Nokia E63 finally unveiled

Noia have finally officially announced the Nokia E63 business phone. Set to replace the Nokia E71, the new E63 shares many of the features of it predecessor, including a gloriously bright screen capable of showing 16 million colours, but will come with a new lower price and a touch-sensitive Navi-Wheel around the central menu button.

The E63 is designed primarily for business, and so as well as the full QWERTY keyboard, will also integrate seamlessly with a wide array of different email systems. Despite being designed for business, though, it also comes with the usual array of multimedia features you’d expect from a consumer phone, such as 2 megapixel camera, video recorder and GPS unit.

One thing that is surprising is the E63s connectivity options. Although it supports quad-band GSM, 3G and WiFi, there’s no support for HSDPA, meaning its data transfer rates are restricted to 3Gs 384kbps, which is just 1/10 that of HSDPA. Given that the E63 is a business phone that can be used not only to browse the Web, but also to exchange files over email, Id have expected HSDPA to be a given.

Maybe its something to do with the cost-cutting that Nokia has done with this phone. As I said, the E63 is basically a cheaper E71, and so presumably Nokia have had to cut a few corners to get the price down. The rear case, for example, is plastic, rather than the metal of the E71s.

This is disappointing, but it reflects the market conditions were in. The E63 is a business phone, and business is doing badly at the moment, so if any mobile manufacturer wants to continue selling products, prices must be cut. The E63 is the first sign of these changing signs, and are a signal that Nokia has recognized the drastic shift in market conditions that has occurred in the past few months. Nokia will therefore pitch the E63 as a cheaper alternative to the Blackberry.

The E63 is undoubtedly a good phone, as the E71 was – its just a shame market conditions have prevented Nokia from being more innovative for once.

[Source: Dialaphone]