Pre-Ordered: Nokia E51
First thing first - a big apology to all readers for the lack of updates to the blog. I've been completely swamped with work, the house and life in general.
Anyway, i did it! I placed a pre-order for the Nokia E51. It's not that I need a new device, but there were a few features that made me pull the trigger.
The delivery date is (hopefully) soon (read December).
The features, in no particular order, that won me over and made me take out that credit card are:
- The new icons. They are clear and simple, easy to understand and logical. I am happy that the application key, aka the "Yin-Yang key" is replaced with a "home" key. Finally.
- Size, design and battery life. Although I normally go for a device with a full qwerty keyboard I still need something smaller, sleeker, thinner but yet equally powerful from a feature/application standpoint, for the weekend. The battery life is impressive 1050 mAh which translates to about 13 days of standby time and 4.4 hours of talk time.
- One Touch Mute Button. The mute key, which as introduced on the Nokia E65 has gotten a better placement on the side.
- Scalable Fonts, so that you can finally adjust the font size for various applications, which is part of the new version of Symbian S60 3.1
- Generous amount of available storage - 130 MB available for end user storage as well as support for expandable MicroSD memory.
- Speed~! Supposedly, the microprocessor in the Nokia E51 is at least twice as fast as the one for Nokia E50.
- Support for corporate email through Microsoft ActiveSync / Mail for Exchange, Visto Mobile, and Seven Always-on
- Greatest choice of connectivity - HSDPA, 3G, WLAN
- 2MB Camera, FM Radio, and much more
A big thank you to Boston Rob for the photos!
Complete technical specifications of the Nokia E51 on the dedicated Forum Nokia Nokia E51 Page.
What are the great features of the Nokia E51 that will make you place an order?
October 14th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I have it ( http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=E51&w=64755784%40N00&s=rec&z=t ) since one month (prototype) and its great. You won’t regret the investment
October 14th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Lucky you! I can’t wait to get mine.
October 14th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Hmm… I’d *almost* love one, but I get the feeling from your note that Blackberry Connect isn’t supported? That would probably do it for me. Thanks for the post!
October 14th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
I’m excited about the E51 because it’s essentially an E65 in a smaller, lighter package but, most importantly, it uses S60 FP1, which I know from my 6120C is awesomely fast.
If the actual performance matches the specs, the E51 is going to be a keeper!
October 15th, 2007 at 1:50 am
The only thing keeping me from buying this phone it that it does not support US 3G. I already have one phone (E90) that does not support £G in the US and I don’t need another. But if they come out with a US version, its mine.
Mark
October 15th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Ed, about the one touch mute button THE E61 and E61i already has it..
October 15th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Perfect phone as far as I’m concerned. When will it be out and what are the likely damages?
October 15th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Tushar : it is likely to go on sale in December (worse case is January 08)
weisen : I dropped my BB ’s subscription a while ago so I can’t tell you about that , moreover I just have a proto and all the mobile software isn’t available yet.
Alcatraz : S60 FP1 is indeed EXTREMELY fast
It’s insane haha. The E90 is already impressive by it’s speed but the E51 is even faster and handles well the memory
Ericko : i don’t remember having such buttons on my e61 nor on my e61i heh… short memory maybe
October 15th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Hi Guy,
And a huge improvement, the big memory.
E51 has 96m RAM, after power on the phone, there have 50m RAM available.
October 16th, 2007 at 4:26 am
How much is it going to cost you? $399 is quite a good price I must say!! Waiting for this to come to India. Some things have started to annoy me about my E50 now, and I need to upgrade!
October 16th, 2007 at 5:23 am
To be precise, MemMon (a software from Nokia that is on my proto) reads :
- 81408 kB of RAM size
- 44532 kB of free RAM after having used the Nokia during the morning
C: does have 134988 kB of capacity
October 16th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Oh, curse you for this! Now I want one so bad. Only weeks after I bought my E61i.
To the people who asked about price, BUY.COM is listing a pre-order price of around $298 USD. Not too shabby.
October 18th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
@ Gonzague, you should try it for yourself..
Try to push the # buttons for 3 seconds, and see what will happen.
Cause it did changed my general profile to silent, and vice versa.
October 19th, 2007 at 2:51 am
@Gonzague (or anyone who already got the E51)
Can you please tell me if the E51 dimensions (115 x 47 x 12 mm) published by Nokia are acurate?
October 19th, 2007 at 10:57 am
mjlsris:
It does support US WCDMA frequencies. At least Cingular’s 850 band.
It won’t work with T-Mobile’s though. (Whenever they get around to officially launching 3G service)
October 21st, 2007 at 12:01 am
Mjlsris:
If I buy a E51 from Europe it won’t support US 3G (provided of course I have a US 3G sim card. If no, will I have to wait for it to come out here? This article makes it seem like it would work. Please advise
Today Nokia announced the E51, 3G successor of the E50. The new phone adds 850/2100 MHz HSDPA to the quad-band GSM which makes it 2G/3.5G capable both in Europe and America. Other improvements over the previous model include support for Wireless LAN (WiFi) and newer Symbian 9.2.
