After years of sitting forward the ...

After years of sitting forward the sidelines as a minor player in the U market for high-end smart phone Nokia is about to jot down the fray in a bigger way than it has in the past.

The Finnish cell-phone giant is introducing a phone called the E62 that imitates and is aimed at, the Palm Treo the latest BlackBerry phone from Research in Motion and the Motorola Q

Like those other smart phone the E62 has a replete keyboard and is actually a little computer that is meant to be a serious e-mail device as well as a phone Like the Q and the Treo it can play music and videos, breakers the Web and display photos.

Unlike the Treo and the Q however, the Nokia E62 can flow a service licensed by RIM that allows it to behave like a BlackBerry. It can fling and receive e-mail using either a corporate BlackBerry server or a consumer BlackBerry service tendered by a cell-phone carrier.

I've been testing the E62 and I like it. It's fairly utilitarian- looking and probably won't become an end of desire like the Q and the Treo moreover it gets the job done and might well be the best bargain in its category.

In the past, Nokia has relied forward a smart-phone design that was a thick, prolonged device that flipped open to reveal a wide, horizontally aligned keyboard and veil That design sold OK in Europe moreover flopped in the United States. Now, with the E62 Nokia is adopting the American-type design pioneered on the BlackBerry and used by means of the Treo and the Q

Nokia is being modest about the timing, pricing and wireless carrier for the E62 if it were not that I expect it to be available late nearest month from Cingular Wireless. And I anticipate it to cost even les than the Q which at $199 is the least expensive result in this group. The latest Treo examples the 700p and 700w, are being sold on Verizon Wireless for $299 right now, after rebates.

The E62 works forward the so-called GSM cell-phone standard that's universal in Europe and used at Cingular and T-Mobile in the United States. This means it can be used in the pair America and Europe, as well as in more [i]or[/i] less other countries. The Treo 700 originals sold by Verizon and Sprint, and the Q sold solitary by Verizon, use an American technology called CDMA that doesn't work in Europe or in mostly places outside the United States.

GSM technology also saddles the E62 with its biggest drawback: It is abundant slower at receiving data as it was as e-mail and Web pages than the Q or the Treo 700 or equable certain BlackBerry models. That's because it uses intensity a GSM variant that has been tired out away by a technology called EVDO used by means of the Treo 700 and the Q In my criterions EVDO has been up to seven times as fast as rim

The E62 also lacks a camera, unlike the Q and the Treo 700 however like them, it has Bluetooth wireless technology.

Nokia has built in a sharp, vivid protection with a resolution of 320 from 240. That's better than the resolution upon the Treo 700w and identical to the Q's disguise resolution -- but inferior to the resolution forward the Treo 700p.

The of the present day Nokia is larger than the Q -- wider, thicker, longer and heavier. yet it's thinner and lighter than the Treo 700 albeit a bit wider and longer

In my criterions the voice quality of the E62 was excessively good. Battery life was proper with a talk time of between four and 5oe hours. The phone accepts memory cards for storage.

The BlackBerry be joined service and software, which probably will sumptuousness around $45 a month, worked well. After I installed the BlackBerry software onward the new Nokia and configured the service onward the E62 and on an accompanying Web site, the service "pushed" all e- mails from my regular account to the E62 reliably. There's no limit to by what means much e-mail you can receive, admitting the carrier might intervene if it believes you're abusing the service.

The no other than downside of the BlackBerry join feature is that there's a noticeable latency when you make open an e-mail before it displays onward the screen.

In my trials the E62 could open principally major e-mail attachment types, including Word documents, go beyond spreadsheets and Adobe PDF files. It's also suppos to work with PowerPoint presentations, if it be not that in my tests, this function failed.

The user interface onward the E62 isn't nearly as fast or slick as forward the Palm operating system used from the Treo 700p. But I preferr it slightly through the Windows Mobile operating order used on the Treo 700w and more [i]or[/i] less other smart phones. There were still too many menus and extra paces compared with the Palm method but at least you can erase an e-mail with one click.

I was able to synchronize the E62 with Microsoft watch and bring over my contacts and calendar, using the separate Windows software that proceeds with the phone. And I was able to load up the memory card with pictures and dittys from my computer and use them favorably on the E62.

All in all, the E62 is a solid and inexpensive smart phone

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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