I have the E66 for two weeks by now. The E66 really surprised me and I do like using it. There are things I like about the business slider and some I don’t like. I want to share these things with you. However, these are just the main-things, of course there are a lot more things I like or dislike.

Why to love it:

Built quality and form factor:

Nowadays more and more devices are made out of cheap plastic and feels also like that. The E66, however, has a stainless steel finish which looks indeed nobly and pretty stylish. The back is dominated by the great looking battery cover with the impressive Nokia Eseries label. Due to these materials the device has a great built quality and feels and looks pretty expensive. The slider and the battery cover are solid like a rock and do there job perfect. Especially the slider works really smooth and can be open/close really easy. Other than its awesome built quality the E66 also has a great form factor. Its dimensions are 107.5 x 49.5 x 13.6 mm, which causes that the E66 is really thin and not that big. Although, it’s that handy and thin it’s still puts an huge amount of features (WiFi, GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera and more) under its sexy hood.

Music player:

The E71 and the E66 are the first E-series devices to have the N-series music player pre-installed. This is a big step forward since not every E66 user is working 24/7. So, there is a equalizer, a bunch of options, a good user interface and a great transition between music and podcasts.

New applications:

The E66 comes with a bunch of total new or with new E-series applications. So you have the already mentioned musicplayer, as well as the Podcast application and the new Nokia Maps and Search. The total new applications are: Dictionary, Intranet, Modes, Encryption, Contact Search and a new Calendar.

I like especially the dictionary, Contact Search, Modes and the calendar. Modes is a pretty handy application which allows you to easily switch between two different surfaces with different themes, backgrounds, shortcuts and enabled applications.

Why to hate:

Camera in the dark:
In bad light conditions the pictures become pretty bad. Inside or outside with good light conditions the results are more or less good but using the LED some pictures become horrible. Here are some samples taken in different light conditions:

(click to enlarge)

More over, the E66 has a camera-key on right-side. Unfortunately, this key doesn’t open the camera application what I can’t understand.

2.5mm Jack
Well, the E66 is still a business oriented device but I don’t get the point why Nokia can’t use a 3.5mm audio jack instead of the 2.5mm version, especially since the E66 has such great multimedia abilities like none E-serie device before.

Volume up and power button:

One thing that caught my eye immediately was the red power button which doesn’t match with the rest of the device. More over, one of four buttons on the right hand side has a pretty bad pressure point. I’m talking about the volume up button. Pressing the other three buttons you can even feel a little “click” which you won’t find at the volume up button. However, although you can’t feel this click the button still reacts.

Related posts:

1. Nokia N85: Some Good & Some Bad Sides
2. Nokia N78: Its good and its bad sides
3. A great story ends: Good bye N95
4. Round-Up Of The ‘Good Things’ Event In London
5. Very good Nokia E71 live pictures!