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Nokia E62 24 Hours Review

Yes, I did it. I promised myself I wouldn’t, I don’t need the distraction now with MAX days away. But I could not help myself. I’m a gadget junkie, and I needed that Nokia E62 I mentioned yesterday.
I’ve been using it for almost 24 hours, so time to share my initial thoughts, both the positive and the negative.
First the positive:

  • The first thing you’ll notice is the screen, it is beautiful! I think the color and image is brighter and sharper than any phone, MP3 player, and even portable game console that I have ever seen. It’s an absolute pleasure to look at.
  • The device feels very light. I think that’s a pro, although I keep checking to see that I have not lost it. I guess I’ll get used to that.
  • The phone audio quality is superb. Maybe I am so used to lousy Treo call quality that I have forgotten what phones should sound like, but this one is a treat. And folks on the other end of the connection commented that they could hear me better than usual. Huh, a phone that is a good quality phone. What will they think of next?
  • Bluetooth synched up with everything I threw at it, including my car. Pairing was flawless, every device was found and just worked. And one bonus, if you are wearing a connected Bluetooth headset you’ll hear alarms, reminder beeps, and other alerts via the headset – no other device has ever done that for me before. I did find one problem, as noted below.
  • The best surprise thus far has been the built in web browser. It is fast, clear, and displayed any sites I tried perfectly. This puts Blazer and even Opera Mobile to shame. Navigation is a little weird without a stylus, but you get used to it quickly.
  • I installed Google Maps Mobile to it. Google will tell you that the device may not be supported, but it does indeed work and work very well. I have yet to find a way to turn off the constant checking that the app has permission to go online, if anyone has figured that out please share.
  • Battery life is great, and charge time is very good.
  • The keyboard is much more comfortable than the Treo’s. It is wider, so that is part of it. But just as important is that they’ve made important keys readily available, like / and and @ (good luck finding the on the Treo).
  • The synchronization software is very good, it just works. It does not seem to be as configurable as Palm’s HotSynch Manager or Microsoft ActiveSynch, but thus far I have not needed anything but the defaults. And synch time (even the first synch, over 500 contacts and thousands of calendar entries) was very fast.

And now the negative:

  • The device is horribly uncomfortable to hold next to your ear. It comes with an ear bud, use it. Or use a Bluetooth headset. You don’t want to be holding this to your head for any extended periods.
  • The device sometimes feels sluggish, even without lots of apps loaded.
  • Major oversight alert! No auto keypad lock? What were they thinking? Any phone that is not a flip phone MUST have an auto keypad lock feature. This is just asinine! Fortunately others must feel the same, there are several freely available auto-lock utilities out there. I downloaded AutoLock which is perfect and does the trick. Make this the first app you install, and make sure you get the version for S60 3rd Edition.
  • The voice record button is terribly placed. I have several oops recordings saved now, and more to follow I am sure.
  • The built in apps are ok, same are even good. But the Calendar app is appalling. It won’t let you access notes attached to meetings! Huh? Apparently this is a longstanding known issue. Unacceptable. I installed Papyrus, a replacement calendar app which boasts that it’ll let you see all data “including an item’s note/description fields”. This app shares the data store with the integrated calendar app, so this may be the solution.
  • The SMS client is lousy. No chat mode for starters. Address book lookup is not automatic as you type. And when you delete an open message, the next message is not automatically opened, you need to go back and open it manually. It just feels not very thought through. I need to find a replacement, something more like the Treo client (which is really good).
  • As already noted, Bluetooth works very well. But it does not seem to be publishing extended data to Acura HFL. The phone works with the car, but signal strength and battery life are not displayed in the car (the Treo displays signal strength but not battery life, the Sony Ericsson devices I have tested all displayed both). Bummer, hopefully they’ll have a software update to fix that at some point.
  • The device does not come with a case, and there don’t seem to be any right size cases in the stores yet. Fortunately, the Treo case fit (more or less).
  • I have not used the MiniSD card socket yet, mainly because I have lots of SD cards but no mini ones. And with the card socket under the back cover (yes, you need to remove the battery cover to get to the socket!) I highly doubt I ever well.

Bottom line, the E62 is a lot of phone crammed into a small case (thinner than Treo, but wider). The device is light and feels less solid and rugged than Treo or the Windows device I have tried, not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing yet. Not having a stylus and touch screen feels odd, but I need to give it some time I guess. Will I keep this one? I am not sure yet – I have 30 days to decide. Make that 29.

