The combination of a large physical keyboard plus a 4 inch capacitive touchscreen should make the perfect communications device, but this is a Nokia smartphone, and the beast that lives inside is of course, Symbian^3, so be prepared for unintuitive menus, unexpected button presses and routine freezing and crashing. Compare the E7 to the physically-similar HTC Desire Z if you want to know what you're missing in terms of the operating system.
The E7 comes with a not-bad kind of camera. Rated at 8 megapixels with fixed focus and dual LED flash it can't match the 12 megapixels and xenon flash of the N8, but it does a decent job. It can also record video at 720p HD resolution, and there's a secondary front-facing camera for making video calls.
There's a media player and FM radio with RDS, plus the usual smartphone features including assisted GPS with Ovi Maps, Symbian and Java apps, web browsing with support for Flash web pages. A dedicated graphics processor does a good job of powering 3D games.
The phone has fast internet access, with HSPA giving downloads of up to 10.2Mbps. There's also Wi-Fi, and the full range of connectivity options including Bluetooth 3.0 and a HDMI connection.
The battery life isn't so good. The E7 has the same battery as the N8, despite having a larger screen. 1200 mAh really isn't enough for a device of this capability, and we're baffled why Nokia didn't use a larger one.
Overall the E7 does a lot for your money, despite its faults. We'd be excited if it weren't for the fact that it's a Symbian phone. Compare the E7 with the Android-powered HTC Desire Z which costs the same, but does the same job with a lot more panache.
Features of the Nokia E7 include:
- Symbian ^3 for Nokia
- 8 megapixel camera with face recognition, dual LED flash, 2x digital zoom
- Video camera: HD quality 720p resolution, 25 fps, video light and 3x digital zoom
- Front camera for video calling (VGA, 640 x 480 pixels)
- Video and still image editors
- Display: AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16 million colours, 640 x 360 pixels (4 inches) with auto rotation
- Media player (HD 720p Video playback and Dolby Digital Plus surround sound on HDTV through HDMI cable)
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- aGPS and GPS positioning, Ovi Maps with free car & pedestrian navigation, geotagging and digital compass
- MP3, AAC & WMA ringtones, video ringtones
- Integrated hands-free speaker
- Messaging: SMS, MMS, push email (support for attachments)
- Java games with dedicated 3D graphics processor
- Memory: 16GB plus microSD memory card slot (max 32 GB)
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, micro USB 2.0, HDMI, 3.5 mm stereo headphone plug
- Data: WAP, EGPRS class B, WCDMA/HSPA (10.2 Mbps download, 2.0 Mbps upload)
- Internet: Full web browsing of real web pages, Flash Lite 4.0, RSS reader, YouTube browsing and streaming
- Quadband plus 3G WCDMA 850/900/1700/1900/2100
- Size: 124 x 62 x 13.6 mm
- Weight: 176g
- 1200 mAh Li-Ion battery
- Talktime: 300 - 540 minutes
- Battery standby: 430 - 470 hours
