Nokia E62 Review

I published this Nokia E62 review at another site. I'm republishing the same review here.

Review: This is a good looking PDA phone. My family is subscribed to a Cingular Family plan, so I was looking for a good PDA phone from Cingular, rather than go thru the hassle of switching carriers to get the juicy BB Pearl or an EVDO offering... and when the E62 came out, it appeared to have everything I needed in a PDA phone (looks and features). I knew it didn't have WiFi (disappointing), but, well, I thought with one of their Media Bundles, and with all the hype about EDGE, I hoped the E62 will prove to be a convenient and efficient PDA phone.

There are three ways you should look at this phone when considering using with Cingular.
1. As a standalone device.
2. Cingular's data plans that are suitable for this PDA/phone.
3. The usability of E62 when combined with Cingular's data plans.

There are too many aspects of this device, and I will not be able to touch all, but I'll try to update this review a few more times after submitting this.

1. As a standalone device.
Beautiful screen. 16million colors. The PDA itself is very sharp looking, even with the Cingular stamp on it. The QWERTY keboard is really awesome. Wider than the Treo and very comfortable to type. If you haven't used Palm OS, then you'll love the general interface as well. But if you are used to Palm (or maybe even the Pocket PC), Symbian desktop needs a little getting used to. Switching from app to app has some delays (2 to 5 seconds sometimes). The Menu is confusing at times. Will need to spend a few hours to really get to know to use this device efficiently.

The E62 does not have a scroll wheel; nor does it have a touch screen. It has a joystick, which is quite convenient to move the cursor on the screen. I still felt a clickable scroll wheel on the side would be a good addition.

The built-in browser is Ok, but very confusing to save bookmarks, and to go to a new URL. The calendar is good for a new PDA user. But if you are used to Datebook or Datebook+, this calendar is very simplistic. I installed the mobile google maps app. Looks good on this PDA. But, an irritating popup comes up everytime asking "Allow application Google Maps to use network and send or recieve data?". Even if I click "Yes", it doesn't remember... and will ask again in a few seconds as google tries to get new data when you move in the map. I didn't find an easy way to persist this setting. This irristating popup happen for other apps too. (pop email for example). So right there, that's a big negative. Some of your browsing experience becomes unpleasant right away because of this stuff.

Browsing to sites such as google news is not that bad. The page loading times take anywhere from 4 to 12 seconds (using Cingular's EDGE). A little long for my taste.

The E62 comes with an Instant Messaging App for Yahoo, MSN and hotmail. I tried Yahoo IM. The outgoing messages go quickly. Incoming messages have a big lag. Upto 10 seconds, and sometimes even 30 secondss. So, this is not very interactive for fast typers... and high speed IMers! (For me, personally, the delays were really disconcerting) Still, this could be useful if are stuck in a train (with good EDGE coverage!) or a long line at the Drivers license office!
Personally, I felt that EDGE is all hype and it is not really super fast. I hear good things from the EV-DO camp (that Verizon provides). People who compared EVDO with EDGE have consistently said that EVDO is blazing fast.

Very sleek and thin and light weight. It can slip easily from your hands though. Does not have an ergonomic rubber grip or anything of the sort on the sides. A good 3rd party case should alleviate this problem. (If you are looking for a Blackberry type holster, no luck. Cingular doesn't provide any case for this phone) (Blackberry users are used to their BB behaving differently when it senses that it is in the holster. The E62 has no such intelligence)

Voice quality is Excellent. 5 stars on this one. Speaker phone is beautiful, with good polyphonic support. Very convenient to quickly record audio memos too.

Contacts/Addressbook is Ok. Not as good as Palm's or Blackberry's.

Excellent battery life, even with using the multimedia features. I haven't timed it, but after almost a full day of intermittently using and experimenting with the PDA, the battery only went down by a notch and a half.

2. Cingular's data plan.
Whoever is heading the Cingular's Marketing department, hasn't done enough to know the prime Customer for this product. I got this phone not for business use, but for regular personal use. Going by their web page, I believed I could sign up for Cingular's Media Max 200 bundle for 19.99/month (unlimited web, 200 text msgs). The operator first added the Media Max, and once she realized I had the E62, basically said, sorry, you can't have this plan... she then proposed what she saw as the only plan on her screen - A PDAConnect plan for 59.99 (unlimited). This is completely out of sync with Cingular's web page where there is no "PDAConnect" plan. They have DataConnect plans ranging from 19.99 to 44.99. But the Cingular operator (she was very nice though) just could not see any of those plans from her screen. Finally she found the DataConnect plan for 44.99 somewhere (but not the other cheaper ones) and put that on my plan.

At this point, for a personal user, I'm wondering if the 44.99 is worth it. Well, if the browsing experience is quick and fast, it could be. But the browsing experience is not that great, as I mentioned above. (I also plan to download the Opera mini and see if that part of web usage becomes better).

Cingular should prominently inform customers of compatible data plans for this phone before the purchase of the phone itself. I got in for a bad surprise on this one.


3. Nokia E62 with Cingular:
Since the EDGE "high speed" Cingular's network isn't that great... the lack of built-in WiFi is a BIG drawback on the E62. (You can buy an unlocked E61 which has the WiFi). I found that the EDGE performance varies from place to place. At its fastest, the average web response times are 4 to 8 seconds (and for some pages longer). Some pages just time out. The included browser is Ok, not very great. Most places I go, I see WiFi coverage (libraries, restaurants, coffee shops, work place, and of course home), but poor Edge coverage. The data/web experience with the E62 is very unsatisfactory - it would be much better if it had WiFi support.

If you want to use it as a regular phone, and as a PDA (without a data plan), this is an excellent choice. (with some of the drawbacks I mentioned above; such as: slow switching of apps, slow startup of apps, slippery form factor). Will be good for mp3s (has a miniSD slot supporting 2Gig card), photographs, video. Symbian has some good 3rdParty software available (not as extensive as Palm or PocketPC). btw, the miniSD slot is hidden under the battery cover. So, the card can't easily be popped out. I think some people may like this, but others may want to have easy access to the miniSD card.

If you plan to use the Data plan, I don't recommend it. I have to say that I haven't used the Blackberry Connect or GoodLink on this one, but I don't think having those plans will drastically increase the performance of this device. Having a BB plan could give you good email performance (but then, you should get a Blackberry, which is really awesome for email/calendar and Outlook syncing).

I love this phone, but I am left with a lingering disappointment. I fell in love with this phone even before I bought it :( ... it has a lovely look and an awesome screen, but, but, I may end up returning it to Cingular within the 30 day trial period :( .

Good luck with your choice. I'll try to update this page as I use this phone more. (It's only a day since I got it). Oh, btw, there's a whole fun world of Access Point settings that you *could* get into with this PDA... but that's for another time.