BIOS: Technology Means Business

Similar to Nokia’s E60 and E70, the E61 is targeted at the business world. Combining the power of relatively advanced voice services and mobile e-mail applications, the BlackBerry-like E61 is unusual in that is has a full keyboard and ‘widescreen’ colour screen. It’s also a cinch to use with either hand, and the 5-way joystick makes mobile e-mail and text messaging easy. It also connects to everything, including GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, 3G, Wi-Fi (ideal for compatible hotspots or in the office), Bluetooth, infrared, VoIP, and Push To Talk.

Part of the first batch of Nokia’s new E-series, the E61 is distinctively different in design and allows businesses of all sizes to mobilise their workforce. Along with the E60 and E70, the E61 supports today’s most popular and newly announced corporate mobile e-mail solutions including BlackBerry Connect, GoodLink from Good Technology, Nokia Business Center, Seven Mobile Mail, Seven Always-On Mail and Visto Mobile.

Nokia’s E-series are built on the latest edition of the Series 60 Platform, an easy-to-use smartphone software platform. Series 60 third-edition together, with Symbian OS 9.1, provides an identical application environment for all three of the new devices. The only real difference is that the E61 has a bigger screen so you can see more at once and don’t have to scroll as much. The QWERTY keyboard is also a boon for frequent messaging.

In terms of the design the E61 is very similar to any other BlackBerry-styled handset. Weighing in at 144g with the battery installed and measuring 117x70x14mm, the handset can hardly be considered small, although it’s lithe by BlackBerry standards. The silver finish gives the E61 a professional look and avoids the scuffed look that some black phones pick up all too easily, including Orange’s SPV M3100.

The keyboard is backlit with a function key to switch between dialling and alphabet entries, and dedicated menu and e-mail buttons let you access frequently-used applications quickly. Volume and voice recorder buttons are present on the left-hand side, although these plastic additions feel cheap and tacky. There are no controls on the right-hand side of the device, nor is there a scroll wheel or back buttons like on the Blackberry. The E61’s TFT display (320x240 pixels) is bright and clear, although some may struggle with the small font size.

The Nokia E61 features excellent voice functionality and quality when compared to other devices that combine PDA-like features with a mobile phone. It also supports relatively advanced voice services, such as Push To Talk, and other SIP-based rich call services to give businesses a variety of ways to make it easier for employees to collaborate or respond rapidly in or out of the office. Companies deploying an Avaya or Cisco IP PBX can connect the new Nokia devices directly to their corporate phone networks, enabling functions employees have come to expect from a corporate network like four-digit dialling and assisted call answering.

Naturally as a business communicator, the E61 has full support for POP3, IMAP, SMTP and Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail. In a decidedly non-corporate way, it also supports instant messaging clients from Yahoo and AOL, MP3 and AAC music playback and RealPlayer video support. One feature missing with 3G phones is a built-in camera, so if your business life includes the odd video call or snap shot, this isn’t the phone for you.

The new business-optimised devices are the first in the industry to support remote device management based on OMA DM, giving your IT manager tools to remotely control and protect corporate data on the device and configure devices via device wipe, device lock or task management, application management and customisation, for example. Nokia’s well established competence in network security addresses strict corporate requirements covering information stored on devices, back-office systems and transmitted over networks.

The E61 is designed in the familiar style of today’s most popular mobile e-mail devices. Yet it is slim and packed with powerful new functionality. Full attachment handling (documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDF viewer and ZIP manager) and an editing function (document, spreadsheet and presentation) are included as standard. The E61 also includes the same advanced business call features and IP-based telephony functions as the Nokia E60 and Nokia E70. The Nokia E61 can even send and receive e-mails when on a phone call.

The handset comes with a set of pre-installed business applications so mobile professionals are ready to work out of the box. The Nokia Team Suite, part of the Nokia Office Tools offering, helps to facilitate conference calls and to initiate push-to-talk sessions with selected team members easily and fast, through a built-in speakerphone. Important business attachments received via e-mail, such as documents, presentations, and spreadsheets, can be swiftly accessed via the Quickoffice viewer.

Organiser features include contacts with images, calendar with accept/reject function for meeting requests, and to-do list. Of course, there’s also an Office application viewer for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations (Office 2000, XP and 2003), and you can synchronise with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes to have latest meetings, contacts, and notes on hand. Connectivity is available via USB cable, infrared, over-the-air synchronisation, and wireless technology. An XHTML browser is available for viewing Internet pages, as well as for downloading Java and S60 applications, games, and ringtones.

The Intellisync Device Management offered by Nokia enables remote enterprise grade device management, without additional client software installation, on OMA DM capable devices such as the Nokia E-series. For IT administrators, an administrative Web-interface allows remote management of OMA DM compliant business devices, with access to a device management server located either within a company’s own premises or at a service provider’s facilities.

Like most BlackBerry-style devices, Nokia’s E61 is geared towards heavy communicators. Having said that, using the handset as a regular phone without a headset makes you feel a little conspicuous. Its size also makes it a little too big for after-hours usage, such as at weekends when you’re wearing casual clothing. The Web browser is a little disappointing too, as it fails to format pages to the full width of the screen. Horizontal scrolling to read Web sites should really be a thing of the past, so hopefully Nokia will release a software update soon.

Nokia rates the E61 as being capable of up to 9.5 hours talk time and up to 17 days standby time. Given the wide range of battery-sapping applications that you can have enabled - Bluetooth and Wi-Fi alone can bring even the biggest and meanest battery to its knees - you should expected to hit the lower sides of those estimations. Nevertheless, the operating times are impressive, and the E61 does effortlessly what you’d expect a mobile e-mail device to do. [8]

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