Nokia have, in the past, managed to successfully improve both popular and unpopular products with slight product revisions. The N-Gage to the N-Gage QD, and the Nokia 9300 to the Nokia 9300i both spring to mind. Have they successfully pulled off this trick with the E61i? As with previous iterative devices, there are some slight changes to the physical device, a few changes inside, and a general polishing of everything with an eye on the extensive user feedback that has been gathered.

Browsing is a lot quicker too. surfing through secure sites is not a problem by the way. i know the latest version of the E61 is capable of doing this but personally i think the E61i’s browser response is much better. i also haven’t experienced a single crash so far, when browsing and editing with Quickoffice at the same time. to test the phone’s stability, i even tried launching 4 to 5 apps (web, quickword, quicksheet, adobe pdf and mobireader) simultaneously while running screenshot on the background, and i can say, the E61i didn’t even flinch. very stable!

The QWERTY keyboard, other than having more room between each key, remains largely similar to the earlier E61. What we don’t quite fancy about the new buttons are the less pronounced. The rubbery surface also makes a squeaky sound when we run our fingers on it. However, it’s a minor gripe and we soon got over it as we breeze though typing a full text message on the E61i.

Key features:

• Rich connectivity options – UMTS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, Infrared
• Outstanding battery life
• 2 megapixel camera
• Messenger form factor with a full QWERTY keyboard
• Really large 2.8” TFT display
• Solid, metallic body
• Symbian OS 9.1 S60 3rd Edition UI
• microSD memory card slot