Design
At the beginning of the movie RoboCop a regular policeman is covered in shiny metal and becomes a super policeman, a RoboCop, if you will. That's a tremendously watered down version of the tragic start to this film, but in similarly simplistic terms we can see how Nokia has improved last year's popular E65 smartphone: they've covered it in shiny stainless steel and made it sleeker and sexier.
Yet, physically speaking, there is still so much of the E65 in the E66. From the size of the handset, to the placement of the menu keys, to the tiny phone-shaped speaker above the screen. Just as you can recognise Officer Alex Murphy in the RoboCop outfit, so too can you easily see the E65 in the E66. This newer model is marginally longer to accommodate the larger 2.4-inch colour screen, and is ever-so-slightly thinner, measuring in at 13.5mm deep.
The build quality of the E66 is outstanding. The handset as a whole feels solid and has a pleasing weight, and similar to the E71, the battery cover is textured with an appealing dimpled grid. The sliding mechanism on the E66 is smooth and controlled, feeling similar to the slider on the AU$1,800 Nokia 8800 Arte.
With its sleek slider design, and lack of QWERTY keyboard, the E66 is the business phone to appeal to people who want the flexibility of a smartphone without necessarily having a serious business intention, or who hate the larger form factors of most business phones. As such, the E66 features a 2.5mm headphone port and a microSD card slot for expanding the phone's memory and filling it up with music and videos. The E66 isn't a media phone, strictly speaking, but it is more than capable of busting out some tunes on public transport.
Features
Different to Nokia's E-Series releases of last year, the distance in regards to specs between this year's models, the E71 and the E66, is much closer. Sifting through the menus of the E66 is an identical experience to doing the same with the E71, they share matching connectivity options in 3.5G network speeds, Wi-Fi and A-GPS receivers, and the same 3.2-megapixel camera.
In fact, one of the few differences between these phones is that the E66 features an orientation sensor, meaning the display changes from portrait to landscape depending on how you are holding the phone. This isn't a new feature in phones, but while most phones only rotate the display in certain apps, like the Web browser or photo gallery, Nokia takes the idea a step further allowing you to adjust the orientation regardless of which application is running. This sensor also silences the ringtone on incoming calls when the phone is turned over, without cancelling the call.
The "E" in E-Series stands for Enterprise and like its business focused brethren, the E66 makes a very handy business sidekick with excellent email options, access to Microsoft Exchange servers for syncing mail, contacts and calendars with MS Outlook, a VPN client for accessing your company's intranet, as well as the ability to view MS Office documents (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) with the option to upgrade and be able to edit these documents from your handset. We've been able to install the necessary certificates and easily gain access to our office Exchange mail server and have new messages pushed to the phone.
Performance
Not only do the E66 and E71 share preloaded options and software, but they also have 128MB RAM and apparently make use of the same 369MHz ARM processors. Strangely, the E66 doesn't seem to process as quickly as the E71, but it's light years faster than last year's sluggish E65 and a slew of other smartphones we've seen this year.
One major difference between these two recent Nokia's is the size of the included batteries, and the resulting performance. We gave high praise to the E71 for its average of four days battery life. The E66 falls short of this, with cycles between two and three days depending on usage.
A new feature for both E-Series phones is easy-to-use multitasking. Pressing and holding the "main menu" key (the one that looks like a house) displays icons for all currently opened applications — similar to holding Alt-Tab on your PC. Using this menu you can quickly switch between apps, or use the backspace key to close an opened program, thus freeing valuable memory. This system works extremely well and the E66 is more than capable of having several processes active without significantly lowering performance.
Overall
As a smartphone the E66, like its predecessor, offers a portable alternative to the mostly bulky smartphones it competes against. We think the E71, with its excellent QWERTY keyboard and improved battery life, is a better option overall, but the matching productivity tools on these phones does mean that if you prefer a T9 numeric pad you won't be losing any functionality.
Like this article? Click below to send it to your mobile for free!
Calvin4858
13/12/2008, 06:23 PM
rating
7/10
How can people rate this phone a 10 and add negative (Con) remarks at the same time? Do they work for Nokia or something?
Great phone with good smartphone aps.
Pros: *Its made by nokia, Good Brand
*Smartphone apps
*Good display size 2.4 with 16m colours
Cons: *Camera button doesnt start camera (Come on Nokia, How stupid was that!)
*Improve customisation of Home screen, not just shortcuts
*2.5mm jack instead of 3.5mm standard
*Battery only 1000mhz, should be 1300mhz
*Should have been a touch screen
Now all of this would have made it close to a 10/10 !
