Overview
The Nokia E63 business phone was officially unveiled on November 12th 2008. Successor to the E71, some say this handset is a bit of a downgrade, with a reduced quality camera and lacking HSDPA or GPS. On the plus side though, it's rumoured to be cheaper than the E71, at around £160 - so good news in light of the current financial crisis.
Review
The Basics
The E63 is a quad-band handset running Symbian 9.2 S60 software (v3.2) with EDGE, 3G, GPRS, WiFi, A2DP Bluetooth and Infrared. It has an internal memory of 110MB and a microSD card slot for a capacity of 8GB. Talk time is around 11 hours and standby time is just over 430 hours.
Style
The phone itself is easily identifiable as a smartphone; with a similar look to blackberry handsets and palm treos. It's available in ruby red or ultramarine blue. Personally I would have liked to have seen black or silver versions for a more professional look.
The phone's casing is plastic compared to the E71's metal shell. The plastic casing may make the phone a tad lighter at 126grams, however I've heard negative comments already about the 'tacky look' of this business phone
Features
The E63 features a high quality 2.36″ 16M color QVGA display and is landscape orientated. A touch sensitive navi-wheel makes for easy navigation and a full QWERTY keyboard ensures that texting or the input of any information is quick and straightforward.
The phone features a 2 megapixel camera with flash for photos and video recording but unfortunately no secondary VGA camera for any video calls.
Featuring a media player and an FM radio, the phone has a 3.5mm jack so you can listen to music through your own quality headphones. WiFi enables access to the Nokia Music Store (or other sources) where you can listen to or download MP3 tracks.
“Our research shows that people want a device that deals with both their personal and professional lives, but helps them to separate the two" says Soren Petersen, Senior Vice President, Nokia.
So cleverly, the E63 has the ability to switch between business and personal modes with a single key press. Business mode shows the user's corporate mail, appointments and intranet data. Personal mode shows personal email, shortcuts to favourite hobby blogs or websites and pictures of friends.
Those purchasing the E63 will receive 1GB free storage at Ovi. Ovi is Nokia's online service allowing the user remote access to their PC files even when their computer is offline. Perfect for the business user (or those who just can't bare to be away from their PC!)
We Say
If you're after a basic smartphone for business use and aren't worried about all the fancy extras, or the fact that the phone is only available in red or blue, then this may just be the phone to suit you and with its low price tag, may very well suit your budget too.
Gaj-It Verdict
Design: 6/10
Usability: 8/10
Features: 7/10
Value: 6/10
Sources
Nokia E63 Review at Dial a Phone
Nokia’s Official Site
Extensive list of technical specifications:
Size
- Form: Monoblock with full keyboard
- Dimensions: 113 x 59 x 13 mm
- Weight: 126 g
- Volume: 87 cc
- Full keyboard
- High quality QVGA display
Display and 3D
- Size: 2.36″
- Resolution: 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA)
- Up to 16 million colors
- TFT active matrix (QVGA)
- Two customisable home screen modes
Security features
- Device lock
- Remote lock
- Data encryption for both phone memory an microSD content
- mobile VPN
Keys and input method
- Full keyboard
- Dedicated one-touch keys: Home, calendar, contacts, and email
- Speaker dependent and speaker independent voice dialling
- Intelligent input with auto-completion, auto-correction and learning capability
- Accelerated scrolling with NaviTMKey
Colors and covers
- Available in-box colors: Ultramarine Blue and Ruby Red
Connectors
- Micro-USB connector, full-speed
- 3.5 mm standard AV connector
Power
- BP-4L 1500 mAh Li-Po standard battery
- Talk time (maximum): GSM up to 11 hours; WCDMA up to 4h 40 min
- Standby time (maximum): GSM up to 18 days; WCDMA up to 20 days;WLAN idle up to 170 hours
- Music playback time (maximum): 18 h
Memory
- microSD memory card slot, hot swappable, max. 8 GB
- 110 MB internal dynamic memory
- E63-1 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 900/2100
- E63-2 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/1900
- E63-3 Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/2100
- Offline mode
Data network
- CSD
