Nokia E51 Review

Camera:

Nokia E51 disposes of a 2 megapixel camera, but regrettably, as mentioned above, it has neither a flashlight nor an auto-focus.

The camera is started in 2.5 seconds and then you are faced with its definitely unattractive interface. It differs from the one of the multimedia N-series and resembles that of the Symbian 6 phones, and is the same as that used in the E50. Thus the manufacturer wants to show that this is not a multimedia phone and defines another difference between the E and N-series.

The camera's interface does not even take up the whole display and the Viewfinder only occupies half of it. When the left or right D-pad directions are used, a toolbar pops up. It houses shortcuts to three options: video, night and sequence mode.

Generally speaking, the camera of the E51 should only be used as a last resort, so one must not expect too much. Shots are of a very poor quality at even bright daylight; as for low illumination, objects in the picture will be rendered hard to make out due to the excess “noise”. We may conclude that this camera is one of the worst 2 megapixel ones on the market.



The video capture allows for up to QVGA resolution, but unfortunately only with 10 frames per second, which is less than enough.

Nokia E51 sample video at 320x240 pixels resolution


Multimedia:

The music player is not the one we know from the N-series phones with Symbian 9.2 either, but is quite similar. We’ve seen it in other Symbian S60 phones, like the 6120 Classic for example. In the Now Playing interface you can navigate the directions of the d-pad, while information on the played track is visualized below. Album cover (if one is present) is visualized on the left.

You can sort your music by Artists/Albums/Genres/Composers, as well as by Track lists, including most played tracks, Recent tracks, Recent additions.

The sound of E51’s loudspeaker is not quite loud – a feature that should be considered acceptable since the unit is not intended to be a Music Phone.

In addition to the Music Player comes the built in FM tuner. It is nothing extraordinary but allows you to listen to local FM stations, delivering music or audio information (news for example) over the air. The interface is standard and allows for saving of up to 50 stations to your "favorite" list. As always, wired headphones should be attached in order to be used as an antenna for the phone.

Unfortunately MPEG4 H.263-encoded video clip with QVGA Resolution and 460kbps bitrate appears to be too "heavy" for the device and the video lags, so only lower quality clips should be played.


Software:

The telephone disposes of 130 MB built-in memory. However, there is the indispensable option of extending it up to 4 GB by means of a microSD card.

Even without a GPS, Nokia E51 comes with the application Nokia Мaps, which is free and can be downloaded from the Nokia website to be used in any S60 phone. The functionality is standard, you can look up addresses or an exact location, as well as points of interest, including places for shopping, accommodation, eating, as well as different sights of interest. If a GPS device is activated, the program provides a paid option for voice navigation for some regions.