Nokia E7

Description:
The Nokia E7 has a screen 16 million colors, 640 x 360 pixels, accelerometer, multi touch, proximity sensor, 4 inches in dimensions of 123.7 x 62.4 x 13.6 mm and weighs 176 grams.
The Nokia E7 has an 8 megapixel camera, autofocus, dual LED flash, Geo tagging, face detection, smile detection. It also has bluetooth, wifi.
It has an internal memory of 1 GB Nokia E7 is compatible with Quadband networks.

Introduction

The wait was long before seeing the Nokia E7 on the market. Announced in September 2010, it was only in March 2011 he was posted to the Nokia shop. Billed as a business smartphone, the E7 present - after Nokia - everything you need in a mobile to stay connected. If you hesitate between touch screen or keyboard, the Nokia E7 offers both. Featuring Symbian ^ 3, it is intended for professional use or personal thanks to its advanced features and multimedia capabilities. With OVI, it has many applications and can stay connected through social networks.

The Nokia E7 measuring 123.7 x 62.4 x 13.6 mm and weighs 176 grams. It has a 4-inch AMOLED screen which will be discussed later in this test. Ultra-connected, the Nokia E7 introduced what is best in wireless networks with Wireless N or Bluetooth 3.0. Found a digital camera 8 megapixel with dual LED flash, autofocus, face detection and smile. It is also capable of recording video in HD 720p.
Package Contents

In general, when Nokia announced a high-end mobile phone it is fairly well accessorized. With the Nokia E7, the Finnish manufacturer provides us with few accessories. Since the mobile has a mini HDMI port, the smartphone comes with a mini HDMI to HDMI adapter about 15 cm to directly connect the smartphone to a TV. We find a second USB 2.0 socket for connecting a USB drive directly on the smartphone to access documents for example. For the latter also the size is about 15 cm only. Also included in the packaging of the Nokia E7 AC charger and a USB cable of sufficient size to connect to a computer. Finally, Nokia's smartphone book with in-ear headphones.
Design and finishes

The Nokia E7 is easily comparable to the Nokia N8 also tested by our editors (Nokia N8 test). Indeed, its overall design, when the keyboard is closed, is quite similar to last NSeries upscale. Made from quality materials, the Nokia E7 gives a real impression of solidity. Despite opening the keyboard a little hard, the hinge looks very solid and able to withstand daily use and strong without any problems. Aesthetics with rounded shapes, they allow also an extremely good grip. The assembly is never a problem at Nokia, the finishes are excellent and the buttons are nice quality to handle. Nothing wrong with that side!


The Finnish manufacturer of smartphone presents a very simple, little buttons and a large touchscreen on the front. The Nokia E7 has a single button on the front of the apparatus to enter the smartphone's menu or returning to the home screen. This button is illuminated and flashes at different rates depending on the notifications not read on the terminal.

The sides of the Nokia E7 are very poor in bud. The left side features a single button to lock or unlock the screen. On the right side, we find the SIM card slot very similar to that of the iPhone 4 (test of the iPhone 4), a slide button to raise or lower the volume (not a big fan of the idea, two buttons is so much more practical in daily life) and a trigger for the camera.

On the back, nothing exceeds unlike the Nokia N8. The camera module is fully integrated into both the design of the smartphone. Finish with the top of the smartphone that combines the different connections ESeries important for Nokia. Here you can connect the headphones with the 3.5mm jack. This is also where we find the HDMI port covered with a plastic cover rather solid. And finally, we find the port for Nokia mobile connected via USB or carry a burden on industry.
Overall grip

As we stated in the previous section, the Nokia E7 is a smartphone forms very pleasant to take charge. Opening the keyboard is not easy on our new model. You must press the bottom of the screen and then push hard and the screen slides of himself to reveal the keyboard. This operation is not obvious the first time, take the hand. In return, the mechanism seems very solid.

Smart phones with full keyboard physics are often intended for professional use. Indeed, this type of keyboard and easy way to write text quickly. Heavy wide enough and a white backlight readable keyboard keys are nice to handle. They are sweet and stand out enough to write fast in all conditions. It used to take even one-handed typing with several fingers on a table smartphone alongside or after a period of adaptation necessarily mandatory. The keyboard is about it really obsolete next to the physical QWERTY keyboard. Nevertheless, it will serve for quick entry of a short text or even a word. Note also that the physical keyboard shortcuts can be used to navigate the interface of the Nokia E7.


