Nokia E66 Cell Phone Review - Messaging

We found that creating new email and text messages on the Nokia E66 was rather speedy and we like the broad support for attachments. We do wish that there were a unified text and multimedia composition window and support for threaded messaging, however. The E66 does support Microsoft Exchange servers out of the box for push email, a feature that many business users will appreciate.

Supported Email Services (7.5)
As with most Series 60 devices the Nokia E66 offers support for a wide variety of email types including standard POP and IMAP email servers. We were also very happy to see that the E66 now supports automatic setup for popular email services including Yahoo, AOL and Gmail. This means that you just have to enter your address and password and the phone will take care of all the server settings for you. On previous S60 devices you had to enter all of this yourself, so we're very happy to see this upgrade. The E66 doesn't support Hotmail out of the box but you can find the installer for Microsoft's Mail and IM in the Download folder of the menu to add this support.

Push Email (4.0)
The Nokia E66 supports Microsoft's Exchange server for push email out of the box. Previously this was a separate download that you had to install so we did not award points for it, so it's nice to see it on the device out of the box now. There is also support for Nokia's push email service Intellisync. Nokia had previously made a download available for BlackBerry Connect, however this is not available for the E66. You can probably just find the older installer online somewhere to enable this, however.

Multiple Email Accounts (10.0)
The Nokia E66 can support multiple email accounts, up to at least the five we test for.

HTML and Attachments (8.5)
The E66 includes the full version of Quickoffice, which allows you to view and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint attachments. There's also Adobe PDF on board to view PDF files as well as a zip program that will allow you to uncompress attached zip files. This makes the E66 a very capable device for viewing attachments. On the HTML front things are less rosy. HTML emails are not rendered properly in the email program. Instead a link is provided that allows you to open the HTML email in the browser. Although this is better than no HTML support, it's not as good as modern Windows Mobile devices or the iPhone where HTML emails can be viewed inline in your email. As such we are only awarding half points for this support.

Email Customizations (2.0)
The Nokia E66 supports creating signatures for your email accounts that will automatically be added to outgoing messages. There is no support for other customizations like changing the height of the in the inbox, font size or type.

Time to a New Email Message (8.33)
It took us 2.4 seconds to create a new email message on the Nokia E66. This is the time from the home screen unlocked until we had a new message interface on screen. You can see below that this is significantly faster than average, but lags behind some of our comparison phones. You can speed this time up a bit by adding a shortcut to a new email message to your home screen.

Nothing fancy when you create a new email.

Despite not being as fast as BlackBerry Pearl, we were still pretty happy with the E66's performance in this test. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Time to New Email (sec)

Email Usability (6.0)
The messaging program on the Nokia E66 includes both email and text messaging features, as is typical on S60 devices. When you open the messaging program you get a set of mailboxes. Each of your email programs gets its own inbox here and they all share drafts, sent and outbox. When you open the inbox you get a list of email messages, each of which take up one line. You use up/down on the D-Pad to move between them while left/right will switch you to the next or previous mailbox. The right soft key takes you to the previous screen while the left soft key opens an Options menu where you can do things like create a new message, delete messages, mark or unmark them, etc.

The email interface has not changed from previous S60 phones.

When you open up a message the left soft key opens an Options menu where you can do things like reply to or forward a message. The interface is reasonably easy to use, but we did find the Options menus to be a little large and arcane. This is typical of our experience with the S60 email program, it's still a little behind that found on Windows Mobile or BlackBerry devices in terms of usability.

Instant Messaging (0.0)
The Nokia E66 includes an instant messaging client that can be used with Jabber servers. If you don't know what that means don't worry, Jabber is an open source instant messaging protocol that is not very common, certainly not in the U.S. The good thing is that unlike many carrier branded phones the E66 won't charge you a text message every time you send or receive an instant message. The bad thing is that if you want to use a more popular IM service like AIM or Yahoo you'll have to go find a client to install.

MMS Support (7.0)
Another area where Nokia's S60 interface is still lagging a bit behind is in its support for MMS. It's not that there isn't solid support for sending an MMS message from the camera or your album software, that is very good. No, what bothers us is that there is still an artificial distinction between MMS and SMS messages. We much prefer an integrated messaging interface that combines both types as found on the Palm Centro. We do like that both MMS and SMS messages share the same inbox, however. You just need to go a little further Nokia.

Adding some media to an MMS message.

SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
Those who like smiley faces will be devastated by the E66's lack of support for displaying them graphically or inserting them easily.

SMS/MMS Ease of Use (6.0)
We already mentioned the integrated inbox for both MMS and SMS messages, which we like a lot. We also mentioned that the interface to create the two message types are still separate, which we don't' like. Aside from these points the SMS/MMS support is very similar to that of Email, not surprising as they are housed in the same application. When you go into your inbox you get a list of messages that you can move up/down using the D-pad. The left soft key is assigned to the options menu, and just like with email we found the menu a little large. There's also no support for threaded text messages, which allow you to organize them by conversation like a chat client. This is a feature found on devices like the Palm Centro and iPhone, and we'd love to see it become standard on Nokia devices as well.

Time to a New SMS Message (6.25)
It took us only 1.6 seconds to get to a new text message interface on the Nokia E66, a very good time that's significantly better than average, although once again some of our messaging focused comparison phones beat it out.

Creating a new text message.

Basically all you have to do on the E66 from the home screen unlocked is hit the center select key on the D-Pad three times in a row, as the first shortcut on the home screen takes you to messaging, the first shortcut there creates a new message and the first item on the message type list is text messages. You can move even faster by adding a shortcut to your home screen that will take you directly to a new text message interface. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Time to New SMS (sec)