17 posts tagged “e71”
So, in realizing I might have an E90 trade on my hands which might involve my E71 and would likely take place before I'd get a chance to do this, I took some nice pictures of my E71 to help me remember it by should I trade it off. Mind you, regardless of whatever phone I get next, an E71x (as a backup) or an E72 are pretty high on my list for getting, unless of course I have the E90- then I might as well get an N86.
The end of the Teach the Technophobe campaign is fast approaching. And with it, I shall be returning the E75 devices and resuming use of my E71. This is a bit of a sad moment for me... I have begun to adore the E75. It's capable multimedia features coupled with bulletproof business traits make it a rather perfect device for everything I ask of my handsets. It's side-slider isn't exactly my idea form-factor, but Nokia's take on this design style have certainly opened my eyes to many of the benefits to be had. It's true that I find the keyboard a little quirky, and don't especially appreciate the keys on the outside. But with the time I was given, I grew accustomed to the E75's peculiarity and no longer find myself frustrated to use it.
Granted, switching back to the E71 will remind me of many things. Namely, the more tacticle keyboard, crisper performance, and more sleek design (making pulling the device out of my pocket a lot more smoother). But then I'll be constantly reminded of the E75's better imaging every time I take a picture, of the E75's newer icons every time I open a menu, and the E75 as a whole every time I see someone with an E71x (I like having a unique phone).
By this point, you're probably wondering why I've begun this post with a giant picture of an N97. Quite simply: I'm currently trying to get myself one. And by get myself one, I mean one to keep. The N86 is my dream device, this I know, but so was the N85 and yet I landed myself an E71. More importantly, it's because an N97 is the device that is available for me to obtain, while the N86 is nowhere to be found. (Although I just now set myself a goal of getting an N86 by this time of next year, which hopefully will be the time I'm travelling in Europe if everything goes to plan.)
Didn't I bash the N97 originally? Yes, I did. And do I still bas the N97? Yes, I still do. It's resistive touchscreen will be thoroughly bothersome. The fact that it has a touchscreen at all, actually, will bother me. But lessons learned along the way from my original N82 have gotten me to soften my original hard-lined requirements of a dream phone. Form-factor is not so much of an importance so long as it's not a (badly designed) flip phone. Xenon flash isn't important as it's more a bragging right since I tend to never use it. Megapixel count is important but more so is quality (think N96's photo quality). And a QWERTY keyboard is actually quite useful, especially with my recent trends towards increased-size messaging.
With reviews saying that the N97 has E71-like speed, and N-Series quality hardware, it sounds like a safe bet to tide me over until I can give the N86 a spin. Afterall, we're still talking about phones that easily trump even the most recent of iPhones, so any direction I go with a Nokia, even if temporary, is still leagues ahead of any Apple device.
The Nokia E75 device is considered by many to be the final evolution of the Communicator Series by Nokia. It features a fairly spacious keyboard, a wealth of connectivity options, an impressive software set, and an exterior that gives away nothing of the potential that lies within. The original recipe called for rather large unit, with a side-hinged clamshell design that opened much like a miniature laptop. This layout would result in a spacious keyboard on the inside and a spacious keypad on the outside, making it an absolute joy to use for extended text input. These were all things to be found on the last definite descendant of the Communicator line, the Nokia E90.
Paired with more connectivity options than ever before, the E90 was undeniably the most awe-inspiring device of it's time. Any type of connection you wanted, the device had. It had new tricks up it's sleeves that the old Communicators weren't even capable of if they had wanted to: the same OS that the user interacted with on the inside display was to be found on the external display as well. (The Communicators had a S60 system internally, S40 system externally.) This meant that the phone could adapt to any environment it found itself in. If you needed to read an email but wanted to be discreet about it, the external display would perform this task just as easily as the internal one. Want to send a text message but realize halfway though that a more lengthy reply is needed? Just open up the device and continue using the keyboard.
It is therefore understandable how the E75 is seen as an evolution of the E90. It's "more than meets the eye" approach in design elegantly hides the features packed within. The QWERTY keypad is among the most spacious ever found on a Nokia handset. And, seeing how the E90 is no longer offered, the E75 currently possesses the largest QWERTY keypad found in the E-Series line. The E75 is also offered in the same three color shades as the device it "replaces". (Black, Brown, and Red.)
