Nokia knows how to make excellent hardware, and they’re tops at call quality. It’s no surprise that the Nokia E7, the company’s latest flagship QWERTY smartphone, features superb hardware materials and design as well as Nokia’s signature landline-clear calling. All is not perfection in Finland though, and there’s a reason why Nokia has decided to call Windows Phone 7 their home for high end smartphones in 2012 and beyond. The E7 runs Symbian^3, and the OS doesn’t match the high standards that iOS and Android have set for today’s top smartphones. It feels clunky and touch interaction is greatly improved over earlier renditions, but is still somewhat awkward.  As a phone, the E7 excels, as do most Nokia phones. Call quality is top notch, and call volume is adequate. The phone plays nicely with Bluetooth headsets and car kits and the speakerphone is both loud and full. As an added bonus, the E7 isn't just a GSM world phone, it's a pentaband 3G phone that will work for fast data anywhere in the world HSDPA and WCDMA service is available from GSM carriers. In the US, the phone is sold unlocked for use with any GSM provider: just insert your SIM card and you're ready to roll. That means it will work on AT&T and T-Mobile's 3G networks, though you won't get 4G HSPA+. The phone does support HSUPA for faster upload speeds vs. older 3G phones.  The Nokia E7 runs on a 680MHz ARM11 CPU with hardware graphics acceleration, and Nokia's Symbian phones don't run on cutting edge 1GHz or dual core CPUs because the operating system and associated applications aren't that demanding. Still, we feel that Flash Lite content could benefit from a faster CPU since it often lags.  The 4" AMOLED ClearBlack 360 x 640 pixel display is sharp and bright; Nokia doesn't skim here. It's capacitive multi-touch and the phone does support pinch zooming in the web browser and photo viewer. The keyboard is simply wonderful and the slider mechanism is designed to Rolex standards.  |
Other features include an HTML web browser that's just OK (sadly, Nokia and Symbian once led the mobile browser field, but no more). It has dual microphones, a compass, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, an ambient light sensor and an accelerometer. It supports Ovi services such as Maps 3.0, the Ovi Store and Ovi Music. It has TV out (composite) and a 3.5mm stereo jack as well as Bluetooth A2DP stereo.The 8 megapixel camera shoots excellent photos and sharp 720p video-- definitely up to Nokia standards. The front camera shoots VGA video and can be used for video chat.
The Nokia E7 is the keyboarded companion to the Nokia N8 which has a higher resolution camera but no hardware keyboard. It's sold direct by the Nokia USA website and from select retailers and e-tailers.
