Nokia E66 Cell Phone Review - Organizer

Nokia has made significant improvements to its Contacts and Calendar program, improving usability across the board. Tasks are only slightly improved, but the Active Notes application that comes with E-Series devices is a significant step up over the typical S60 notes program.

Synchronization (6.67)
The Nokia E66 ships with Nokia's PC Suite software that allows you to synchronize your contacts, calendar, tasks and notes with your Windows computer via USB cable or Bluetooth. Setup is straightforward, just install the software, connect your phone via USB for the first sync and follow the on-screen instructions. You can synchronize with Outlook on your Windows computer. If you're using a Mac you'll have to download Nokia's iSync plugin to enable synchronization.

Alerts (4.5)
You can set alerts on the Nokia E66 for both calendar appointments and tasks. Unlike previous S60 phones we've reviewed the E66 doesn't give you total flexibility over when an alert sounds, instead you'll have to choose from a list of presets that range from 0 minutes before to two weeks before, with a lot of options in between. We miss the flexibility we but have to admit the list of options is probably easier to use. You can't set the sound or vibrate options, instead the appropriate sound and vibrate will go off depending upon your active profile.

When an alert sounds you have get details about the item and have the option to dismiss or silence the alert. If you choose silence you can then choose to snooze it, which lasts five minutes. Unlike Windows Mobile devices you can't change how long the snooze lasts. If you miss the alert it will automatically snooze after one minute and sound again.

Over the Air PIM Sync (3.0)
The Nokia E66 supports over the air synchronization of your contacts and calendar appointments with an Exchange server or using Nokia's Intellisync service.

Adding Contacts (6.27)
It took us an average of 15.96 seconds to add a new contact to the Nokia E66. You can see below that this is faster than average, but amongst our comparison phones only the Nokia N82 performed worse.

The new contact interface looks the same.

We found that what slowed us down the most is that we had to open the left Options menu and then scroll down several items to get to a new contact interface. Still, the E66's performance wasn't bad, just not as good as devices like the Blackjack II. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Time to New Contact (sec)

Looking/Sorting/Search (7.0)
One of our biggest criticisms of searching for contacts on S60 devices has finally been addressed. The Nokia E66 support searching not just using multi-tap on the keypad but also predictive search. What this means is that if you are searching for Joe Bob with multi-tap you would have to hit 5-6-6-6-3-3 to spell out Joe. With predictive search you can just hit 5-6-3 and the phone will match all the combinations of letters on those keys, including Joe. This is a big plus, which makes us wonder why Nokia doesn't activate it by default. To get it to work just open our contacts and hit the * key to open your typing options, then choose Activate predict. search from the menu. We recommend everyone do this.

More support for predictive search and a handy new quick access menu in contacts.

We are also very happy to see that the E66 allows you to search for last names as well as first names, another upgrade compared to previous S60 devices. By default names are sorted by first name, but you can change this to sort by last name in the settings if you prefer. You can also view contacts by groups, with the group names included in the basic contact list. Just select the group to see all the contacts in that group. Another nice upgrade is that when a group or contact is selected you will see a small arrow on the right. Just press right on the D-Pad and you will get a little pop-up menu that allows you to choose how you want to contact that person or group. We awarded a bonus point for this feature. All in all the contacts on the E66 are a significant step up over previous S60 devices.

Fields (13.6)
When you create a new contact on the Nokia E66 you have the typical plethora of fields we've become accustomed to on S60 devices. There are a total of 54 fields. Eleven are displayed by default and you can add any of the additional 43 fields by hitting the left soft key and choosing Add detail from the menu. We think this is a better arrangement than Windows Mobile devices where all the many fields are listed by default. There's also the ability to rename any field so you can create your own custom items.

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (5.67)
The Nokia E66 supports speed dials, as you would expect from any phone. It does not support user defined voice tags for voice dialing, but this isn't too much of an issue as the voice command software did very well, recognizing all five of our diverse contact names. Strangely the voice command feature has two shortcut keys. As with most S60 devices you can launch it by pressing and holding the right soft key on the home screen, but there is a second dedicated key on the right side of the device that sits between the volume keys and does exactly the same thing.

Set aside the annoyance of having a third button sitting between up/down volume, we'll get to that later, we just don't understand the reasoning behind wasting a button on a device to add a second shortcut to exactly the same function. This is the same idiocy as the dedicated call history button on Motorola phones like the Razr, which does the exact same thing as hitting the send button. We've talked before about how button happy Nokia seems to be, to the detriment of their devices, and this is another example of that thinking. Throw in the fact that the button cannot be reassigned and the silliness is complete.

Adding Calendar Items (10.37)
Adding a new calendar appointment to Nokia E66 took only 9.64 seconds, which is significantly faster than average. It isn't as fast as what we saw from other smart phone like the Palm Centro, BlackBerry Pearl and Blackjack II, but it is fast. We found that the E66 was faster than its S60 cousin the N82 due to a couple of reasons. First the phone has a dedicated calendar button, just tap this to go to the calendar application.

The new appointment interface has been revamped.