The Nokia E7 offers Nokia AMOLED screen technology ClearBlack for excellent visibility outdoors. The Finn was not mistaken, the screen of their smartphone can be used with extreme viewing angles, even outdoors in direct sunlight. Its size is 4 inches, 16 million colors and efficient resolution of 640 x 360 pixels only strengthens its beauty. One can regret that the resolution is not at Retina offered by Apple or even by many other manufacturers who do not hesitate to rise to 800 pixels on the longest side. All the more pity that Nokia is the first manufacturer to market with displays with 16 million colors on his mobile. Using a capacitive technology, the screen of the Nokia E7 perfectly meets the menus. Multi touch is unfortunately not supported in all applications. The version included with the purchase of Nokia Maps for instance does not allow its use, damage. However, an update is available on the Market. Unfortunately, we still encounter some problems in the galleries of photos on large files.

Like any good smartphone today, the Nokia E7 is equipped with an accelerometer. The move from vertical to horizontal mode is fast in the menus or in the original applications but in respect of other applications, the transition from one mode to another is not always as responsive.
Video Pick Your Nokia E7

Symbian, a system developed ...

... but lacks a nice user interface design! That's a phrase that sums up pretty well what I think of this operating system that is losing market share every year for the benefit of Google Android. Once you turn your mobile, it seems that the smartphone is a bit late compared to the competition. The interface has improved since Symbian S60 smartphone in its touch. As we have seen in other tests Symbian smartphones ^ 3, the presentation of three panels of specific widgets to the boundaries is reliable and maintains a strong organization.


To enter the menu, a single push of the button on the front and one discovers a list of icons that provide access to all features of the mobile. Each application that you install will slip into the Applications folder to avoid overloading the first screen.


Through integration we can no longer presents services OVI, the smartphone Symbian Nokia E7 ^ 3 remains very connected to your data. Your contacts or your calendar can be continuously synchronized. To prepare for a professional use, the Nokia E7 course provides synchronization of Exchange mail, calendar and contacts. The configuration is not the easiest and poor implementation of technology to the rest of the system is a bit confusing. For example, the E-mail is too separate from the messaging application and the difference between the two is not evident in the various submenus of the smartphone.


The overall operation simple and reliable system makes this mobile standard in the world of smartphones, but he now finds himself with no real competitor today. Blame it on an aging interface, dark and unwelcoming. Too bad for a smartphone that is supposed to represent the best alongside the Nokia N8! Nokia seems to have understood but is too slow to react against the competition. Indeed, its recent alliance with Microsoft for the release of Windows smartphones Phone 7 is proof.

Smartphones today are all embellished with a market application to customize its smartphones or discover small utilities more or less useful. Symbian is a very long experience and offers a fairly complete application market. Today less developed than on Android or IOS, OVI Store is still relatively complete. In addition, big publishers like Gameloft offer some games in high definition. The classic Angry Birds is available for example. We return to this point a little later in this test.

Performance

The Nokia E7 has the particularity of place as the best of the best in the Nokia range. Despite this, the manufacturer has chosen to keep a processor certainly powerful but completely obsolete next to the competition today. ARM 11 processor built into the smartphone is clocked at only 680 Mhz. If it is more than enough for everyday tasks like Internet browsing, listening to music or playing back pictures and videos, it is clearly inadequate for today's 3D games. It should be noted nonetheless that it is complemented by a dedicated graphics processor OpenGL 2.0 supposed to greatly improve performance but the result is not the best, or else, what would it be without?


Take the example of Asphalt 5 HD on this OVI Store. We tested it on a Samsung Wave in Bada, a 3G iPhone on iPhone and 4 and the result is final. The Nokia E7 is clearly behind! Despite a sense of speed much better than the Samsung Wave, the game is much less fluid than the 3G and the iPhone surpasses 4 once again thanks to his screen Retina. While this phone is not intended for such use but Nokia is clearly its ability to support 3D games on its website.

To end this part on the performance of mobile talk about autonomy. With about two days rather sustained use, the Nokia E7 comes out ahead of its competitors who rarely take more than a day and a half. For information, the Nokia E7 is equipped with a battery of 1200 mAh. The energy saving compared to the competition is certainly due to the AMOLED LCD consumes less than one processor and certainly less demanding than large Snapdragon 1.5 GHz or Dual Core recent fitted to LG and Samsung smartphones . These manufacturers are now forced to use more powerful batteries to maintain their autonomy respected.


Internet browsing

Smartphones today must integrate a browser in native performance. Unfortunately for the Nokia E7, its Internet browser does not have the best record in the market nearby. Although it incorporates Flash technology and is rather easy to use, display of pages is not very fast. On a mobile like this, it would have been appropriate to give a browser that supports tabbed browsing. The "pinch to zoom" works fine but still choppy.


