Nokia E51

I consider myself as Nokia's prodigal son. I started out with Nokia nine years ago. My first phone was a Nokia 3210, a gift from my mom, which was unfortunately stolen while I was on a bus. It was followed by a 6150, a 6210, and a 6230.

When I started my postpaid subscription to Globe, I decided to try Sony Ericsson, in particular, the K750i. I fell in love with SE phones, and vowed to stick to SE and ditch Nokia.

I guess I was wrong. I still love SE, but their current lineup pales in comparison to Nokia's offerings. Since my K750i is already struggling, I needed a new phone fast, and I had to jump ship once again.

It basically was a choice between the E51 and the N82, another stellar Nokia phone. But I couldn't justify the extra price for a slightly better camera and GPS, plus the ergonomics of the N82 is just, well, not for me. Hence, the E51. I funded this phone using the proceeds of the 5310 I had for sale (thanks to Tina for purchasing the unit).

I'm not so good at doing reviews, so click here, here, and here for more extensive reports on the E51. Anyway, here are my observations about the phone:

* one of my biggest pet peeves about this phone is that updating your contacts doesn't update the sender information in your SMS inbox. I think this is common to most Nokia Series 60/90 phones, since Roxanne's 7650, one of Nokia's earlier Symbian phones, share the same traits.

* inputting birthdays in your contacts via the phone or thru the PC Suite does not update your calendar. You have to use Outlook or something similar to do so. Other than that, the phonebook is fantastic, it can hold so may information.

* text messaging can either be a pro or a con. You can type part of the sender's name and the phone will give you a list of matches, or send it automatically if there's only one match. Inputting the sender's number via the phonebook may require extra clicks, especially if the contact has more that one number.

* smileys are only available by enabling the T9 dictionary. I miss the smileys from my K750i.

* for a Symbian phone, it's quite fast.

* in my 1 week of use, it only froze on me once. Well, not exactly froze, the Home button just stopped functioning. A quick reboot of the phone solved this.

* pictures and videos from the camera occasionally has a greenish tint.

* i love the fact that you can set recurring alarms, and have the option to set it only during workdays. Perfect for waking me up.

* the radio is much better than my K750i's.

* I can't understand why sometimes my phone uses 3G to surf the web even though I'm connected to a WiFi hotspot.

* speaking of WiFi, for me that was the phone's main selling point. It does the job well, but some sites are not supported. I cannot open my Lycos account because the text boxes are missing.

* regarding the battery, WiFi and Bluetooth can really drain it. Extensive use of the said protocols only gave me roughly two days of use. On a positive note, the phone charges really quick (more or less an hour) and the included charger is smaller than what I'm used to.

* telephony is average for me, but good enough.

All in all, I love this phone. I think for the price, it's a best buy.