Nokia's E62 a smart phone for the masses

25.10.2006
Nokia's new E62 smart phone may be tough for tech-savvy tightwads to ignore. Bargain-priced at US$149 (plus a service contract via Cingular), the device offers a slew of useful smart-phone features, supports most popular e-mail platforms and provides handy applications for road warriors.

It's not a device for folks who need speed or for power users who love lots of bells, whistles and buttons to push. And if you want a touch screen, a camera or zippy 3G cellular data access such as that provided by EV-DO, you'll have to look elsewhere.

But Nokia's E62 is refreshingly easy to configure and use, and it delivers all the basics that average business users need, plus some unexpected extras. In other words, while smart phones previously were aimed primarily at enterprise power users, this is a smart phone for the masses.

The feature set

At the top of the E62's feature list is strong support for e-mail. It supports Microsoft Exchange, BlackBerry Connect, GoodLink, Cingular's Xpress Mail and standard mail formats such as POP3 and IMAP. It also has built-in support for virtual private networks (VPN).

It has the usual organizer capabilities such as contact management and a calendar. It also has built-in tools for viewing and editing Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel files, Adobe's PDF format, a Zip Manager for handling compressed files and an attachment viewer.