Another nice new feature was that once you had your day selected, for us the following day for a lunch appointment, you can just start typing the name of the appointment on the keypad and it will automatically take you to a new appointment interface. Finally the E66 automatically includes a 15 minute reminder beforehand, this was something we've had to do manually on previous S60 devices. All in all we are very happy with the improvements. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Time to New Appointment (sec)

Calendar Views (4.83)
The E66's calendar views have also been upgraded compared to previous S60 devices. First of all a new view has been added, in addition to the standard month, week and agenda views a day view has been added that shows you the hours of the day along the left of the screen with appointments blocked out accordingly. We're not sure if this is really necessary as we find this type of view limited, but we guess some may appreciate it.

Monthly and Weekly views have seen serious upgrades.

The other views have also been improved. Let's start with the month view, we always liked that S60 devices listed the appointments for the currently selected day in a little pop-up box, but now the bottom half of the screen is dedicated for this, an arrangement we found more pleasing. The week view has seen a major upgrade. You still get the standard grid of hours on the left and days along the top, but when a day is selected it's column widens to give you a better view. You can navigate the grid easily and add an appointment wherever you want and current appointments are blocked out as you would expect. When you do select a current appointment a small pop-up appears above it that gives you more details about the appointment.

The daily view (right) has been added, but agenda view (left) looks the same.

Finally, the agenda view has no discernible changes, but is still very useful as it's a simple list of all your appointments and tasks due on a given date. We are very pleased with the upgrades Nokia has made to the calendar views on the E66, we hope to see them rolled out across all S60 devices in the future. Unfortunately not every problem has been solved as there is still no support for categories or filtering.

Fields (7.0)
The fields interface on the E66 has also changed compared to previous S60 devices, with a more streamlined look that packs more data into your screen real estate. The actual options have changed only slightly, however, with title, start/end, all-day, location, alert, recurrence and notes available. The recurrence features is still limited to a few presets, including daily, weekly, two weeks, monthly and yearly. We mentioned in the alerts section above that the total control over when an alert sounds is also gone, with a good selection of presets in its place.

Adding ToDo/Task (10.87)
Adding a new task to the Nokia E66 took an average of 9.2 seconds in our tests. This is a very good time, significantly better than average and the best amongst our comparison phones, as you can see below.

Like the calendar a new interface for creating tasks.

As tasks are built into the calendar on S60 phones likes the E66, all we did was jump into the calendar using the shortcut key and then choose to create a new to-do from the menu. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Time to New Task (sec)

ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (3.5)
As we mentioned above tasks on the Nokia E66 are built into the calendar program. They will appear on their due date in the calendar, but there is also a separate tasks view available that will list all of your active tasks. In this view tasks are sorted by due date, there are no options to sort by any other criteria, despite the fact that you can prioritize your tasks. There is also no support for categories or filtering your task list, similar to the calendar itself. This is unchanged compared to previous S60 devices.

A list of your active tasks offer no sorting options.

Fields (6.0)
The interface for creating a new task on the Nokia E66 has been revamped to reflect the changes that have occurred in the calendar application. This a minimal impact on the actual fields available, however. When you create a new task you can enter a title, due date, set an alert, priority and some notes. The last is the only new field compared to previous S60 devices. Still missing are things like recurrence and categories.

Adding Notes (5.15)
We were able to add a new note to the Nokia E66 in an average of 9.7 seconds. This is a solid time, significantly better than average and only beat out slightly  by a couple of our comparison phones.

Active notes doesn't look too different on the face.

We found that unlike most phones where notes are buried in the menu system Nokia put a shortcut to their Active Notes application on the home screen, possibly as a nod to business users that may use notes more often. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Time to New Note (sec)

Note Interface (4.0)
The Nokia E66 has Nokia's Active Notes program built in. This program is in addition to the typical notes application found on S60 devices. Because the Active Notes application is more capable than the standard notes program we will be considering its capabilities here. The interface of the Active Notes program is fairly straightforward. When you open it you get a list of your existing notes with a shortcut just above them to create a new note. This shortcut is almost superfluous because you can also create a new note simply by beginning to type one.

No support for folders, sorting or searching in Active Notes.

The right soft key is assigned to exit while the left soft key opens the Options menu. The options are fairly straightforward, the only additional feature we saw that was worth mentioning is the ability to create folders to organize your notes. Missing is support for searching your notes, categorizing them, filtering your list or sorting them by anything other than date created. So far we don't see much in the Active Notes application that is overly impressive.

Note Formatting (5.0)
Where Active Notes does shine compared to the typical S60 notes application is in the formatting options. There's no support for advanced text formatting list lists, bold, underline, etc, but there's very good support for adding multimedia and links to notes. You can add an image, sound clip, video clip, business card, bookmark or file. You can also link a note to a contact so that it will appear whenever you are on a call with that person. These are very nice features, especially for business users, and things that you don't get from the standard S60 notes application.

The really nice feature of Active Notes is the ability to add media and files.

Voice Memo (3.0)
The Nokia E66 has the typical S60 voice memo program built in. Unfortunately there's no easy access to it so you'll have to go into Menu - Media - Recorder to get it up and running. We would have liked to see a dedicated key for this function on a business device, we can't understand why there are two shortcuts to voice command and no shortcut for voice notes (see our rant in the contacts section for more on this). The application itself is not very impressive. Your notes are limited to one minute in length and you will need to switch programs to the Gallery to manage them.

The voice recorder is extremely basic.