Where the E75 holds on to it's roots, it also blazes ahead into new, uncharted territory. It's Nokia's first side-slider handset. It's the first E-Series to feature N-Gage capabilities. It features a 3.5mm headset jack, a first for an E-Series device. And it's also the first E-Series handset I've ever encountered with User Data Protection. (UDP: When performing software/firmware updates, user data and programs are unaffected. Without UDP, this information is typically wiped clean.)
So what, then is the E75? Is it a member of the Communicator line, or is it an evolution of those devices into something new? Something... unique? Let's find out.
- Quad-Band GSM (850/900/1800/1900)
- Tri-Band WCDMA (850-or-900/1900/2100) (Depends on user's market.)
- 2.4" QVGA TFT Display (240x320) (16 Million Colors)
- S60 v3 w/Feature-Pack 2
- 3.2mp CMOS Camera w/Autofocus
- VGA Front-Facing Camera
- BL-4U Li-Ion Battery (1000mAh)
- 5h 20min GSM Talk-Time
- 4h 20min WCDMA Talk-Time
- 9h VOIP via WLAN Talk-Time
- 25h Continuous Music Playback
- Bluetooth 2.0
- WLAN 802.11b/g
- 100/60kbps GPRS
- 296/177.6kbps EDGE
- 384/384kbps WCDMA (3G)
- 3.6mbps/384kbps Class 6 HSDPA (3.5G)
- MicroSD Slot (hot-swappable)(4GB Card Included)(Support for 16GB)
- 50MB Internal Dynamic Memory
- MicroUSB Connector (Supports Charging)
- 3.5mm AV-Out/Headset/Headphones/Line-Out Jack
- 111.8 x 50 (closed) / 80 (open) x 14.4mm Dimensions
- 139g Weight
As you can tell, very little is left out from the E75. About the only things you might find on a competitor's phone for this same type of consumer would be a touchscreen and/or a larger display. While these things might make or break certain customers, they are not to be found here. In fact, they're not to be found on any E-Series device, at all. Why? Well, it would seem that Nokia has realized these features don't matter much to it's customers. Between stylus and keyboard input for text, most would choose to have the keyboard, especially when lengthy emails are involved. If you're writing an email while walking in an airport terminal or attempting to dial while driving a car, the lack of a touchscreen really begins to make sense here. And where large, high-resolution displays look brilliant for photos and videos, we are talking about a business device here. A sharp, easy-to-read display is more desirable for these consumers, and that's exactly what Nokia delivers.
Compared to most phones that are easily available here in the US (which is the same thing as saying handsets offered directly from carriers), the E75 shines with it's wealth of connectivity options. It's 3.5G connection is lightning fast, even here in the USA where AT&T supposedly limits HSDPA to 1.4mbps. (At least that's what the iPhone 3G supposedly has, leading me to believe that the E75 is able to use it's full bandwith capabilities on AT&T's network.)
Infrared is the first thing that I noticed wasn't on the list. It was a feature built into the E90 and devices as recent as the E71 and E66 that I know of. It's something of a legacy feature, a fall-back in case you encounter a device you need to communicate with that doesn't support any of the newer communication protocols. I found it useful for last-minute essay printing and for messing around with sending documents to an older Handspring Visor.
New this time around, though, is the 3.5mm jack. The E75 is now capable of performing like an N-Series and standing in as an MP3 player. However, that's not the end of the capabilities of this jack. It also features AV-Out, something N-Series devices could always due but E-Series could not. The potential this feature unlocks is nearly endless... if you should be at a meeting and have a computer failure, a powerpoint presentation is still manageable using the E75. Oddly enough, however, the cables necessary to do this are not included with the device. This could be because Nokia wanted to stick with the "standard kit" that an E-Series device comes with, or they didn't feel that the device warranted a real need to come packaged with this cable. (This could also have to do with N-Gage not being pre-installed, something I'll get to later.)
Design:
Being Nokia's first side-slider design, they deserve a significant amount of congratulations right off the bat. Why? Because of how well executed their attempt was. I have seen a fair amount of side-sliders, all of which have been thick and heavy yet feel cheap and flimsy. The E75 is none of these things. The device is thin with a good share of heft to it, and the slide is smooth and sturdy. Granted, when Nokia released THE definition of what a slider phone should be, aka the E66, it's hard to call the E75 perfect. The silver slide-bar that splits the keyboard in half makes closing the phone a not-so-perfectly-smooth operation if there is any amount of pressure pressed down on the screen. Yet, if this silver piece did not exist, the phone's QWERTY keypad would be the victim of wear-and-tear from the abrasion of the two surfaces rubbing together. It's actually a rather clever idea of Nokia to put that little silver slide piece in there, and I have to commend them on such a simple solution to a problem I've seen affect other side-sliders. (And note that while some other reviews of the E75 call the silver piece "pointless" and request Nokia to remove it, I actually think it's perfectly acceptable in this implementation.)
