Archive for April, 2009

E55: Camera + Sample pictures

Saturday, April 11th, 2009

We already gave you a brief overview of the E55’s camera but let’s take a closer look into it. The E55 features a CMOS camera with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels (3.2 Megapixel) and records videos in 640 x 480 resolution at 15 frames per second. Therefore it is not really strong in the video recording department since 15 fps videos are anything but smooth. So don’t expect the video quality to be like that of the N95 or N82. While recording the videos or taking pictures you have 4x digital zoom. The videos are taken in the formats of H.263 or MPEG-4. To edit your recorded videos you can use the cell phones video editing software.

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The E55 has a low-end camera module. Instead of autofocus, it has a fixed focus and shoots only objects which are farther away than 50 cm. This is pretty disappointing actually. The almost typical Carl Zeiss Optics in Nokia cameras is also missing. To support the camera in low light conditions the E55 has a single LED flash. The pictures are shot in JPEG format like expected. Other than those features or lack thereof the camera of the E55 comes with the usual cell phone camera features like Auto Exposure, Extended Depth of Field, Red-Eye Reduction, Self Timer and Sequence Mode.

Here are some pictures taken by the upcoming Nokia 5630 XpressMusic (courtesy of Mobile-Review) which features the same camera module as the E55.

Note that most probably these pictures weren’t taken by a Nokia 5630 XpressMusic with finalized camera software.

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E55: Sales package and enabled services

Saturday, April 11th, 2009

Since the release of the Nokia E55 is approaching, (though not as fast as we would like to,) it is time to take a look at what the retail package of the E55 will contain. Besides the E55 itself, there will be the basic things like charger, battery, headset, etc.

The battery included will be the BP-4L. To charge it you will get the Nokia microUSB charger AC-10. It is the same as that of the N85. The package contains also the CA-146C charger adapter. This adapter enables you to charge your new E55 with Nokia 2mm or 3.5mm chargers. This way you have the freedom to use any Nokia charger for your phone.

One of the most important things for any phone is the headset. The E55 comes with a HS-48 stereo headset. It is one of Nokia’s standard headsets and not really the best. So if you like to listen to music with your cell phone or use often headsets for phone calls it would be better to buy a more capable headset which fits your needs.

To transfer data to your phone the retail package of the E55 contains the CA-101 USB data cable and for data storage you will get a 2GB microSD memory card. Since this phone is not multimedia centric 2GB should be enough but if you are in need of more storage you can just buy new microSD cards which are pretty cheap at the moment.

Other than those accessories the package will also contain a User Guide and the Nokia PC Suite v7.2 which you will find saved on the 2GB microSD card.

The E55 will also come with some services. The first one are 10 one-day licenses of Nokia Maps which will be valid for 3 months from the day of purchase. The next one is a 60-day subscription of Files on Ovi. In those 60 days you have 1GB storage at your disposal. The last one is a lifetime subscription of Nokia Messaging.

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Nokia E55 Theme Review: Touch by Flahorn

Friday, April 10th, 2009

kopie von touch by flahorn Nokia E55 Theme Review: Touch by Flahorn

I recently stumbled over this beautiful theme for S60 3rd Edition FP1 and FP2 devices which is simply called Touch. It was created by Yan Flahorn and it seems like his main focus was to get this theme to look as close to the original Nokia 5800 theme as possible.

This theme comes in two colors red and blue. The default wallpaper is black with red or blue vertical, wavelike lines just like the original 5800 themes default wallpaper. Actually, this theme is a perfect copy of the Nokia 5800 theme just in a lower resolution.

There are about 600 icons in this theme. Icons for popular S60 applications are also included in those. And as you would expect, the icons are a carbon copy of our favorite Nokia touchscreen phone. With this many icons most of your favorite apps won’t look like as if they are out of place.

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The background of the menus are in a simple black just like you would expect it to be if you are familiar with the 5800. The white font colors complete the simple and clean appearance of this theme. Battery and reception bar are in grey just like the date indicator on the home screen. The analog clock on the home screen is also pretty nice. It is grey at the top and fades slowly to black near the bottom. The simple design continues in the calender. Numbers in white indicate the current month and those in grey the previous or upcoming month.

The only difference between the blue and red version of this theme are the indicating colors while browsing the menus of your phone.

After spending a little bit time with this theme I was really surprised at how flawless it actually seems to be. The icons seem to fit and the font and background colors are perfectly in sync.