38 responses to “Nokia E62 24 Hours Review”

  1. orgreeno Avatar
    orgreeno

    I’ve had the phone for about two weeks now. At first I was having trouble aligning the speaker with my ear. I’m getting used to it now and the call quality is definitely better than the razr I had.
    What I want to know is can we upgrade to the service pack 1 just released by Nokia? It adds Flashlite 2 along with other features. I would sure like to develop some CF powered FL2 apps on this phone.

  2. Dan G. Switzer, II Avatar
    Dan G. Switzer, II

    Any RDP clients available for it? I’m need to get a new phone soon (the charging port on my v710 is dying.) While it’s not something I need everyday, I’d love to get a phone that has an RDP client so I can log in to my Windows Servers and restart a service if I need to.

  3. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta

    orgreeno, no idea, will try to find out.
    Dan, yep, here is one: http://www.shapeservices.com/en/products/details.php?product=tsm. I have not tried it yet myself, but plan to.
    — Ben

  4. panariga Avatar
    panariga

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  5. Marc Avatar
    Marc

    I’ve had mine for a week. I’m enjoying it. The keylock issue is odd, for sure. I haven’t begun to sync, so we’ll see how that goes.
    I support the internal miniSD slot — on my Palm, the card would occasionally pop out when the machine was jostled, which really concerned me about losing the card. With it inside the machine, it’s not an issue, and I don’t need to access it physically that often, given the USB option.

  6. David Pitkin Avatar
    David Pitkin

    I just got a E62 as well and feel torn as well about loving it or hating it. The Google Maps thing is the fact that you can’t authorize a Java app to always access the internet. If you go to App. Manager and navigate to Google Maps, under "Suite Options" on an E61 you could pick "always allow" not so much on the E62. Ugh.

  7. PDUB Avatar
    PDUB

    I’ve had my E62 for a week or so now and I still can’t figure out how to pair it to my car. Once I hit BT Pair in the car, what do I press on the phone in order to make it see the car and ask for the Bluetooth Pin Code? Anyone have any ideas? I would greatly appreciate it! THANKS!

  8. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta

    PDUB, go to Apps, Bluetoooth, you’ll be able to turn on Discover, and it’ll pair. Bluettoth support is actually really good in the E62.
    — Ben

  9. Barbara Avatar
    Barbara

    I just got my E62 yesterday, to replace my old phone and T-Mobile Sidekick with a single unit. I generally like it, but have some gripes.
    – You can only sign in to one IM service at a time. On my SK, I could be signed in to Yahoo and AOL. Some of my friends and colleagues use one and some the other.
    – When I get a new IM message, I hear one little bleep and that’s it. There is no indication onscreen that I have new msgs. Again, the SK performed much better, showing separate icons for each service that had new msgs.
    – The instructions for getting email up and running are wrong and/or incomplete in both the little guide that comes with the phone and in the downloadable user guide. There is no explanation for what all the symbols are in the new mail screen.
    Overall, I think this is a keeper, and the price was right ($140 after rebates), but it’s tough to give up some features I have become very dependent on in the last couple of years….

  10. Barbara Avatar
    Barbara

    You can in fact set Autolock. Settings > Config > Phone and Smartchip > Autolock period. I think you have to change the default lock code (12345) first.

  11. andrew Avatar
    andrew

    How were able to download papyrus. i tried but my e62 said it was not supported. it looks like a cool app.

  12. andrew Avatar
    andrew

    i got it downloaded but it will not open. duh, i was trying to extract and install the wrong file. i get to the 12 day trial screen but when i hit continue it goes right back to the app folder. did you have or anyone have the same problem, if so, how did you get it to work? thx

  13. Ronan Avatar
    Ronan

    I have my E62 for a few weeks now and can’t get any stereo headset to work with that 2.5mm jack. Anyone have any luck with this? I had hoped to plug a standard stereo headset in. No luck and nobody sells one.

