Gadgetell Review: Nokia E62 for Cingular

Product: Nokia E62 for Cingular
Price: $99.99 (with a 2 year contract and $100 mail in rebate)
Rating: 7.5/10
Pros: Internet functionality, keypad size, bright screen, view/edit Office docs, and Bluetooth.
Cons: Bulky size, no camera, poorly placed miniSD card, and no camera.
Overall: While most corporations will opt for Blackberrys or Palm smartphones, the Nokia E62 is a great option for smaller businesses or individuals who want a QWERTY phone with an internet browser that actually delivers.

As a new Crackberry user, I was confident I had made the right choice and figured my testing of the Nokia E62 (check out our Peep Show) would confirm my decision that Blackberries are numero uno. Well, like the time I thought that a girl in 8th grade would say yes when I asked her out, I couldn’t be more wrong. My favorite thing about this phone is the internet on it (it’s amazing how addicted to the internet we’ve become). It’s a carbon copy of the internet you’ll find on your computer, not some weird columnar adjustment I get on my Blackberry.

Features – 8/10 - While the phone doesn’t offer a camera and I didn’t like the MP3 player in terms of ease of use (that’s fine with me), I’ve never been one for a phone that tries to do other things because they tend not to do those other things well. The main features I care about are the e-mail functionality and internet use. Also, for those IMing-obsessed people out there, it was simple to start up with your AIM, Yahoo!, as well as MSN Messenger accounts with the clients already installed on the phone.

Performance – 8/10 - The Nokia E62 does its job as a phone. Throughout my trial there were no problems in terms of getting service or a clear connection. The e-mail setup was not spectacular as I had to refresh manually to get my email sometimes, but the internet, as previously mentioned, was as good as on your home computer. One of the keys to the internet usage on the E62 is the 5-way joystick that makes it much easier to traverse the internet compared to the click wheel so loved by Blackberry users and their carpal tunnel specialists. The rest of the operating system was also flawless, much better than Windows Mobile and arguably better than Palm OS and Blackberry’s OS (though it is rather different than those two).

Style – 7/10 – The phone looks great in your hand, but once you put it in your pocket, it’s an inconvenience. The phone feels very heavy on the leg if you’re putting it in your pocket. Other than that, you can’t complain. If you want to read your emails, you can’t have a small screen, so deal with the size of the device. The screen is very crisp with a 320 x 240 pixel active matrix display with up to 16 million colors.