|
1547 |
916 |
|
| Jbenchmark 2.0.1 Score
|
600 |
272 |
|
| Image Manipulations
|
378 |
208 |
|
| Text
|
688 |
316 |
|
| Sprites
|
468 |
284 |
|
| 3D Transform
|
947 |
550 |
|
| User Interface
|
647 |
129 |
|
| Jbenchmark 3D HQ
|
193 |
119 |
|
| Jbenchmark 3D LQ
|
378 |
216 |
|
| Triangles ps
|
60791 |
39400 |
|
| KTexels ps
|
3631 |
1229 |
|
| Jbenchmark HD Gaming Score
|
1512 (5.0 fps) |
97 (3.1 fps) |
|
| Smooth triangles
|
113707 |
66199 |
|
| Textured triangles
|
94305 |
55667 |
|
| Fill rate, KTexels
|
2218 |
1389 |
|
The model runs one of the latest versions of the Symbian operating system – 9.2, S60v3 FP1 to say more precisely. Fast but is not supported, though even regular booting takes mere 20 seconds.
Of the overall 128 Mb of RAM, 70 Mb are available to the user after the operating system has booted up. Nokia 6220 Classic, N78 score the same results, that’s an amount of memory which is enough in most
situations. The Heap Size and Jar Size per a launched application are unlimited. The amount of ROM storage amounts to 256 Mb, half of which is occupied by the OS files and programs, and the other half is free for
recording user data.
Software implementation
Nokia E66 and E71 are the last Feature Pack 1 smartphones, all the following models being based off FP2. Is it too big a reason for getting up set? Perhaps so. Feature Pack 2 has a lot of cool things and fixes to old
problems included, along with a set of nice additions and changes to the interface. You will be missing that with E66. On the other hand there are a few features not even included in FP2, which you get with the
‘outdated’ E66. For example, the customizable missed event indicator, new options for the phonebook and a revamped desktop…
…Not the whole desktop, but the new alternate modes available for it. There are two optional ways of setting up your desktop: personal and business. Nothing extraordinary, but the usability is greatly improved. The
thing is: each of the modes has a configurable set of desktop shortcuts, a unique configuration of the active standby mode, an independent interface theme and wallpaper. The default Business configuration includes
everything which has to do with business: e-mail, Wi-Fi, VoIP, Search shortcuts, the active standby mode is configured to display data from the PIM, Tasklist and two selected e-mail accounts.
In the personal mode, the desktop isn’t so crowded with indicators, most reminders are turned off. Either desktop mode is fully customizable: feel free to change the shortcuts and turn on and off any available feature.
Switching between the two modes takes less than two seconds; the Switch Mode action shortcut is found thrice: in the Customization tab, in the main menu and on the desktop itself, neighboring other shortcut on the
shortcut bar. Very convenient, yet I can hardly imagine a person switching between the two modes all the time.
Now let’s see what’s there in Home Screen, the new approach to your phone’s standby mode. The actual state of things now comes much closer to what the word ‘desktop’ is supposed to say – in addition to the
application shortcuts, a variety of everyday tools were added there to minimize the user’s efforts at controlling every aspect of their mobile life… here come various plugins, an IP telephony toolbox, a voice mail
manager, an e-mail manager and such like things. Once properly configured, the plugin windows become minimized; an unwanted plugin window can also be hidden manually by pressing the delete button. The menu
button now stands for Home Screen, pressing it, - quite expectedly, - brings you back to he Desktop and not to the phone menu, as it used to be. Pressing it for a second time however will bring up the menu, if you are
already on the desktop. This approach seems to me more user-friendly than the traditional one, I’d say the manufacturers will eventually adopt the same desktop design which will come to dominate on the market in
the foreseeable future.
One of the bars available in the active standby mode is the Search bar, combining web search and internal storage search functions. The application interface is slightly changed from what is seen on other
smartphones by the company, but the essence remains the same. Search can be done applying a number of categories, e.g. across the web or in one’s own, locally stored content, in the messages, in the calendar
events and so on. In some sense the application is analogous to the Smart Search function of Samsung phones. Indeed this is a very smart feature, now always at hand on the active standby screen.
The bottom part of the screen is where the three small icons are shown during standby, acting as indicators for missed calls, text and voice messages. That’s an add-on of sorts to the active standby mode, which is
independent from the contents of Feature Pack 1 or 2; it’s only available with the E71 and E66 smartphone models, but is expected to be feature in a number of future models. Pointing at either icon shows the number
of calls, the caller’s name, part of the message text and exact delivery time. The same applies to voice messages. These icons can be optionally hidden, though it’s better to keep them on the desktop – since they’re
extremely useful.Just like in other devices based off the S60 platform, the navigation can be done through the means of voice control which quickly adapts to your voice without any learning stage, however the
adaptation can be turned off in the setting which would prove useful in case the phone is used by several people. The voice control mode is activated by holding the right functional button. There are five applications on
the default shortcut list (Modes, Mailbox, Bluetooth, Voice Recorder and Camera) but in fact any other application form an exhaustive list can be added. Also there’s an option to read aloud your messages and two
alternate voices available (Martin and Ellen), the speech speed and volume can be adjusted to the user’s liking.