- HSCSD
- GPRS class A, multislot class 32, maximum speed 100/60 kbps (DL/UL)
- EDGE class A, multislot class 32, maximum speed 296/177.6 kbps (DL/UL)
- WCDMA 900/2100 or 850/1900 or 850/2100, maximum speed 384/384 kbps (DL/UL)
- WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g
– WLAN Security: WEP, 802.1X, WPA, WPA2 - TCP/IP support
- IETF SIP and 3GPP
Local connectivity and synchronization
- Bluetooth version 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate
– Bluetooth profiles: DUN, OPP, FTP, HFP, GOEP, HSP, BIP, RSAP, GAVDP, AVRCP, A2DP - MTP (Multimedia Transfer Protocol) support
- Bluetooth (Bluetooth Serial Port Profile. BT SPP)
- File
- Network (Raw). Direct TCP/IP socket
connection to any specified port (a.k.a HP
JetDirectâ„¢). - Network (LPR). Line Printer Daemon
protocol (RFC1179). - Support for local and remote SyncML synchronization, iSync, Intellisync, ActiveSync
Call features
- Integrated hands-free speakerphone
- Automatic answer with headset or car kit
- Any key answer
- Call waiting, call hold, call divert
- Call timer
- Logging of dialed, received and missed calls
- Automatic redial and fallback
- Speed dialing
- Speaker dependent and speaker independent voice dialing (SDND, SIND)
- Fixed dialing number support
- Vibrating alert (internal)
- Contacts with images
- Conference calling
- Push to talk
- VoIP
Messaging
- SMS
- Multiple SMS deletion
- Text-to-speech message reader
- MMS
- Distribution lists for messaging
- Instant messaging with Presence-enhanced contacts
- Cell broadcast
- Supported protocols: IMAP4, Mail for Exchange, POP3, SMTP
- Support for e-mail attachments
- IMAP IDLE support
- Support for Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email
- Integrated Nokia Mobile VPN
- Easy Email set-up
Web browsing
- Supported markup languages: HTML, XHTML, MP, WML,CSS
- Supported protocols: HTTP, WAP2.0
- TCP/IP support
- Nokia browser
– JavaScript version 1.3 and 1.5
– Mini Map - Nokia Mobile Search
GPS and navigation
- Nokia Maps application
- 2.0 megapixel camera (1600 x 1200 pixels)
- Image formats: JPEG/EXIF
- CMOS sensor
- digital zoom
- Focal length: 4.5 mm
- Focus range: 10 cm to infinity
- LED flash
- Flash modes: Automatic, Off, Forced
- Flash operating range: 1 m
- White balance modes: automatic, daylight, incasdencent, fluorescent
- Capture modes: still, sequence, self-timer, video
- Colour tone modes: normal, sepia, black & white, negative
- Viewfinder
- Active toolbar
- Share photos with Share on Ovi
Video
- Main camera
- 320 x 240 (QVGA) at 15 fps
- 176 x 144 at 15 fps (QCIF)
- digital video zoom
- Video recording file formats: .mp4, .3gp; codecs: H.263, MPEG-4 VSP
- Audio recording formats: AMR
- Video white balance modes: automatic, sunny, incandescent, fluorescent
- Scene modes: automatic, night
- Colour tone modes: normal, sepia, black & white, negative
- Clip length (maximum): 1 h
- RealPlayer
- Video playback file formats: .Flash Lite 3, mp4, .3gp; codecs: H.263, MPEG-4 VSP
- Video streaming: .3gp, mp4, .rm
- Customisable video ring tones
Music and audio playback
- Music player
- Media player
- Music playback file formats: .mp3, .wma, .aac, AAC+, eAAC+
- Audio streaming formats: .rm, .eAAC+
- FM radio 87.5-108 MHz with RDS support
- Visual Radio support. Read more: www.visualradio.com
- 3.5 mm Standard AV connector
- Nokia Music Manager
- Nokia Music Store support
- Nokia Podcasting support
- Customizable ring tones
- Synchronize music with Windows Media Player
- Naviâ„¢ wheel support
- Voice Aid
Voice and audio recording
- Voice commands
- Speaker dependent and speaker independent voice dialling (SDND, SIND)
- Voice recorder
- Audio recording formats: AMR-WB, AMR-NB
- Speech codecs: FR, EFR, HRO/1, AMR-HR, and AMR-FR
- Text-to-speech
Personalization: profiles, themes, ring tones
- Customizable profiles
- Customizable ring tones
- Customisable video ring tones
- Support for talking ring tones
- Customizable themes
- Customizable home screen content in Business and Personal modes
2 thoughts on “Preview: Nokia E63 Business Phone”
Very slick device, but I don’t think it’s slick enough to sway me from the Motorola Krave (motorola.com/krave) I’ve been a fan of this thing ever since I started working with Motorola. I especially like the speaker phone and blue tooth. It’s incredible
I would of thought the Nokia E63 would be alot cheaper as it has less functions than the E71, thnik they need to make it more affordable.