To download this theme visit Flahorn at Deviantart.

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E55’s E-Mail Client

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

One of the most important Software for a smart phone to have is an efficient E-Mail application. Both the E55 and the E75 feature the newest Nokia E-Mail software which is supposed to make sending and receiving e-mails as simple as possible.

In this article we take a closer look at the new E-Mail software on the basis of the E75.


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To emphasize the importance of the email software it is directly located in the main menu.

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When you start the email client you will be able to add several email services of your choice through the “add email wizard”.

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Once you start to type in your email address the application automatically recognizes your email service and adds it as an icon in the main email menu like seen in the second screenshot.

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There are several things you can do while in the main menu of the email application like synchronizing the email services or connecting or disconnecting them.

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There is also a help menu which will tell you things like how to synchronize your services.

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When you choose one of your services like Gmail you will be directly taken to the Inbox view.

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From there you have access to any other folders like drafts or outbox.

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By default your emails are sorted by date but you can rearrange it so that they are sorted by subject, priority, size, etc.

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In the inbox you have the option to create new emails or to mark them.

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By default the emails are expanded according to their categories. In this screenshot the emails are sorted by date. Naturally you have the ability to collapse them anytime you want so that you can scroll through the emails faster.

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When you open an email you have the possibility to add the person from whom you got the email to your address book via the small icon on the right.

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The opened emails are not shown in the HTML version by default but you have the option to view it in the HTML version once the email is opened.

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Writing an email is pretty easy with this software. There is a somewhat interesting feature in the relation of the recipient field. Once you start typing the name or email address the application starts to search your phone contacts for a match and if there is one it automatically adds the email address.

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The new email client has also the usual features like attachments and priorities.

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There are several input settings as seen in these screenshots.

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The new email software supports copy and paste like all other S60 smart phones which is pretty important when it comes to messaging.

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The email settings are divided in Global settings which are for all services and the service specific settings which are for each email service like Hotmail, Gmail, etc.

The options in global settings among others are download notifications, title dividers and body text preview.

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In the service specific settings you have the option to change mailbox settings, what to sync and when to sync.

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In mailbox settings you can set your display name and signature and have also the option to go to the advanced mailbox settings where you can play with the incoming and outgoing email settings.

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In what to sync and when to sync you exactly determine what you want to be synced and when you want it to be synced. This is seems to be pretty useful since it allows the phone to automatically check for new emails.

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The email services can be integrated in your home screen. But there are seemingly some little problems. If there is a new email it will be pointed out. Once you are finished viewing it you will only be able to exit the email and not do something else. Another problem is that even if you read the most recent email it still will be shown as a new email until your next sync. This can get pretty irritating. But those seem to be the only problems so far.

The new email client for the E-Series seems to be simple to work with. A newcomer to smart phones should be able adapt to it quickly and experienced users won’t have much to complain about. In cooperation with the E55 and E75 this piece of important software could create a smooth messaging experience for its users.

Screenshots -courtesy of zomgitscz.com

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Nokia E55 vs Nokia E71

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

As we promised here is a comparison of Nokia’s thinnest smart phone to date and the arguably most popular Nokia E-Series device, the E71. We already mentioned one or two differences between the E71 and the E55 in the Hardware and Design post.

img 5816 Nokia E55 vs Nokia E71

The major difference you will notice between those two devices is the screen and the keypad. The E71 has a 2.36-inch landscape screen while the E55 has a 2.4-inch portrait screen. Due to its portrait screen the E55 is much narrower than the E71. With a measure of 114 x 57 x 10 mm the E71 is wider and slightly thicker than the E55. But the E55 is a bit taller.

While the E71 features a full QWERTY keypad the E55 comes with a compact QWERTY. Therefore typing with the E71’s keypad should be easier than with the E55’s keypad. The full QWERTY keyboard seems to be a worthy sacrifice since without it the E55 would be much wider and not as much pocket able as it is now.

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The E71 and the E55 use the same 1500 mAh battery namely the BP-4L. In the case of the E55 the battery is charged through the micro USB port which is very convenient. The E71 meanwhile has to fall back on its 2 mm charger connector. Even though both have the same battery the E55 has a much higher GSM standby time and WCDMA talk time. But the E71 wins in WCDMA standby time and GSM talk time.

Though I personally think there won’t be a big difference in battery life between those two phones once the E55 is on the market.

