We love our  Nokia E Series Messaging devices , ever since my first S60v3 phone, the Nokia E61 , I’ve used every E Series Messaging devices that Nokia has launched from E61i to E70 to E71 , E72 , E5 and now the gorgeous E6.

 
Beside blogging about technology , I also work as Marketing  Executive in one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan and  much of my job includes being in touch with my teams through phone , messages and email and also going through many of the documents and Nokia E6 is the perfect device for the job.

Nokia E6 on the first look exude elegance .  With it’s all metal and glass body it commands a respect in boardrooms and is equally acceptable at social gatherings. When I first touched the phone , it’s sleek matte finish and shiny glass screen , I can’t describe the feeling and in my hand it felt ‘solid’ unlike my previous Blackberry which felt cheap. 

Nokia E6 is first Touch and Type offering from Nokia on Symbian^3 platform i.e. it has a physical keyboard and a Capacitive touch screen . Being a messaging device, the Keyboard is laid out in a way that it allows for one hand operation so  I can easily multi task while sending messages.
 
With the keyboard Nokia has not tried to fix the already perfected layout and even with my big fingers I was able to easily type without any learning curve and being sleekly backlit , it can easily  be used even during power outages in Karachi . One improvement Nokia did made is in the choice of imprint color on keyboard . In E72 , I had the English/  Arabic keyboard and in backlit conditions , the Arabic letters were much more prominent then English ones , however in E6 ( mine now only has English keyboard )  the English characters which I use the most are much more prominent .

 
Unlike other messaging devices , the E6 does not come with the option and menu softkeys as these options are available on Touch Screen , in place there are 4 Soft keys for Home , Calendar , Contacts and Messaging and these keys work within any program i.e. if I’m using Quick Office and need to see a contact , just by pressing the soft key , the phone will open my contacts , this feature may not sound much but at the right moment , it’s a priceless .
 
In E6 , Nokia has forgone E72’s optical pad and instead opted for  five way D-Pad , I don’t blame them, the optical pad was a bit sluggish and with touch and type approach it was not of much use.
 
At the back the phone is equipped with a 8MP EDoF camera with dual LED Flash which for a business phone takes pretty decent pictures but still it’s no N8 but still with 8GB of builtin Memory you can store above 4500 of 8MP high res photos or make 50 minutes of High Def video.

 
One of the most demanded option in previous Messaging devices was Tv-Out and I’m glad to inform you that Nokia has incorporated TV-Out through optional CA-75U wire which were previously provided with Nokia 5800 , N95 8GB and N97 etc . Some may be saving “ What no HDMI Out ?  “  and my answer to them is to walk around in the corporate world how many board rooms you see are equipped with HD projectors most still have the old RCA type inputs which Nokia E6 supports and for a marketer like me instead of lugging around a whole laptop I can easily plugin my phone to laptop to share the figures with my team running on Quick Office.

 
On the software front Nokia E6 is powered by Symbian Anna , the latest version of Symbian^3 which not  only makes it fast and gives an added advantage of up to Five home screens with three customizable widgets each.

How you use the five home screens , well I have setup one as the organizer with Clock and Calenders and Notifications . Second is my news screen with BBC , CNN and Bloomberg live widgets.  Third is my Office screen with my 3 email accounts running . Fourth is my Social screen with Nokia Social , OVI Maps and Music player . Fifth is my contacts screen with twelve of my most called contacts .
 
Messaging is the strongest feature of Nokia E6 and with  builtin Nokia Messaging it can easily handle upto 10 email accounts be it free web based accounts like Gmail and Hotmail , or domain based POP3 /  IMAP account like I have on senseapplied.com or Microsoft Exchange based accounts which many corporate uses.
 
All phones are good and it’s the Apps which makes them the best and Nokia E6 has no shortages of good applications , with OVI Store , I can access thousands of applications from games to productivity software everything is available and yes albeit the small screen Angry Birds work on it .  For those addicted to Crack berry especially BBM,  can rejoice as Nokia E6 supports the popular WhatsApp messaging application along with Nimbuzz , Fring and even Skype so be it messaging or VOIP keeping in touch with your contacts and business associates had never been simpler. 

For a business traveller , Nokia E6 will be a perfect accessory .  Nokia E6 comes equipped with OVI Maps which offers free of cost navigational maps for almost all the countries in the world ( Pakistan not included)  along with Subway and transportation map for selected cities.  OVI Maps also come equipped with Here and Now , a local gig finder, and Lonely Planet reviews so you are never a stranger in a strange city.  For those obsessed with connectivity , Nokia E6 through Joiku Spot ( available at OVI Store)  converts into a Wifi hotspot sharing its mobile data with all other devices.   Also with the already proven BL-4 battery you can rest assure that the day will end but the power on your Nokia E6 will not.

Being a Symbian based device, Nokia E6 features true multitasking which enabling multitasking on it much easier , I can have Nimbuzz running in background while I’m using Nokia Social and with about 600MB of user available base memory it can run tens of programs at once without lagging a bit .

 
For business users ,  Nokia E6 comes equipped with the usual Adobe Reader , Notes , Calculator and Quick Office Premium and here is my grudge , Nokia should partner with some one to get a decent office compatible software , QuickOffice is so 2010 and boring to use.

However some great news just arrived today that my the end of 2011 , Nokia E6 will be updated to Symbian Belle and will be compatible with the upcoming Microsoft’s services suite which will add another feather to this already perfect business device. 