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Nokia-E51-for-business-article-a_2050.html
October 21st, 2007 at 12:01 am
Mjlsris:
If I buy a E51 from Europe it won’t support US 3G (provided of course I have a US 3G sim card. If no, will I have to wait for it to come out here? This article makes it seem like it would work. Please advise
Today Nokia announced the E51, 3G successor of the E50. The new phone adds 850/2100 MHz HSDPA to the quad-band GSM which makes it 2G/3.5G capable both in Europe and America. Other improvements over the previous model include support for Wireless LAN (WiFi) and newer Symbian 9.2.
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Nokia-E51-for-business-article-a_2050.html
October 21st, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Well, congratulations! Though, I hope we’ll see a worthy follow up to E61i before too many of you switch to the non-QUERTY phones like the nice E51. C’mon Nokia, c’mon, we need an update. There’s plenty of stuff to fix!
October 24th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I accidentally killed my E70 a few months ago (swimming in the ocean is fun but don’t take your phone!) and I’ve been looking for a replacement ever since. Almost settled on the 6120 (figured maybe wi-fi wasn’t that important to me, as the lack of RAM on the E70 made web browsing a pain at times) until I read about the E51 and decided to wait for this. The faster CPU coupled with S60 FP1 and a huge increase in available RAM should make this phone a real pleasure to use and allow me to install AND run a whole bunch of neat apps. I can’t wait! For now I’m making do with an N73, which is not too bad.
October 25th, 2007 at 4:20 am
Am looking for a software for creating nokia themes. And i love swhat u guys are doing.
Or where in can find anything i can use to create cool stuff for ppl in my location can download n use freely.
Am a Nigerian.
October 30th, 2007 at 4:32 am
Good News for you (and me) According to Amazon.co.uk the E51 will be available November 12th.
http://lunaticthought.blogspot.com/2007/10/release-date-nokia-e51-is-november-12th.html
October 30th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
so do you think if i could buy an e51 now, is it a prototype and/or made in asia not in finland? it looked rather finished and the box said that it was made in finland. Can i belive it? or how could i make sure it is original?
October 30th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Alex,
Mine should be coming soon (I hope).
I have heard that the device has started shipping in Europe (Asia as well)? So it is likely that you saw one of the first units rolling off the conveyor belt
Ed
October 30th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
but can i be somehow _sure_?
it’s a bit suspicious that the phone hasn’t got hungarian language… (i live in hungary and they are selling the e51 here too, this is not carrier but a rather small gsm shop)
and what problems could these prototypes have? and i heared that the phone sold in different regions of the world aren’t the same, at least looking at the software. is that true? can that cause any problems?
sorry for my bad english and thx for any help
October 31st, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Alex: I think I disagree with Ed on this one. I could only find one Nokia site that actually mentions the E51 as part of the current line up. And that is the Nokia.fr site. However there are no GSM shops in france that already sell it and have it in stock. There is also no press release of the phone being shipped by Nokia. I don’t even see it on Nokia Hungary or Czech Republic (but my hungarian and czech is non-existant. Maybe you could try to find out how good it is by looking at the reviews of prototypes and seeing whether they mention what works and what doesn’t. Looking up the version of the software might also work. Otherwise, really inquire where the owner got it. But, but if it is supposed to be on the market on November 12th, than realistically some of them should be arriving in containers right now at importers. So maybe the small shop knows the right person.
October 31st, 2007 at 4:08 pm
i bought the e51 finally, my friend (who bought one too
asked a local nokia shop to check the serial number, and they said that the phones are original and finished and produced in europe, for germany. (just to finish the story: we asked the guy in the shop about the origins of the phones, and he said that a private person imports them in larger quantity, so there’s no original warranty for this e51s. I know what this means and i can live whit it.) btw, the phone is simply perfect 
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:34 am
Alex,
Can you tell us how much RAM after a reset? I know they said it is 50MB but I want to see if it is close to that. Have you ran into any memory issues when you use it or browse the web with it?
And how is the build quality? Is it shinny? If so, do you see any smudges?
Thanks!
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:07 am
the build quality is great i think, although the buttons on the side (volume, voice recorder, etc and power) require a bit much force to press and the two softkey below the screen are sometimes creaking a very little when beeing pressed, but as i sad, the overall quality is great. The only moving parts are the buttons:)
it is shiny, not any smudges, but a lot of fingerprints on the metal parts (the package contains a cloth to remove them)
free ram after restart: 50mb, total: 80mb (with nokia device status)
November 4th, 2007 at 1:20 am
Thanks Alex.
Here is a review about it in Russian I believe:
http://www.smape.com/reviews/nokia/Nokia_E51-rev.html
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Questions on the E51…..
I live in the U.S. and was considering moving to the T-Mobile network. T-Mobile is still attempting to roll out 3G, so I’m guessing that I will have to wait a bit longer — or use the E51 on the ATT network? Correct?
Also, regarding the VOIP features. When using the VOIP feature at home on wifi or at a hotspot, does this go against my minutes with the cellular company?
Sorry to be such a dork.
Any info would be great!