  14. mOnXuS Avatar
    mOnXuS

    I’ve had my E62 for two weeks. Its a great phone but Im having a lot of problems with the email options. I just want to use the regular POP3 option which leaves you with Blackberry Connect ($44.99/m Data Plan) and Xpress Mail. First I had Blackberry and it worked great until I wanted to view the attachments. Something’s wrong with Blackberry Connect when it comes to opening pdf and Power Point attachments. This is the most important thing for me because of my job.
    So I tried Xpress Mail and attachments can be seen perfectly but you have to leave on your computer for it to work and I get the same friggin’ message all the time when I want to receive mail: "Cannot connect to desktop. Please check your desktop client and try again." This happens randomly.
    Does any body knows about any other type of email service that’s simple and doesn’t give these many problems? Or can anyone tell me how to solve these issues? Im already getting fed up with this.

  15. allen Avatar
    allen

    I want to be able to sync my email with outlook, without connecting to exchange. Any ideas how I can do this.

  16. Christi Avatar
    Christi

    I have now had my Nokia E62 The volume is 10x better than the treo but I am unsure about the phone the screen is amazing as well as the key pad but its a slow phone. Its not so much user friendly. I do a lot of text messing and i wanted this phone because its like a mini computer but I am thinking of exchanging it for a Blackberry because I think in the long run I will be happier with that. Any Comment??????????????????/

  17. andrew Avatar
    andrew

    several ideas. you can create a free account with mail2web as an exchange. then just have your emails forwarded automatically to the new account. this way one account on the e62, but mail from multiple accounts coming in. heard it worked well, but haven’t tried it yet.
    i have had many treos before. you have to give the e62 some time. yes the interface is slow, but it is quality. remember treos/palm os is made to be very simplistic. i have had mine for a month or so and it took a bit to get used to.
    for stereo, get the moto hs820 b.t. stereo headphones. forget the wire. they work great, and when you get a call, just hit the button and your call comes right through and your music is paused. the only glitch i have found is that when the call is ended the music will go from pause to stop, so you just have to hit play again.

  18. Amro Avatar
    Amro

    when running Google Maps Mobile the e62 constantly asks to check if the app has permission to go online.
    To fix this obtain the site cert and install it on the phone.

  19. Ronan Avatar
    Ronan

    The Moto HS820 headset is Mono not Stereo ( at least all the ones I’ve seen and also on ebay. Why does the Headphone jack not work? I’ve been looking and have only one Nokia headset which claims to work with it. Nothing aftermarket.

  20. Jason Avatar
    Jason

    "To fix this obtain the site cert and install it on the phone."
    Obtain it from where???

  21. roger Avatar
    roger

    I’m frustrated with the headphone jack, too. I tried to different adapters and neither one worked. In fact they said something like ‘Option not supported’ when I plugged it in. I already have a nice set of headphones and want to use them! I called Nokia and Congular and no one had a clue I’ll try Nokia one more time, then I’m done with this phone.

  22. JHo Avatar
    JHo

    Are you guys serious about the keylock issue? There is NO issue! Click your power button once until you see the options…do you see "Lock Keypad"??? I’m pretty sure it locks your keypad…it does on mine, duh.
    And, I have a stereo headset for mine. Go to Nokia’s website and purchase it from there.
    jho

  23. roger Avatar
    roger

    Just went out and bought the HT820 blue tooth headset from Motorola. The phone recognizes it but doesn’t play music through it! Called Nokia and they It will NOT work with any bluetooh headset. Then the Nokia agent hung up on me when I complained. That’s the second time Nokia support has angered me. The first time I asked to talk to a supervisor and got his voice mail. I gave him my information and he never called back. Nice…

  24. Rick Avatar
    Rick

    have my E62 for two weeks now. Paired it to a Plantronics 320 headset. So far it’s the best reception (call wise) of any smartphone Ive owned.
    Downside, and this I wonder if it’s a FCC or Better Business bureau issue, is the built in Yahoo IM client. I have the unlimited data plan, which means I should not be charged for any info i send thru the EDGE network. I hoped to not need to install a 3rd party app so used their built in IM client.
    Well, to make a long story short, Cingular segregates the data in such a way that they charge you for incoming and outgoing messages. Even tho it’s not thru SMS. So any client discussion or remote support call you thought you were getting covered by your 19.95 unlimited data plan? you’re not. The bill even differentiates between normal-should-be charged SMS TXT messages and Y! IM’s. But still charges the 10 cent each rate.
    Only way around is seems to be to install a 3rd party app, (testing Agile Messenger) but I wonder if Cingular is going to sniff this and charge me too. Calling them to rectify this they justify it with "it’s a text message, right? so we charge for text messages" BS line.
    This even after I directly asked a sales person, and verified the messages were indeed travelling across the data network. . Makes me worry how much the other apps are sabotaged in order to drain more revenue from customers who thought they were paying for a service..
    I’m going to attempt to re-flash with the Nokia unbranded ROM (to fix the Google maps, Opera Mini and just-about-all-java-apps) crippling problem, and go from there.

