The Nokia E65

The E65 is yet another slider-style Smart Phone from Nokia, once again sporting the Symbian operating system. It also includes a 2-megapixel camera, MicroSD expansion slot, and support for WCDMA at 2100 MHz (though this band isn't used in North America). The phone was tested only on the standard GSM voice network presently offered by Rogers (and by extension, Fido, 7-11, and other virtual network providers who use the Rogers network).


The E65 has approximately the same over-the-road performance as most other Nokia models I’ve tested, which is to say okay, but hardly stellar. Handoffs are generally tamer than in earlier Nokia models, but the number of handoffs and the overall network experience while on the move is decidedly sub-par compared the recently-tested Sony-Ericsson z710i. If it weren’t for the z710i I might be more impressed with the E65, but alas technology marches on and the z710i raises the bar. That leaves the E65 looking like old-tech.


Outgoing sound quality was nice, but the phone had a nasty habit of picking every little scrap of background noise and sending it along to your caller. For example, MOST phones suppress background noise well enough that using them in a reasonably quiet car at 60 km/h wouldn’t give your callers any clue that you were driving. Under the same conditions with the E65 however, your callers will be quite aware that you are driving.


I tried the driving-past-a-tractor-trailer-with-the-window down test and the E65 failed miserably. While such noisy conditions are unusual, they do demonstrate just how well a phone can cope with background noise. While some phones I’ve tested can continue to transmit quite understandable audio under such severe conditions, the E65 is totally impossible to make out.


So while the E65 possesses excellent fit & finish, decent RF sensitivity, and good earpiece volume, not much else really got my attention. Virtually every other aspect of the phone was in some way inferior to what one could expect from other phones on the market, including other Nokia models. It’s not a terrible phone by any stretch of the imagination, but despite some of its gee-whiz features, it fails to rise above mediocre.