Product Listing

Nokia E7 - Getting Down to Business

By Wong Casandra - 31 Mar 2011
Launch SRP: S$989

Performance

Multimedia & Battery Life Performance

The E7 comes with a huge 4.0-inch AMOLED touchscreen, including a display technology called ClearBlack Display. As its name implies, it supposedly enhances the visibility of the black spectrum by increasing the contrast quality of the screen. We can't really tell whether it substantially enhances the E7's visual performance but on the whole, the AMOLED screen does very well with color reproduction and richness. It is definitely on par with most of the newer phones out there, boasting of high readability under bright sunlight. Like the N8, the E7 also looks to cater to the multimedia needs of its users, of which both its AMOLED screen and Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound with HDMI support serve to enhance. On the downside, we expected a screen resolution of at least 480 x 800 pixels on a high-end phone like the E7, instead of its low 360 x 640 pixels resolution.

Surfing on the E7 was relatively smooth if not, slightly sluggish by today's standards (and this was after installing the latest over-the-air software updates), with apps and screen transitions taking longer to load than what we are usually used to. Nonetheless, unlike our experience on N8, there were hardly any major or unpleasant crashes faced even with multiple apps running in the background, except for two while trying to read our SD card USB adaptor. Audio wise, the smartphone performed well, with indication of strong vocals and bass, which can be tailored to suit one's needs with an available array of equalizer modes like bass booster, jazz, pop or rock. 

Unlike its 12-megapixel N8 cousin, the E7 comes equipped with a front-facing VGA camera for video conferencing and a rear 8-megapixel fixed-focus camera with dual LED flash . As per usual, we conducted our standard imaging tests on its primary camera to assess its performance.

8-megapixel and dual LED flashes aside, the fixed-focused camera on the E7 is a sore downgrade from its Carl Zeiss lens equipped N8 cousin. 

Colors are otherwise accurate, but because of its fixed-focused lens, the E7 is unable to capture the details on the resolution chart.  

We noticed that some fine details are lost - giving the photo a "soft" appearance, with slight fringing spotted around the objects.

As mentioned earlier, the E7 comes with a fixed-focus camera, which makes it a snap-and-go kind of device. On the plus side, the lack of the need to focus means that the camera responds snappily without any delay once you hit on the camera button. On the down side, prepare for out-of-focus shots and the fact that clear macro shots are impossible to snap while on-the-go. Other than the most basic 'feature' phones, most phones come with auto-focus capable cameras, so this is quite a setback on the imaging capabilities of the phone in this day and age - more so for a premium device. Otherwise, color reproduction is generally accurate with details looking a tad too soft.

Last but not least, we ran the smartphone through a grueling battery test. We compared the Nokia E7's battery performance against the results from a selected group of devices chosen based on their similarities across battery capacities, display sizes, resolution and processing power. To reiterate, our standard battery test consists of:

  • looping a 240 x 320 pixels resolution video clip at 100% volume and screen brightness
  • Wi-Fi and Bluetooth switched on
  • data being pulled constantly via news and email feeds

For this phone, we compared it against two other smartphones with QWERTY keyboard form factors, namely the Motorola Milestone and the HTC Desire Z. 

Specifications/Device Nokia E7 HTC Desire Z Motorola Milestone
Processor
  • ARM 11 680 MHz
  • Qualcomm MSM7230 800MHz
  • ARM Cortex A8 550 MHz
Display Size
  • 4.0-inch
  • 3.7-inch
  • 3.7-inch
Display Type
  • AMOLED
  • S-LCD
  • TFT-LCD
Display Resolution
  • 360 x 640 pixels
  • 480 x 800 pixels
  • 480 x 854 pixels
Dimensions
  • 123.7 x 62.4 x 13.6mm
  • 119 x 60.4 x 14.16mm
  • 115.8 x 60 x 13.7mm
Weight
  • 176g
  • 180g
  • 165g
Battery
  • 1200 mAh
  • 1300 mAh
  • 1400 mAh

 

The Nokia E7 lasted for 5 hours and 16 mins on a 1200mAh battery, which is better than N8's track record of 4 hours and 27 minutes using the same battery and on a smaller screen. It outperforms the HTC Desire Z, boasting of a longer battery life and better power management with lower power consumption and battery life to weight x volume ratio. Of course, the Motorola Milestone takes a strong lead over these two as you can seen from the graphs above. Nonetheless, the Nokia has the biggest screen of the bunch at four inches and the lowest battery capacity at 1200mAh; on the other hand, its AMOLED screen might have helped it consume lesser power than its LCD counterparts.

Notably, while rationing it for normal day-to-day operations (SMSes, calls, emails, light surfing, applications usage and light media consumption), the phone could last for at least one full day. Like most smartphones, the E7 will require a full charge every day. Still, it fared a bit better than the HTC Desire Z in this aspect too.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
7.5
  • Design 8
  • Features 8
  • User-Friendliness 7.5
  • Performance 7.5
  • Value 6.5
The Good
Sturdy and well-constructed
Beautiful 4.0-inch AMOLED screen
Substantial physical QWERTY keyboard
The Bad
On the pricey side
Disappointing camera capabilities
No SD memory card slot
Complicated Symbian OS
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.