The best thing about the Nokia E7 is that it is not only a business phone. Sure, you want all your emails and business tools to work seamlessly, but you still want a cool phone that you can whip out on the weekends and use for non-business stuff. The E7 blends these two worlds together perfectly, combining the functionality of a Blackberry with the multimedia capabilities of an iPhone.
Design
The E7 is built very solidly and has a really nice weight to it. The slide out keyboard works smoothly and looks durable. The actual keys on the full keyboard are very cool and great to type on. I definitely prefer the wider keyboard layout to the compact Blackberry version. The screen is a huge 4 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen, which works really well (not as well as an iPhone screen, but better than previous Nokia devices).
Looking over the phone you will notice the mini HDMI port on top (covered up) as well as the usual headphone jack and charger slot. Overall its a very good looking phone.
Software
The E7 sports Nokia’s new Symbian^3 operating system. It’s not my favourite to be honest, but Nokia users worldwide will be familiar with the homescreen setup and menu structure. Adding widgets and shortcuts to your various homescreens is a breeze and allows you to see updates from various email accounts and social media platforms.
The E7 comes preloaded with the following applications :
- Mail for Exchange
- Quickoffice dynamic premium
- Adobe PDF reader
- F-Secure Anti-theft for Mobile
- Ovi Maps with free GPS navigation
It also has access to Nokia’s OVI store that provides tons of other apps and widgets. For a more detailed look at all the Nokia E7 features head over to the product page.
Multimedia
This is where the E7 pulls away from other business phones, yes other phones have cameras and video and a headphone jack, but the E7 leverages the N8’s multimedia heritage to create a very solid entertainment phone.
It is capable of HD 720p Video playback on HD TV through the supplied HDMI cable with full Dolby Digital Plus surround sound when played a home theatre. It allows you to shoot 16:9 videos in HD (720p resolution, 25 fps with codecs H.264, MPEG-4). It also comes with some decent video editing software.
The camera is also better than most phones (not as good as the N8 though):
- 8 megapixel camera
- Dual LED flash
- Face recognition software
- Zoom up to 2x (digital) for still images
- Zoom up to 3x (digital) for video
And with 16GB of internal memory you should be able to snap away without any space limitations.
Summary
The Nokia E7 is simple to setup and easy to use. It supports a wide range of top end business requirements, ensuring that you are able to do everything you can on other business phones and more. It’s stylish design and rich multimedia features makes it more than just a business phone on weekends.
I would definitely recommend this phone over a Blackberry or even an iPhone (*gasp*) if you are looking for a solid business phone.