Externally, the E75 is similar to many other candybar E-Series S60 handsets. It features the Naviwheel, left and right softkeys, send and end keys, home, backspace, calendar, and email buttons, in addition to a full keypad. Where it differs from other E-Series is it's 4-piece keypad. That is, there is one piece of plastic that flexes to serve as three buttons. (Ie. The 1, 2, and 3 keys are all accessed by pressing on different parts of the same piece of plastic.) This is something previously seen on the Nokia N79 and N78, and the appearance here seems to mimmic that of the N79. Honestly, I feel that the implementation of this was a mistake. While adding a more visually appearing keypad is always a good thing, the fact that this device loses some of it's usability as a result is never a good thing. To reiterate, this is an E-Series business-class device. This device will be in the same type of environment where ThinkPads and steel filing cabinets are used.
Same thing goes for every other key on the front of the device, actually. The Naviwheel is too stiff and doesn't offer enough of a click to confirm a press. The center select button, however, does. But then we get to the other keys such as the backspace/right-soft-key. Once again, Nokia followed through with the one-piece of plastic to span both keys. While this completes the visual theme and any other way of constructing the keys simply would be design suicide, I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to press the left soft-key and instead pressed the home button, or dial a number but instead open the calendar. It's simply frustrating and I highly dislike it. My solution? Give the phone the same type of keys found on the Nokia N82 and I'd be much happier.
In fact, all of the keys have turned out to be rather... unusual. The QWERTY keypad has flat keys with very little tactile feedback. This makes typing with fingernails an undesirable situation, but typing with fingertips rather awkward. The sensation is similar to that of pressing on a table... the buttons have very little travel, and while there actually is a click, it could be a lot more than it is here. Same with the alphanumeric keypad... texting using those keys often requires editing as not all key presses are registered due to the stiffness of the keys. Sadly, the Naviwheel and volume buttons also are afflicted. Curiously enough though, the camera shutter button is not affected by the same curse!
Entirely from an aesthetic point of view, the keys on the E75 are beautiful. The alphanumeric keypad looks almost as if it had no moving parts at all (ahem), and the illumination is flawless. In low-light conditions, the key illumination does bleed a bit into the cracks a bit, but it's not a spoiler of the look the phone is trying to pull off by any means.
The QWERTY keypad features matte keys that set them apart from the rest of the keys on the phone. It's almost as if they appear different from everything else on the phone because they serve a unique purpose. They have a very business-oriented appearance to them, especially with their flat, square keys. They remind me of the keys found on the HP netbooks (and newer laptops) which is definitely not a bad thing. On my model, they shift colors depending on the angle of the light from a deep red to almost a burgundy-brown. I frequently have picked the E75 up off a table merely to inspect this phenomenon as it intrigues me.
Unfortunately, the illumination on this keypad is rather poor. The backlighting actually does close to nothing unless it's being used in a truly dark environment... and by that I mean a closed room with all the lights off. Until that point is reached the lighting can be seen to be uneven at best, with LED's locatable under the "T" and "U" keys. However, in the true dark it's as if the lighting somehow becomes more even, and these two bright-sports aren't a nuisance anymore.
Straying away from the buttons on the E75, the rest of the device is actually quite appealing. The choice of colors (red, sand, and black) are all quite appropriate for the environments they will be serving. The silver-gray body on all of them is a nice compliment to the color trims, as is the stainless steel textured back. As a unit, the entire phone is properly sized, easy to hold to the ear, and comfortable. I did find the earpiece to be located a bit too high on the phone for my liking, requiring an unusual placement on my ear. Also, the heft of the device, while great for messaging, seemed a bit much for long phone calls. I often found myself trying to prop the elbow of my phone-holding arm while on lengthy phone calls, something I cannot remember doing with the featherweight N82.
The light sensor and front-facing camera are integrated neatly, but I still wish that they could have been built in to the rest of the phone face just a bit better. Wishful thinking, I suppose. On the rear, the only two things to be found are the loudspeaker and 3.2mp camera. The loudspeaker is something I have yet to wrap my mind around. On one hand, it can be quite loud without becoming distorted, and all the audio it can pump out is always crystal clear. On the other, if the phone is placed face-up on a table, the speaker is partially muted. Pick it up and hold it in your hand, and the way I hold the handset just so happens to place a finger right over the speaker. That's actually convenient a lot of the time, because then the audio alerts for various items are physically muted while I can feel the phone vibrating or visually notice the flashing Naviwheel.