  25. David rock Avatar
    David rock

    Tell me more on reflashing? I’ve looked for software updates for the E62 to only find them for the E61. Is a software update what you mean by reflashing?

  26. S. Philip Avatar
    S. Philip

    Is there a way to download video into E62?

  27. PDUB Avatar
    PDUB

    I’ve found that if your computer has Bluetooth, you can transfer video files, audio files, data files, directly over to the E62 from your computer. At least that’s how I’ve been doing it. Good luck!

  28. Kamran Khan Avatar
    Kamran Khan

    I switched from P910i to E62, and experienced, good reception and friendly keypad. In E62 an facing issues of 1) No auto keypad lock 2) limited last calls record 3) poor calender/reminder 4) Alarm does not repeat. I appreciate if anybody can advise to resolve.

  29. ToT1 Avatar
    ToT1

    I can not view any photo attachmegets on my e62 I get a message that says Attachment conversion failed how do i fix that and how do i send my photos from my desk top to my e62

  30. Rus Avatar
    Rus

    hello,
    has anyone tryed using the Presentation software on the E62? I put a PPT file (done in office2003) over on my external memory card, file was about 14meg. when i go to open it i get memory error close some applications. there are no applications open. Even tryed shutting down phone and back on, same thing.
    Anyone have any ideas?
    R

  31. Cameron Avatar
    Cameron

    Easy Keylock – Just hit the top left blue button followed by the very bottom left "arrow" key and that locks/unlocks the phone easily.

  32. Lisa Avatar
    Lisa

    2 questions…
    First, I text a lot and I’m having issues with the keypad locking up on me. I have to power cycle completely to get is unlocked. Any ideas???
    Also, I’ve got my gmail app loaded but it will not allow me to even access. Does anyone know why
    Thanks in advance.

  33. Bruce Avatar
    Bruce

    Manual keylock: Hit Contacts or Options key (leftmost top row) and immediately "Fn" (leftmost bottom row with blue arrow pointing upper right). This is standard pattern on *_all_* Nokia phones.
    Automatic keylock: Menu| Tools| Settings| Security| Phone & SIM| Autolock period

  34. Susan Avatar
    Susan

    I have had the Nokia N62 for a couple of months. I just purchased a new car that has an AUX feature that allows you to connect your MP3 player. I have tried every cord that radio shack has I think. I got a stereo to mono, stereo to stereo, a special plug with three bands on the prong because they said it was needed for Nokia products. I still get enhancement not supported. Has anyone else found a way to use the phone connected to a car MP3 AUX jack? Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

  35. Anita Ford Saunders, APR Avatar
    Anita Ford Saunders, APR

    Just read your Blog. I agree with your pros and cons, especially the misplacement of the mini memory card but I went searching for answers to the big question, why does my E62 freeze up on me!!
    This is the second device I’ve owned. The first lasted two months. The second lasted a few weeks before freezing up and I had to send it back to Nokia. That’s when I found out I did not have an "authorized" Nokia battery, even though it came with the device. They "repaired" at the end of April and everything was fine, I thought until a few days ago when it started freezine up on me again.
    They have not been too helpful. Anyone have similar problems? Can anyone help me?

  36. Anita Avatar
    Anita

    Additional quick question. My E62 doesn’t seem to hold any PDF documents. I’ve tried to download higher versions of Adobe but to no avail. Any suggestions?

  37. Lacy Avatar
    Lacy

    About 6 months into owning my E62 phone, the joystick started going balistic on me and I can not gain control over the phone. It has a mind of it’s own. I finally send it in to Nokia for repair, the status on it says awaiting parts and then I get the phone back and they tell me it is "beyond economical repair due to corrosion." I don’t recall getting water on the phone, plus the watermark is still white, not pink. I am pretty upset with Nokia. If they say it’s corrosion that’s it, I have screwed and have no other option. I just threw my money down the drain.

  38. kgm Avatar
    kgm

    I need help…..I am an avid text messanger and it takes me about 3-5 minutes to send one text message through after I hit send…..the phone also freezes up on me constantly forcing me to take out the battery and re-start it

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