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As another E63 owner, I'd like to discuss some of these points

Yeah, it sucks for every page that's a bit crowded. Sounds like they fixed it in later releases of Symbian, though. For us, well, Opera Mobile just does the job well, and can be put on the home screen...


Of course it can. Just open that Attachment.html file you see in just all HTML e-mails. I'm glad that the HTML version is not opened by default myself...
-It'd probably slow the phone down a lot (the E63 is made to last a little week on battery when used carefully, not to suck it up in one day with a 1GHz processor. Moreover, as you mentioned, the built-in browser is not that great).
-It requires an Internet connection for some reason (I don't have a data plan, and being able to download my mails when on wi-fi and then read them later is a much welcome feature)
-HTML is often (ab)used for the sake of making shiny graphics. Including with text. Readability of such picture-only mails with non-resized text on a phone screen is poor at best.

Most of the information of a mail are contained in the text anyway. HTML is just for cosmetics and vulnerabilities, so it's better as an option IMO.


I agree with that, it's annoying that you can't cancel your modifications in some places. Calendar is another one.


Less than a second in most cases, though it can be longer occasionally. I close applications which I do not use, though, by using the red button, or menus and the task manager for those apps which do not follow symbian's HIG (like, say, Opera Mobile and Funambol...)


How is that useful on a phone ?


Fixed by opera mobile, as you acknowledge yourself.


Wow, that sucks indeed. I'm glad I didn't try to update my own firmware (USB cables are too expensive ^^).


Not bad ? Try to find a phone with similar capabilities that does only half of that. It's one of the reasons why I bought my E63. Pricing was a good motivation too. And after using it for sometimes, I'd buy it again for one thing that's not about hardware : the OS gives you fast access to everything you often need, unlike things like iOS or Android where simply making a call can take ages compared to the symbian approach.


Really ? In my case, it told me about that OVI suite once, I said no, and I never, ever heard about it again


Good luck with your next phone Maybe you too will come back to nokia after trying what the competition has to offer and being disappointed. At least, looking at my girlfriend's N86 and especially the much welcome improvements of its version of Symbian, Nokia know how to admit when they make a mistake.

Edited 2010-09-27 17:57 UTC

NeoLander, good points you raised, lets see if I can cover all of them:

The Browser
Yep, Opera Mobile give Nokia a hand here (I have both mobile and mini installed, and only use this last one while on UMTS/GRPS to save some euros), but still, you kind of feel like a browser is an important part of a smartphone and such behavior from Nokia doesn't quite feel right.

The E-Mail
I am aware indeed of the attached HTML file (kind of like some OpenSource groupware suites in the webmail interface). But when I click it, lol, my all times favorite browser is fired up :p I know the E63 is not the beefiest phone around, but nowadays, specially in this segment of devices, I would say that the phone could at least have an option to automatically show the messages in HTML (not open them in the browser tho). That way, users could choose if they want clear text or HTML to suite everyone's needs.

1) I wasn't aware that the calendar was suffering from this blow as well :| The way I see it: if such basic things were left untouched, I wonder how's the rest... Can't avoid feeling pessimistic on this one.

2) In my case (very often), if I call someone and that someone gives me a busy tone, I press the Red button to go back to the home screen and so whatever I need to do. The thing is, while the busy tone is playing (and it doesn't stop for about 3 or 4 seconds), the phone application kind of freezes.

3) It is useful if you are a techie in certain scenarios. For me it is useful, plus, if I can see security information of the network, why can't I possibly see my IP?

4) & 5) Yep, Opera covered the gap here, more or less.

6) I did the update hoping that most of the issues I described here were gone.... yeah....

7) Hum, indeed, but for an E series and full qwerty keyboard, I would expect more as well. Forgot to mention the price as well: €150 unlocked in store, not a bad deal at all!


New phone
Either Android or iPhone OS (on an iPod Touch, as I don't want data plans and paying more than €500 for a phone is not in my plans). I need a smartphone to take with me everywhere, that's the truth. The main reasons that lead me to buy this phone were wifi, built in VoIP client, e-mail and SSH (via PuTTY, installed separately). I will not go back to symbian until Nokia ditches the OVI store, which lacks content and organization. Besides that, I've seen symbian in the early days and I don't like the evolution it took since the release of 3rd edition phones (and trust me, IO was symbian ALL THE WAY!)

PS: pcSuite is constantly nagging me with updates, when all there is is a new software to install (OVI Suite), nothing to update.

Nokia, hope you guys are reading this!

Symbian^3 is slick, fast, and usable, e.g. if you take a look at C6-01, C7, N8, E7. A starting point could be the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFNeJVaruPM

(random video from youtube, you can probably find better ones)

I don't have a Symbian^3 device myself, but I've played with N8 a little bit and have to say the animations really make the difference in feeling of snappiness and responsiveness. Compared to N97 (I have N97 mini but only use it for the maps, I use N900 as my primary device), it feels like a totally different class of device.

You're right, Symbian^3 indeed looks nice on those videos. They seem to have mostly fixed the "unresponsive" aspect of it, noticeably.

Then, I must be masochist, but I would really like to see how this OS performs on an E63-like device : cheap, sturdy, button-based interface, extreme battery life, hardware feature set kept simple.

If I remember well, the E7 is scheduled to cost around ~€700. I hope that Nokia plans to release lower-end Symbian^3 Eseries too. They're not good enough on the app front to compete with the higher-end of Android/iOS yet, IMO. On the other hand, mid-end is an area where symbian traditionally shines...

Plus, technically-speaking, seeing how symbian^3 performs on low-powered hardware would be interesting. Their shiny animations and feature have probably a cost, question is : will nokia wisely disable some eye candy on lower-end models when it's needed for speed purpose, like it does on s40 ?

Edited 2010-09-27 20:47 UTC