Sides of the phone house the 3.5mm jack, charging jack, microUSB port, MicroSD slot, volume rocker, shutter key, and lanyard loop. I wish that the volume rocker had a bit more tactile feel to it, but it's something I've gotten used to with time. The shutter button I am a very big fan of, in part because of the excellent camera which I won't get into here. The camera placement, however, I gladly applaud. All of the writing aligns such that the phone is held exactly like a digital camera and operated nearly identical to one. (This took my partner in the Teach the Technophobe challenge by surprise, actually.) While not exactly sculpted to look like a digital camera, the E71 at least gives the appearance of a phone who's camera means serious business.
The lanyard loop is self explanatory, as are the microUSB and MicroSD on the other side. (I will note, however, that they are covered by some rather stiff rubber which actually keeps them closed quite well, even though I'd have preferred to see a plastic door like the N82 or E90.) Moving to the top of the device, it has the 3.5mm jack, which cannot be described any more than being perfect.
I decided to write this section a bit differently than normal, with bullets of thoughts as opposed to paragraphs, thinking it might better represent the time I've spent with the E75. It'd also give me the chance to come back at a future point, and update with any new findings or conclusions I might have made.
- Nokia changed the icons! They're now the OVI icons... which basically means that they're similar to the standard S60 icons, but with more vibrant colors. It's a nice touch... and addresses one of my main complaints about the E-Series devices: their UI's are usually so boring!
- I want to meet the person who decided to hide the Media folder (which itself contains the Radio, Music Player, Music Store, Video Centre, Camera, Podcasting, Share Online, Recorder, and Realplayer applications) inside of the Applications folder. And then I want to punch them in the face! It took me quite some time to find the Music Player, and I was impatient to start using the 3.5mm jack with standard headphones!
- The phone lost two accelerometer features with the firmware update... one was "ignore call on tap" and the other was "silence phone on flip" or something like that. They were hidden in the settings for the "Sensors". I'm not saying I was ever going to use these features (probably not), but it would have been nice to see them stay.
- The LCD is really nice. And I mean really nice. The viewing angle is super wide, and the colors and white balance are amazing. Do I miss the E90's wide high-resolution screen? ...not really.
- I'm not sure why but the keys surrounding the Naviwheel seem to be slanted towards one another. This is something you only notice when the light is reflecting off of them just right, and it's enough to drive me slightly mad. If the goal was to continue the one-piece horizontal theme of the dialpad, why did they decide to slant only a few keys?
- The Naviwheel's breathing light goes off when on a phone call. This means in the dark, your face pulsates white. Not exactly a useful thing to point out, but it is amusing.
- I cannot tell you how annoying it is to use the left-soft-key. Half the time I accidentally press the home button and end up where I have to open up the task manager to get back to where I was. That's just a bother to no end. Nokia seems to have noticed this, because from the home screen, the left-soft-key and home key do the same thing oddly enough.
- The QWERTY keypad takes some time to get used to. So far I've never used the right shift key even once. It's probably a habit I've learned from my E71. Also, I constantly find myself reaching past the silver bar to the left with my right thumb (or the opposite with my left) to hit keys. I almost feel as if I'm doing something "wrong" by doing this, but once again it's just a habit from the E71's smaller keypad.
- Special characters such as ß are accessible by holding the "Chr" key and then the "S" key on the keyboard. I came across this by accident. The E71 way of doing this is to press the "Chr" key and then the "S" key. It didn't require holding the first key. Oh well.
- The fact that the "1" (also the "Q" key) and the "!" (also the "A" key) are so close, and blue, I often push the wrong one, delete it, then press it again, delete it, try one more time, before I realize that I'm pressing the wrong button. It's quite annoying but it's something that would be solved with time.
- I'm beginning to like the "*" key being the bluetooth toggle key. If only the "end" key worked to change profiles from any screen, I'd be happy. (What was wrong with the dedicated power button, Nokia?)
- The camera takes really nice pictures. Oh, and video too.
- Red is a very good color for this phone. It matches a lot of red things I have, actually! From the red writing on the shirt I'm wearing now to my flannel pajamas to cherries to just about anything. It also complements sand-colored things in addition to jeans, lots of foods, and notebooks.
