Nokia E6 and X7 hands-on: Symbian phones we’ve been waiting for

Nokia E6 (left) and X7 (right)

Here’s the funny thing about Nokia phones: Pictures never do them justice. You can’t know how a Nokia phone really feels in real life just by looking at photos, and this sentiment is best exemplified in the Finnish mobile giant’s newly announced phones, the E6 and X7. Both phones will be launched with the latest version of Symbian, which features of slew of improvements that could possibly bring it up to par with other current smartphone platforms.

Techgoondu had the chance to give these two babies a quick hands-on and came away impressed. Put simply, these are Nokia’s best phones yet, and it’s not an overstatement to claim that they are the Symbian phones we’ve all been waiting for.

Symbian Anna

Both the E6 and the X7 come with the latest version of Symbian installed. Nicknamed Anna, it comes with a slew of performance and usability enhancements. For instance, the icons have been redesigned for consistency, text input has been improved, the browser loads faster, and Nokia claims performance enhancements of up to 25 percent.

Symbian Anna also offers a strong set of new features aimed at business users in particular, including true enterprise grade security with hardware accelerated encryption, and new e-mail features such as full meeting request support.

And with Symbian comes the usual goodies, including Ovi Maps with free global drive and walk navigation. The Ovi Maps application has been improved with a search function and new public transport routes. Along with a new music and video player, this is the best version of Symbian yet. At least it feels up to par with the rest of the smartphone platforms in terms of features and user-friendliness.

Symbian Anna will also be available as an over-the-air update for Nokia N8, E7, C7 and C6-01 devices.

Nokia X7

The Nokia X7 has an unmistakable striking design. The smooth Gorilla glass, chiseled corners which double as speaker grills and the curved stainless steel back which feels remarkably smooth and ergonomic is all quite signature Nokia.

The back of the phone is home to an 8-megapixel camera with dual LED flash capable of taking 720p videos, and the front sports a 4-inch AMOLED display, which is bright and rather breathtaking despite the relatively low pixel count (640 x 360). The capacitive touch screen is also the most responsive one I’ve ever tried on a Nokia phone.

Nokia is positioning the X7 as an entertainment device, and to affirm this principle, the device will be pre-loaded with two free games: Asphalt 5 and Galaxy on Fire. Multimedia playback in the browser is enabled with Flash Lite 4. Best of all, the phone comes with a stereo headset with active noise cancellation. For all your music and movies, the X7 supports microSD cards of up to 32GB.

The X7 has a recommended retail price of 360 Euros (local price not available yet), and comes in either Dark Steel or Light Steel colours. You can get it from end-June onwards.

Nokia E6

The Nokia E6 is a business smartphone which looks a lot like all the other business smartphones Nokia has released in recent years. It has a candy bar form factor with a full QWERTY keyboard, and dedicated keys to your home screen, email, calendar and contacts.

But here’s what gives the E6 a one-up over its competition: the 2.46-inch AMOLED screen (640 x 480) is actually a very responsive touch screen, which makes navigation a lot easier than the traditional D-pad. This form factor could just be the holy grail of no-nonsense business smartphones.

Pre-installed productivity applications include QuickOffice, World Traveler, JoikuSpot Premium, F-Secure Mobile Security. In addition, the Ovi Store is also home to some useful business apps, such as Salesforce.

For those business tech jargon enthusiasts out there, the E6 is packed full of enterprise functionality, including support for intranet and extranet portals built on Microsoft SharePoint Server, business grade security solutions such as device lock and wipe, secure intranet access and device management, hardware-accelerated device encryption, and Cisco SSL VPN support in addition to rich IPSec VPN compatibility.

Other specs include an 8-megapixel camera, WiFi b/g/n, USB hosting, 8GB of mass storage with support for microSD cards of up to 32GB. The E6 will come in black and silver at launch, with a white version later down the road, and will has a very reasonable recommended retail price of S$570. It is projected to launch in early June.

Will it bite?

There’s no doubt that the X7 and the E6 are good products, in terms of both hardware and software. Their prices are also very affordable, unlike the outrageously priced E7. Nokia again reiterated their commitment to the Symbian for the foreseeable future, and will continue to release updates to the platform even after their first Windows Phone 7 devices hit the market.

But in all honesty, these are the phones that Nokia should have released last year, or even in 2009. If it did, then the E6 and the X7 would have stood a good chance at fighting the competition. Still, if you’re in the market for a new mid-range smartphone, they are worthy of consideration.

And like I mentioned earlier, it pays to try these phones in real life. Get down to a Nokia store, play with one, and let us know what you think!