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There aren’t many gadgets that can claim to have a cult following, but the Nokia Communicator – first released in 1996 – is one of them. It’s been around for ages and gone through many revisions. The last release was the E90 in 2007. Communicator fans refuse to use anything else and they’ve had to wait a long time for it to be upgraded. The new Nokia E7 is supposed to be that update.
However, the E7 is nothing like the original communicator and its successors. The older models flipped open like a small laptop, with the phone bits on the outside. They had two screens and a special user interface. The E7 has a slide-out qwerty keyboard that really is a marvel of modern engineering and a single touch screen.
Keyboard aside, the E7 is very similar to Nokia’s N8 touchscreen phone in both look and feel. It has a fantastic 8 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and the ability to plug in USB drives or send high definition video out over an HDMI cable. When the keyboard is slid away, the E7 is a touchscreen smartphone running the latest version of the Symbian operating system.
And that’s where a problem comes in. The E7 hardware is amazing but Symbian is just plain clunky when compared with Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android. It’s not that the operating system lacks in features, it’s just its user interface is unintuitive and cumbersome.
Nokia is working on its first Windows Phone 7 device in partnership with Microsoft. The new wave of Nokia products is being designed to again make the Finnish manufacturer relevant in the smartphone market. If you needed any proof Nokia had to make a drastic change, the E7 is it. Symbian looks more like a lost cause than ever – and if you gave me the E7 running Windows Phone 7 instead, this would be a far more complimentary review.
REVIEW
VERDICT: Fantastic hardware with a mediocre OS.
COMPLEXITY: Symbian still way more complicated than it should be.
PRICE: R6 000.
ALSO CONSIDER: Motorola Milestone 2.
VALUE RATING: 4/10.
However, the E7 is nothing like the original communicator and its successors. The older models flipped open like a small laptop, with the phone bits on the outside. They had two screens and a special user interface. The E7 has a slide-out qwerty keyboard that really is a marvel of modern engineering and a single touch screen.
Keyboard aside, the E7 is very similar to Nokia’s N8 touchscreen phone in both look and feel. It has a fantastic 8 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and the ability to plug in USB drives or send high definition video out over an HDMI cable. When the keyboard is slid away, the E7 is a touchscreen smartphone running the latest version of the Symbian operating system.
And that’s where a problem comes in. The E7 hardware is amazing but Symbian is just plain clunky when compared with Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android. It’s not that the operating system lacks in features, it’s just its user interface is unintuitive and cumbersome.
Nokia is working on its first Windows Phone 7 device in partnership with Microsoft. The new wave of Nokia products is being designed to again make the Finnish manufacturer relevant in the smartphone market. If you needed any proof Nokia had to make a drastic change, the E7 is it. Symbian looks more like a lost cause than ever – and if you gave me the E7 running Windows Phone 7 instead, this would be a far more complimentary review.
REVIEW
VERDICT: Fantastic hardware with a mediocre OS.
COMPLEXITY: Symbian still way more complicated than it should be.
PRICE: R6 000.
ALSO CONSIDER: Motorola Milestone 2.
VALUE RATING: 4/10.