- I somehow keep forgetting about the 3.5mm headset jack. I would love to have an AV-Out cable to test emails on a television. Unfortunately, I have neither that cable nor a television (yet), so I cannot test this out. I'd also want a bluetooth keyboard, now that I really think about it, and I don't have one of those.
- It's sometimes hard to wipe the grease off of the phone's screen. I hate letting people borrow my phone.
- Battery life is absent! Nokia, where have you gone with my hours of entertainment?! Seriously! E62 could survive for days before even losing one bar of battery. And that's with it's bluetooth turned on. E90 followed in the same path, but with bluetooth on there was a definite hit to battery life. E71 and E66 are somewhere between those other two. But now we have the E71. Even though it is packed with a fairly substantial battery, you'd be lucky to receive Nokia's battery statistics. After about 6 hours on standby, I received a phone call and after two hours (it was a long one), my phone began to beep at me to tell me it had switched to powersaver mode and was on the last bar of battery. Keep in mind that it reported battery status as being full prior to the phone call. Either 1.) The battery status is a little wonky or 2.) The E75 is quite weak when it comes to phone calls. I'm going to experiment with shutting off high-speed data access and see if I receive a better battery lifespan with the expense of slightly-poorer sound quality.
- I once put the phone on full-volume while listening to internet radio, wondering why it was so quiet. I then picked up the phone and realized it had been sitting on a pillow and the speaker grille had been blocked.
- Why are there texture points around the "5" key on the alphanumeric keypad? It's not like it'll help you text without looking at the keypad for crying out loud.
- The Naviwheel stiffness is annoying. I never know if it registered my clicks or not.
- N-Gage functionality! I can now play all of the games I had loved to play on the N85 and N82. It's a bit weird though, and the stiff Naviwheel is especially irksome here.
- OTA updates?! Since when did these come out?! Just press "*#0000#", then press "Options", "Check for Update" and then you're done. The E75 has UDP so you don't even need a computer to truly gain all of the potential from this phone anymore!
- Using the secondary camera is nice. I am once again back to sending video messages to friends while driving about... much safer than texting. (I hope.) It's at least more amusing I'm told.
- I really like the new icons. They help the screen "pop" like I remember the N85 doing. (Except this isn't an AMOLED screen... just a TFT one.)
- Periods of extended typing (see previous posts composed and submitted entirely on the E75) actually isn't all that bad! The typing sensation is certainly weird but it's certainly manageable and doesn't leave your hands feeling cramped like the E71 occasionally does.
- Cell phone reception seems a bit spottier than the E71... I can't prove this, but it's just a feeling.
Conclusion:
With so much packed within, yet so many new design features, I return to my original question at the start of this review. Is the E75 a descendant of the Communicator line? My answer is... no. It's more like an E52 with a side-slide built in. It doesn't feature the truly roomy keyboard of the E90, nor the gargantuan display. It's as if the E75 was designed with a different type of consumer in mind. It wasn't made to go on business trips or edit word documents any more than that cherry was designed to serve as dinner. It was designed to be used in a technology-laden environment, where a spare charger was never more than a few yards away. The name of the E75 game is to have all the features and all the hardware, but slip easily into one's pocket without so much of a fuss.
A student, then, perhaps? With it's 3.5mm plug, N-Gage support, and trendy design, I would agree that would be a suitable fit. I myself would fall into that category... owning an E-Series but wishing it had very specific N-Series features. The E75 is like a crossover, a vehicle made to serve two different environments but never making it clear which one it wishes to associate most with. The fact that it gets comments on it's looks says nothing, as Nokia has managed to tweak E-Series devices into being designer phones as was proven with the E71. But it's the features, usage-hindering-design, and a build quality that is just not quite up to par with full-flanked E-Series devices.
Perhaps it is the perfect device. Paired with more functional buttons I should very much pin it as being so. I already see it as a step up from my E71 merely in terms of the software it comes with. It really has all the features I would like to have in a form factor I don't actually mind, if not for the annoying buttons. The presentation of the whole thing, from suitcase to the phone itself, is phenomenal. Yet as I try and summarize this flawed-yet-perfect device I'm left with the same feeling that the N86 gave me: Everything I want is right here on this device sitting next to me, but the couple of flaws it has leads me to believe that I'm better off waiting with my E71 than replacing it with an E75.