Report offensive comment
Barry
11/12/2008, 01:39 AM
rating
8/10
Had the phone for a week and the screen has started to go black or flicker. Besides that it is a great phone. Feels very solidly built and is a good looking thing. Takes a while to get used to the software if you used to have an older phone like I did.
Pros: Build quality
Looks/slim fits well in your pocket
Display is sharp and bright
All round good phone.
Cons: Max Video resolution is not that great.
Screen began to flicker/turn off within a week
Report offensive comment
Sheen
08/12/2008, 12:37 AM
rating
8/10
Got the phone recently for appx. US$392.00 in Bahrain. One of the best phones for business users from Nokia.
Pros: Great solid feel, Smooth slider, Brilliant display, Value for money
Cons: Need to wipe the shiny body often due to smudges, Battery life greatly reduced as compared to my previous 3230.
Report offensive comment
pl.kasee
03/12/2008, 02:56 PM
rating
9/10
Perfect Phone for business/email readers. Performance is good.
Pros: 1.Performance
2.Standard Softwares like Advanced Call Manager
3.Push Email
4. Wifi
5. 3G
6. Edge/GPRS
7. GPS
Cons: 1. No GOOGLE Calendar Sync by Nokia
2. Battery on Wifi is very bad
Report offensive comment
LeighJ
21/11/2008, 09:38 AM
rating
8/10
Been using this for a week now. Better than the 7500 prism although the new OS takes a bit of getting used to.
Does get smudged easy, but nearly all phones do these days with the larger glass fronts. Slider operation is a bit of hit and miss for Lock and Unlock - not consistent. Have to move the slider real slow for it to unlock or answer a call; same to make sure it locks.
Pros: Great camera, excellent features, quick data transfer (bluetooth or cable), good call quality.
Cons: Slider has already become hit and miss in one week; absence of Voice Dialling (where I record the voice tags, not using the phones own V/D feature). Too many false correlations. Won't Pair with existing Supertooth car kit.
Report offensive comment
hubert satheesh
19/11/2008, 07:15 AM
rating
8/10
we cant consider joseph hanlons review as true review. its too generic and doesnt shed any light on the funtionality of phone. quite disappointed.
Report offensive comment
B0sZ
11/11/2008, 04:23 AM
rating
8/10
Original reviewer was weak and half fast. Highly doubt he used the device functionally.
These comments "the bad: *Smaller battery compared to E71* Accelerometer can be a nuisance"
These are very weak review comments because the E66 was intentionally made to be the smaller device therefore the obvious thing is to make it smaller = smaller battery. If you but big battery in small device the device is no longer small.
Also the comment regarding the accelerometer can be a nuisance is invalid because the function/ feature can be turned off. So the only nuisance would be if you were not smart enough to disable this additional bonus feature. This comment might be valid if it was not an optional feature but some people like it. And it is full featured. Like the fact that you can turn your phone upside down to refuse a call.
Pros:
Dollar for dollar one of the most packed feature build phone built. to date.
Physical size almost perfect to hold. Clear sound and reception. Great email retrieval. All round good phone.
Cons:
Extreme glossy shiny body body smudges like crazy.
No internal 8 or 16G hard drive.
Camera was dumbed down to 3.2 when it could of been a 5M easily.
Camera button does not open camera.
Biggest REAL BAD is the new proprietary USB connection and cable!!!!
Report offensive comment
rssh
26/10/2008, 02:14 AM
rating
9/10
I bought this phone 15days ago and its feature packed and has a good solid feel
Pros: Slim slider than other nokia phones ,great look
Cons: poor battery
Report offensive comment
goddo31
15/10/2008, 02:08 AM
rating
10/10
Had this phone for a short time, all round seems to be an excellent phone. Looks great, quality and feel is amazing, functionality and features are almost perfect, also quite easy to use
Pros: Look, feel, quality
Great GPS
Huge amount of features and apps
Cons: Saving settings for Wifi a bit fiddly
Basically nothing so far, attracts fingerprints easily
Report offensive comment
ebler
08/10/2008, 03:57 PM
rating
9/10
just bought 4 days ago .. no big problem with this phone . but i have little one , dont know why i cant safely remove my mobile while i connect it to PC .. i have disconnected all program already >.<
2nd when i sync with PC , my contacts if i had 2 mobile numbers with 1 name , only 1 can be saved by ms. outlook.. is there any software can save more than 1 number?
Pros: Beautifull
Cons: battery life should be same as e71 ^^
Report offensive comment