There are four interface themes available, all sporting solid yet pleasing looks. The set of icons the same for all the themes; the icons looked to me a bit bleak and unoriginal.
The phonebook implementation won’t be reviewed in this article, everything is just the same as in a dozen other smartphones based off FP1. Save for a small exception which I will mention. Pop-up windows now
appear while viewing the contact list, etc. To the side of each person’s name a small arrow icon is shown, pressing the right arrow brings up a pop-up menu of actions. That’s quite convenient since the main window
doesn’t vanish.
Nokia E66 makes use of an accelerometer which automatically switches the screen orientation depending on the physical position of the handset. Probably the best thing about this feature is that it can be switched off
if you get annoyed with the constant screen aspect switching. In some modes (e.g. in the camera application) the accelerometer won't work just because the thing was designed to be this way. Some applications
apparently look better with a horizontal screen orientation (web browser, maps and a few others) – that's why Nokia E71 doesn't have a working accelerometer, its default screen orientation is already horizontal.
PIM and Office Applications
Unfortunately the PIM has remained the same original application available on most S60 FP1 smartphones. The calendar and the tasklist had its interface slightly changed, but there are no global improvements at all.
The measure converter and calculator have a standard implementation. The converter can handle different measures of weight, length, area and so on; the calculator can handle the most basic arithmetic but little more.
The alarm clock has quite a number of settings as compared to what we had in pre-FP1 devices like Nokia E65. Besides a one-time signal, the alarm clock supports a schedule on a weekday basis, the signals can be
one-time and repeating, it’s possible to set a signal to be played once a week or daily, on a specified weekday only, on workdays or on weekends. Although the application doesn’t allow configuring a signal to be
played on a manually selected number of days, limiting the user to the options listed above. There’s an option to set any weekday save for Sunday as a workday. Any custom ringtone can be used for an alarm clock
signal.
There are four viewmodes available for the calendar: by month, by week, by day (an hourly schedule is available in the latter mode) and also by associated tasks: a comprehensive tasklist is shown on the screen,
listing all the events and the expiration dates in a chronological fashion; a list of incomplete tasks is shown on the desktop in the active standby mode, each event type indicated with a different icon. There’s an option
to wipe the expired events (all or those preceding a specified date)
Four types of events can be associated with a particular date: meeting, reminder, anniversary or task. Upon adding a new event, the user is asked to specify the place/subject, start and end time and/or date, alarm
signal, repeating signal, synchronization type (personal / shared), everything looks very simple yet efficient. Once an event is specified, a colored corner is added to the date record which displays a pop-up with
detailed description if you hover the cursor over it; if you jump to a specified date, a full schedule for that date is shown. Upon adding a new event, a reminder signal can be set to play daily, weekly, once in a fortnight,
etc. Also you are prompted to specify an expiration date for the signal – once the day comes, the reminder deactivates itself.
The office applications are in essence the classical QuickOffice for viewing Microsoft Office files: Word(*.doc), Excel (*.xls), PowerPoint(*.ptt). A number of Office versions are supported Office (97, 2000, and XP) though
the compatibility doesn’t embrace all the existing versions. The document editing functionality is included.
An enhanced support for user groups is one of the most significant improvements, a separate Groups manager application is now available to the user which allows for an easier control over contact management - this
part of the device's functionality is way more advanced than similar features in other phones. The user can create, delete, Edit or perform five types of Actions: Call, New Message, Group Web Page, PIT and
teleconference. The further logics hiding between this idea is pretty clear: the Call is used for making successive calls the group member in order to connect all of them into a common pool of teleconference
participants (the maximum number of participants is limited by the technical specifications of the local mobile network), the New Message serves as a mass mailer delivering messages to all the members of the group
(a single SMS to all to all them simultaneously, for instance), the Group Web Page selects the shortcut to the group's dedicated web page from the Bookmarks menu.
Similar to Nokia E90, this phone supports the Active Notes application, which is a further step on the way of making the interaction between human and machine not only more efficient, but also more comfortable and
natural. It's a serious business application after all, a certain part of the audience won't take much interest in it, but the opportunities granted by it definitely shouldn't be neglected in this review. So, the Notes found in
many a device before were no more than text files with the set of options limited to Print and Send, while Active Notes allows for almost any type of multimedia object to be inserted into a note's body: images, audio
and video files, you clients' and partners' biz cards and what not - the output data is wrapped into a HTML file. Such an expanded can be viewed with a web browser or sent by SMS (in this case only the text part of the
Note is sent), MMS, Bluetooth or the IrDA. The Notes Manager lets you move them from the SIM card memory to the phone memory and back again, move them between folders, create custom folders. A note can be
associated with a record from your phonebook or even a group of contacts (only one Note can be associated with a record, if you further try doing this with another Note you'll be prompted to specify another contact
record(s) to associate it with since the selected one is already 'occupied') The corresponding menu item in the application settings menu lets you choose the type of storage used, the view mode (list or icons), note
display status during a call (once you activate the Note icon, a special symbol pops up nearby, showing that it's associated with a particular contact).