We compared the load to our website. We are 10 seconds loading the page. With Opera Mini Beta, the loading time is reduced to 8 seconds with different browser options. 4 The iPhone comes out with 10 seconds also on the same page. The test environment: the same WiFi network and a browser cache completely emptied.


Connectivities

As stated in the introduction of this test, the Nokia E7 presents everything he does best. The integration of Bluetooth 3.0 lets you share files between smartphones or with a computer so much faster than Bluetooth 2.x much more prevalent today. Currently, devices capable of supporting this technology are still rare but manufacturers offer more and more smartphones compatible.

No WiFi and HSPA technology enables the use of connected services quickly. In France, there is no better time for the Nokia E7 knows very well use them. Surfing the Internet via WiFi or 3G + is generally faster. Note however that the configuration of the operator is not automatic for HSPA operators MVNOs type.

There are also HDMI. Not really necessary but handy for everyday professionals who will be able to show presentations or documents easily meeting or conference. As soon as you connect the adapter and the HDMI cable the picture changes instantly on TV. No difference was found either on video (the sound goes well), or when navigating through menus. The image is stuck in 720p cons. Anyway, the phone is not capable of handling 1080p video.


Yes, it's a phone! No it's not nonsense, the Nokia E7 can really make calls, send SMS etc. ... It's crazy right? We did not find particular problems regarding reception regardless of the SIM cards we inserted in the smartphone. The Nokia E7 offers a very good speech quality. The microphone is working and the speaker quality. Detail, the speaker mode is activated when you open the mobile.
Audio and video player

Who says smartphones, today told media. As a result, Nokia has of course a music player. It remains relatively undeveloped. It is again very simple and largely confine those who wish to listen to music occasionally. Note that drives powerful alternative is available on the OVI Store. The formats supported are many cons, and the player supports music tags for automatic sorting. Regrettably, the interface is again a bit sad for the user. Supported formats are: MP3, WMA, AAC, eAAC, eAAC +, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, E-AC-3, AC-3.



At the video, the Nokia E7 allows playback formats: H.264 (Baseline Profile, Main Profile, High Profile), MPEG-4, VC-1, Sorenson Spark, Real video 10. Capable of playing 720p files without too much problem, the smartphone is a relatively powerful video player. In addition, keyboard open, the screen raised, it is very comfortable to watch a film or series. Otherwise, you can still use the HDMI output to display your photos on a TV screen high definition.

The earphones supplied are quality, the bass is rather generous. The flat wire coil avoids embarrassing thereby maintaining a certain comfort with ITE.


Camera and video

Again at Nokia, but no autofocus technology Edof saving the place that takes a real autofocus system. As for the Nokia C7 is really bad for a smartphone at this price to be deprived of autofocus. The regulatory distance of 1 meter must be respected so as not to risk a blurred result.

In terms of results, there is not much to get rid of the Nokia E7 fared rather well under optimal conditions, but our results as well as interiors are often not very satisfactory. The double LED flash is too powerful and will only destroy your files, it is better not to use too. The colors are well rendered and the quick release.



The Nokia E7 is capable of recording video with 720p resolution at 25 frames per second. The interface is very simple and few settings unlike the camera or the settings are rather numerous for a mobile. The recording quality is correct, the zoom is active during recording. We also appreciated the opportunity to pause and resume recording at any time (29s to see the video below).

Level software, the Nokia E7 features a photo editor and video. Software already on the Nokia N8.
Nokia Maps

The Nokia solution includes Nokia E7 Maps. In addition to mapping software in the Google Maps, Nokia Maps offers a real solution turn-by-turn navigation. So you can plan your route easily by doing a search destination. Nokia Maps includes traffic information, 3D navigation, the satellite view and so on. It is rare to find a comprehensive solution in a smartphone.
Conclusion

The Nokia E7 is a smartphone's high-end quality. Its simple design but effective, its handling unusual and full keyboard make it an attractive alternative to the HTC Z Desire, Motorola Milestone 2 or 7 Pro HTC. But his age ^ 3 Symbian a disadvantage compared to its competition from Android particular. Even if one speaks of a reliable and simple user experience is generally disappointing.

NOKIA E7 - E7 8NOKIA Photo - Photo 13NOKIA E7 - Photo 19

In terms of multimedia, E7 did what we asked but did not leave the lot. The camera is good but the lack of autofocus or macro mode bother. Other defect, the processor just seems to really enjoy the best 3D games despite the presence of a graphics accelerator. For cons, the HDMI output is a feast for professionals who wish to easily show presentations without having to use a bulky computer.

Finally, the Nokia E7 is a smartphone technologically up to date but constrained by a system that needs to be updated because now unable to fight against fierce competition after Android despite Nokia OVI services increasingly performance.