Don’t take Nokia E6, just as a phone , if used right it can be all you need to run your business outside and even inside the office.

I had been using the E6 for almost 2 weeks now and have found it to be an essential part of my routine life , the keyboard , the touch screen and the multiple home screen along with live widgets and plenty of useful apps , together makes it a bundle of productivity no serious businessman should be left without. 

Nokia N8 is not just a phone on which you can play HD games or take great pictures and videos , there are some of us , like me , who have bought this powerhouse to also use it for business purposes . 

I’m a pharmaceutical marketer by profession representing one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan , so in my course of work , I have to travel a lot ,  be it in the city or all over the country and keeping in touch with my office is an integral part of professional life and Nokia N8 is very much equipped to meet the professional challenges albeit some shortfalls.

Emails

Nokia N8 comes with Nokia Messaging pre installed which does not depend on making an account on email.nokia.com . With support of running 10 email accounts simultaneously , it  covers not only the popular eb based email acounts like HotMail , Yahoo, Gmail and OVI but also supports Mail For Exchange and in my case custom domain accounts .  Nokia has now enabled the email service to store messages on the 16GB internal flash memory of N8, making out of memory errors obsolete associated with previous devices.  Note for Blackberry Users  Nokia N8 and Nokia Messaging supports HTML based email so you not only get text but get the full multimedia experience with pictures and videos on email something which your fruit named device cannot do. (For those telling me to get one , I had a BB 9700 aka Bold 2 running OS6 and it’s now locked with the rest of my phones)  

What I suggest to Nokia is also to workout a Junk Mail / Spam Filter which will make my life much easier.

VOIP and IM

Skype is now available for Nokia N8 helping me in cutting down my communication costs .  Although it’s much cheaper for me to call US , UK and China from Pakistan , when my associates from abroad want to call me they have to pay an arm and a leg , so they can easily stay in touch with my through Skype without  incurring the cost.

Nimbuzz also comes in handy when keeping in touch with colleagues , with it’s support for every popular IM Platform , and availability for  every device from Symbian S40 and S60 to iOS to Blackberry and Android and even has a desktop client , I can chat with my team any where . 

Travel Recorder

Nokia Sports Tracker , although not meant to be used this way , is helping me fending the wrath of the bean counters who always raise an eye brow at my mileage .  Earlier I used to give them petrol receipts with my car’s odo meter readings but when travelling only petrol receipts with no mileage ,  now they get a full mileage report where ever I am with map copies and all for their inquisitive urges. 

Documents Reader

Nokia has bring out a decent MS Office compatible document handler .  I use Quick Office 6 and have reluctantly  paid for it so that I can edit the Word and Excel files which my colleagues send on the go .  Although the software supports PowerPoint but I don’t recommend it as it mess up the graphics and all . This is the Achilles Heel of Nokia’s Business compatibility , hopefully with E7 Nokia may have something  surprising for us .

 Widgets and Apps

There are a lot of business friendly widgets and apps available in the OVI Store , from Bloomberg mobile which keeps me up to date with the markets and commodities rates around the world to Currency Converter touch which helps me getting latest exchange rates .  I have also installed Dawn News Pakistan and Business Recorder Pakistan to keep up-to-date with the local scenario.

Hardware

It’s not only the software which is helping me in the business , Nokia N8’s hardware capabilities play an important part too . 

Camera

Equipped with a 12  MP Camera , I can take DSLR quality pics of my client’s premises and medical stores around creating a photo catalogue with my visit report . With GPS Tagging it also becomes easier to find the particular client on the map and with enough data we can also plan our field force territories . The camera also helps me in taking good quality snaps of my competitors activities like giveaways and posters for the visit reports.

One thing I like about camera phones is that people tend to feel at ease with a camera phone than with point shoot camera and are scared of a huge DSLR which shouts reporter as soon as it’s out .

Video Camera

Nokia N8’s video capabilities has made us leave our Sony Camcorders locked in the office , with it’s High Def video capabilities , we can make broadcast quality videos on the go covering our discussion with the doctors and training of field force .  One thing which I use the camera extensively is for making training videos. We run situation scenarios among our senior staff on customer handling etc and make videos straight from the phone .  Now every region in Pakistan has a different culture so making videos with the local field force and managers incorporate their culture in it and we are able to train them in a much better way.

AMOLED Screen 

Although not big as the Samsung Galaxy S , nonetheless the AMOLED screen has it’s charm with vibrant colors on which I sometimes show my corporate video to my client on the phone .

HDMI and TV Out

Nokia N8 is probably the only phone in the world which offers both HDMI and RCA TV Output . Showing overview of training video to our top management on the HighDef LCD screen or showing corporate videos in rural Pakistan with a projector , all is made possible with the different wires we carry.

USB On the Go

Nokia has now enabled us to leave our laptops in our bags everytime we are given data on a USB or any other flash media or have to share data with our managers.  Long gone are the day we have to start our computers connect phone to it , transfer video and data to it than attach our colleagues flash media and transfer the data to it . Now all we do is connect the USB on the GO wire to the phone and the USB Flash disk or a flash card reader and we are instantly transferring data to and fro .  So as soon as we made a training video , we transfer it straight to the manager’s disk for further use .

This is not the end of Nokia N8’s business capabilities , new software for business are released everyday on OVI Store and we are coming up with creative ways to make the most of what our phone has to offer .  The only shortfall which we think is it’s Office Documents handling capabilities once Nokia fix it , or get Documents on the Go and the likes on board , we believe that Nokia can easily make the best business phone in the market.