There’s really just on way of saying it: on paper, the E61 is the ultimate phone for a geek. This new Smartphone from Nokia takes its shape after Blackberry and Treo devices- however offers a lot more than either of these in terms of features. Lets find out what I liked and didn’t like about the E61.

Starting with the packaging, the E61 is pretty much standard as far as packaging is concerned. Besides the main unit, Nokia bundles a mono headset, a 64MB mini-SD card, a USB cable as well the charger along with the user manual and drivers CD. I would’ve preferred a stereo headset bundled with the unit which is common with a lot of phones and is much better for listening to music. A carrying case would've also been a nice addition.

The E61 looks unlike any previous Nokia phone- in fact, it could probably be mistaken for a new blackberry or Treo. I like the antenna-less on-a-diet design. The phone is a lot thinner that any Smaprtphone available at the moment. However, it’s a bit wider than I would’ve liked- Nokia should lose a centimeter or two in the next revision. I also like the fact that there are barely any buttons on the sides of the E61. The left side has two volume buttons along with a voice-recording button that gets pressed too easily. The back cover houses the battery and your SIM card as well as a mini-SD card which is hot swappable however, it would've been nice if you didnt have to remove the back cover to change the mini-SD card.

The front of the unit features a 320x240 screen in landscape format which I think is the best idea for a Smartphone as it allows you the width to easily add a full thumb board and keeps the height short. On top of the LCD you have the power button on the right and an LED on left that flashes whenever an email arrives. Unfortunately, this is the only LED on the phone and there is no way of knowing whether you have Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or GSM enabled without looking at the screen. You also lose the ability of finding out if you have a text message or missed call without looking at the screen.

Below the screen, Nokia adds two soft keys as well as the send/end buttons and a five way stick in the middle. And underneath these navigation keys, you have a three row thumb board which is like any recent Treo or Blackberry device. I don’t like the shape of the keys and even though they’re slightly larger than the Treo’s thumb board, they feel a bit uneasy and hard to press. The centre keys of the thumb board also function as numeric keys. The E61 has a built-in light sensor that lights up the keyboard in low light conditions. The backlight works great on all keys except the ones that also act as a numeric pad.