The built-in AGPS system works very well and comes with European Nokia maps on the supplied 2GB microSD card. It found a signal easily enough and plotted routes exactly as you'd expect, so we had no complaints there. You can save map pages as screen shots and view them in 3D. While the screen may be a bit on the teensy side for use as a sat-nav while driving, voice guidance is available for £7 a month and as a walk-around guide, it was pretty much excellent.
The E66 more than doubles the E65's onboard memory to 110MB and you can add up to 8GB with a hot-swappable microSD card - you had to remove the battery on the E65. QuickOffice4 allows you to read and create Word, Excel and PowerPoint docs, plus Adobe Reader lets you view PDFs.
Connectivity-wise it's got everything you need
There's also a fairly efficient (in small doses) text scanner, a barcode reader, a wireless keyboard connector and a voice recorder with its own dedicated button on the side. And as a Symbian phone of course there are plenty of options for downloading additional applications. Battery life has almost doubled on the E65, promising up to seven hours talktime and 14 days standby. Certainly, we found it held up well with a good three days of moderate use before we had to plug it in.
Verdict
The Nokia E66 is as fine an example of a business phone as you'll come across. It offers a full range of connection options, plus push email and fast web browsing in an extremely stylish package that also throws in a 16million colour screen, 3.2 megapixel camera and AGPS. The only thing it's missing is the QWERTY keyboard offered by its E71 cousin.
Nokia E66 smartphone
COMMENTS
@Mage
What's the point of sliding out the SIM without powering down as it causes you to lose connectivity anyway and when you insert the new SIM it has to register so not sure what time you think you are saving.
Missing a QWERTY keypad
says who? Its a business phone without a QWERTY keypad, not missing one though.
Does it improve the RAM or it is as useless as the 65 for smartphone use
The E65 has just about enough RAM to run the bundled SIP client and browse the web. The moment you try to use th IMAP client you are facing the choice of "either SIP or IMAP". So the question is - did they improve the RAM or t is the same crap as before. If it is the same crap as before (64M) it is better to shell out the few extra quid for a proper N-series gadget.
Another question is - did they fix the Bluetooth bugs. With an E65 if you walk out of handsfree coverage you quite often have to reboot (especially if you use the SIP client as well). Quite annoying actually. You almost fell like you are running Winhoze...
Me coat, the one with "Enough E-series, I am going for an N78" on it.
Re: Eugene
I have mostly bought Nokias in the past. Last time I was considering upgrading to a smat phone I had a look at the various Nokia offerings, and, basicly gave up.
The profusion of slightly different E.. and N.. models means you need to scan the fine details of feature lists making sure it has what you need and trying to work out what each model has and whethere its worth hte extra -- OK so far this is just normal tech shopping.
The problem is that having done the research and choosen a model its probably not in stock so you have just wasted an hour of your time, or, if it is in stock and you get your hands on one the build quality is c**P and the UI is stoneage and none of the apps are usable.
I really htink they ought to spend the time on fewer better phones, and, spend a lot more time unclunking the user interface.
Why?
Isn't this just a dumbed down N95?
What 'business' features are we really talking about here? Push Email?