The voice recorder is of the standard type common to many Nokia handsets, it’s very simple to handle; there’s no maximum record length limit (Nokia E61i had a limit of one minute). The only customizable setting is
the data storage location. The record quality is pretty high. The voice recorder can record phone talks; the record start button is located on the right edge of the casing.
There’s an automated dictionary/translator application available, which can also pronounce the selected word. The font size is adjustable in this application as well.
Nokia Web Browser
One of the main features brought to you by the FP1 update is the availability of an improved web browser. The famed Konqueror project was laid in the base of this version of the browser, which was also engaged in
creation of Apple’s Safari Web Browser. NokiaWeb browser offers every feature necessary for comfortable web surfing: HTML 4.01 (full support for tables, frames, forms), JavaScripts 1.5, CSS 1 and 2, RSS. Depending
on the region of sale, different language packages are integrated into the btowser.
The following graphics formats are supported by the application: GIF, JPEG, BMP, WBMP, PNG. The audio file support includes MIDI, WAV, MP3, ACC, EACC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, Real Audio. The browser makes
use of the native security protocols and algorithms of S60 and Symbian OS.
A web page can be viewed in the minimap mode, the red square indicating the area to which you will skip on returning back to the 100% viewing scale. The browser sports a good performance in this mode, only taking
about two seconds to load the minimap in detail. A certain setting lets the minimap to be shown on the screen during page scrolling on top of the main image. In this case you can comfortable scroll through the page
seeing your exact position, the minimap in this mode is semi-transparent. Just as in other smartphones, a quick setting access panel (which can be optionally hidden) serves to let you into the options with maximum
speed and easy.
The History log enjoys a stylish implementation, the earlier visited pages all are given tiny previews, each preview window comes with a header to make recognition as easy as it comes.
The bookmark service is well designed and it’s just what you need for comfortable work. Two types of bookmarks are available: common and adaptive. Common bookmarks are created by the user in a way similar to
bookmarking web pages in PC browsers like Internet Explorer or Opera. Adaptive bookmarks are created automatically depending on the relevance of the recently visited pages, structurized in a way that lets the user
to see them sorted in groups each comprising pages from the same site. An adaptive bookmark can be converted into a common one. Both types can be sent as links via SMS.
The menu navigation system is well-planned, the numeric keys are also used as shortcuts to different browser functions.
The main changes introduced in the Feature Pack 1 as compared to the previous version of the platform consist in the availability of the following options:
Save page
Save selected Image
Password Manager (stores page passwords)
Flash Lite 2.0 Plug-in
RSS and Atom newsfeed auto-update capability
Optimized cache functioning
The new browser completely ousted out the old one that the S60 platform used to employ; the new browser can be manipulated as a system component by 3rd party applications
The listed changes are rather significant, the browser has got through some substantial reworking; we hope for further improvements like text highlight and copy capabilities or a manual choice between opening the link
in the current or a new window. Currently the browser ranks among the best preinstalled web surfing applications available on today’s smartphones.
GPS
Among the biggest advantages you get with a latest Nokia smartphone is the availability of a dedicated GPS receiver, and E66 is no exception form the rule. The GPS unit is served by a copy of Nokia Maps 2.0. A
detailed description of the standard GPS functionality available on S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 is currently available on the site; Nokia E71 doesn’t have any specific features different from it. The supplied license is
limited to three months, after which you will require a subscription – everything just as usual as in other Nokia smart gadgets.
Multimedia capabilities
You wouldn’t expect a lot of multimedia functionality in a business-oriented smartphone. The availability of a 2.5 mm jack is a plus, you can always attach a 3.5 adapter to be able to work with a standard headset. The
audio quality is quite good, greatly improved from the poor realization of this feature in E65. Nokia 6210 Navigator and 6220 classic are the two more likely candidates for a comparison, the quality of the sound goes on
par with E71. The sound isn’t really great, yet it is still pleasing good not to get on your nerves – in fact, this is the level of an average mp3 player. You aren’t getting the high audio quality of Nokia N78, the sound
options are by and large limited to a five-band equalizer, but that’s still a major step forward from what the predecessor had to offer in this department. The side position of the jack is something of a miss, try to keep
the phone in the pocket while listening to the music and you’ll see why.
The interface is just the standard one, common to all FP1-based smartphones. The five-band equalizer allows for creating an unlimited number of user profiles. Sound balance is also adjustable, going alongside such
options as enhanced stereo effect, bass boost and reverberation. Sorting options include: by performer, by album, by genre and so on; looped and random playback are available. The visualization is unavailable.