As for you? It depends really. The E75 is part rock-solid camera, part bulletproof messaging device. Oddly enough it got the first thing right, but the latter has a few quirks to adjust to. If you're looking at the E-Series line right now and deciding which one is "the best"... the E75 wins hands-down. At least until the E72 is out. But I'm not so sure about the E72... as it doesn't seem to have any hand-me-downs from the Communicator Series. The E75 on the other hand, has a few reminders here and there of where it learned it's best tricks: the massive do-it-all E90.
As I was sitting in the reading chair next to the window, waiting for the DHL delivery courier to arrive with my "gift" from Nokia, I started to fool around the the E75's camera. I was immediately impressed with the newly activated camera features as I mentioned in my previous post, but wanted to see if the camera quality had also been upped as well. Indoors, in a poorly lit environment, is never a fair environment to judge a camera's quality by, so I took a step outside and looked around for an interesting subject. Literally two feet from my door was this bottle-cap, sitting innocently on the ground.
I thought to myself, "Hmm... why not that? It's well illuminated, will give the macro a run for it's money, and see if the software will know exactly what I'm trying to focus in on. Plus, I really love macro shots...*click*"
The end result is here for your enjoyment. Noise levels are low, and the detail is actually amazingly good. Every scratch and ding on the cap is visible for inspection, as is the almost grotesque texture of the cement it rested on. Color balance seems suite good as well, showing none of the bluish-purple hue that an E71 occasionally lays on top of an otherwise perfect image. More test photos (and videos) to come soon!
I had decided to wander about and take pictures on Monday, since I had nothing to do and no place to stay. I wanted to geo-tag my pictures, but the Nokia E71 unfortunately hasn't implemented this well at all. So instead I decided to take a picture, then take a screenshot of the Nokia Maps application. The result is what you see here... I pasted the screenshot of my GPS location on top of each image.
I have yet to post a formal review of the HP MIni 2133, but I'm beginning to think it might not make any sense to do so anyways. Afterall, with a a device this old, what really would someone reading this want to know? They'd want to know daily usage, reasons a netbook of this type can replace a laptop, and the drawbacks of why it can't. Or something like that. I got mine used off of Craigslist in great condition, and it came with a Case Logic neoprene case and an extended battery. The guy I got it from didn't bring the original documentation or box to the meeting, but offered to give it to me later... I never took him up on his offer, deciding I really didn't need either.
Ultimately, I was planning to replace my MacBook Pro in my backpack. The idea was that the 2133 (aka MiniNote) would be leaps ahead of the Aspire One I used to own, allowing me to do most of the things I'd use my MBP for in a classroom situation. The MBP, being quite a hefty and expensive weight in my backpack, could be left at home and repurposed for large-screen tasks, multimedia, and other entertainment.
Strangely enough, I never brought my MBP to class once since transferring to the University of Oregon. Instead I did all of my note-taking by hand, having learned that I stay more alert and remember more this way. I also tend to look back at my notes, whereas digital ones I never do. (And if I were to print out my typed notes, I dislike reading them because of their harsh, flawless appearance.)
So the 2133 has tended to come to class everyday, fully charged. I end up using it before class, since I usually am 30 minutes early, and occasionally after if I find a nice place to settle down and do my work. I'll tell you, it's been a rough start getting the 2133 to be reliable enough to be used like this... I wanted to do a fresh install of Vista Business on the machine, but this turned out to be a bit more trouble than it was probably worth. It was running SP1, also, which I didn't want to be using.
I finally did manage to get a fresh install of Vista Business non-SP1, with all the correct drivers installed. Yet I still had reliability issues coming from apparently nowhere. Then I found a piece of advice which told me to put the battery power plan on "High performance" all the time. Guess what? All of my freezes and crashes completely disappeared. I'm now a very happy camper, running a decently snappy machine with full Aero.
I've now installed a bunch of software that has upped my capabilities... Microsoft Office, Skype, Pidgin, and now Nokia's PC Suite. Which means I have the Nokia Communication Center, which allows me to tether my Nokia E71 via bluetooth to the 2133. I can now leave the phone in my pocket and access all of the information on the device on the 2133. This could be useful in a classroom or library situation where using one's phone might be looked down upon or cumbersome, but now I can do so easily.
Probably one of the coolest features is the ability to compose messages. I can now compose SMS and MMS messages from my computer... quite cool if you ask me. I might also be able to compose emails which will be saved to the E71 for sending at a later point... useful for a vacation where I don't have WiFi access at my place of stay but will come across an unsecured network while out and about.
That's the update on the 2133 for now. More coming later on wireless tethering.