The cameras of both E-Series phones seem to be almost the same but there is a difference in the video recording department. While the E55 records videos in VGA resolution at 15fps the E71 records its videos in QVGA at 15fps.

There are also some other features that the E55 has which the E71 is missing like a dedicated camera key, Nokia’s mobile gaming platform N-Gage, a 3.5 mm audio jack and an accelerometer. However the latter wouldn’t make much sense in a device which natively has a landscape screen.

The E71 is powered by an ARM11 CPU clocked at 369 MHz while the E55 is powered by an ARM11 CPU clocked at 600 MHz.

Besides having a faster processor than the E71 the E55 comes also with a newer mobile operating system. The E55 is based on S60 3rd Edition FP2 while the E71 is based on S60 3rd Edition FP1.

It seems like the E55 excels in many areas compared to the E71 but if it will be as successful as the E71 is still hard to tell. We will know more when we can get our hands on a retail version of the E55.

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Nokia E55: Hardware and Design

Saturday, April 4th, 2009

Let’s have a look at the E55’s Hardware and design.

The newest edition to Nokia’s E-Series is based on Symbian S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 and runs on an ARM 11 processor clocked at 600 MHz. The E55 features Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth, HSDPA, HSUPA, a-GPS with compass and comes with a microSD slot which supports up to 16GB microSD cards. It also has a built-in accelerometer for automatic screen rotation and other tasks.

The E55 measures 116.5 x 49 x 9.9 mm. It is pretty small and with a weight of 95 grams it’s also very light. Compared to the E71 it’s considerably less wide because of the portrait screen as opposed to the E71’s landscape screen. It also weighs about 30g less than the E71.

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E55 in the colors of black and white

This smartphone has a candybar design and is the smallest messaging device in the E-Series portfolio. It comes with a 2.4-inch QVGA display and is the first Nokia cell phone to feature a 20-key compact QWERTY keyboard (two letters per key) like those used in the Blackberry Pearl and the Sony Ericsson P1.

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On each side of the d-pad there are the usual E-Series keys like Home, Calendar and Message.

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Next to the ear-speaker is the video call camera with a resolution of 240×320.

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The 3.5 mm audio jack and the power button are located at the top of the device.

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On the left side of the phone you will find the micro USB port which will be used for data transferring and charging.

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The camera key and the volume keys are located on the right side. There is also a key between the volume keys which is used for recording voice notes and to mute keys during calls.

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The screen and keypad is surrounded by a metal frame giving this business device a stylish impression.

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The back of the E55 features a 3.2 mp camera with LED flash and can record VGA resolution videos. The speakers are located next to the camera.

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The battery cover is made out of metal just like the frame at the front. Under it is a 1500mAh battery which provides the E55 a healthy battery life.

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E55 in red

With the E55 Nokia really managed to create a nice midrange phone with some decent hardware wrapped in a nice looking housing.

For a more detailed look at the E55’s hardware and software specifications please visit the Official Nokia Forums.

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Welcome to the E55 blog!

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

42706 nokia e55 black 051 Welcome to the E55 blog! This blog will be dedicated to the recently announced Nokia E-Series smartphone, the E55 which is based on Symbian S60  3rd Edition Feature Pack 2. The “world’s thinnest smartphone” as Nokia likes to call it has a sleek and compact design. It is Nokia’s first cell phone to come with a compact QWERTY keyboard and the new e-mail user interface. Both features  emphasize its messaging abilities.

One of the E55’s selling point could be its standby time of 28 days in GSM mode and 19 days in WCDMA mode which is really impressive especially if you consider how small the phone actually is. Besides the astonishing battery life the newest addition to the Nokia E-Series comes with every feature you would expect a smartphone to have like HSDPA, HSUPA, Wi-Fi and a-GPS. The E55 is also N-Gage compatible which should provide a satisfying mobile gaming experience. It will be available in this summer for 265€ unsubsidised in the colors of black, white and red.

There are seemingly many small and big updates in the E55 in comparison to the current E-Series line up. We will try to look into these in the  coming days and weeks and serve you with as much information as possible.

So stay tuned for more details on the E55’s hardware and software! Occasionally we’ll be presenting E55 compatible software,  games  and themes to you. We will also do some comparisons to similar E-Series devices like the E71 and the E55’s actual successor the E51.

Next up is the hardware and design of the E55 .

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