Nokia E7 review

No matter how good the hardware is, we can’t forgive Nokia for sticking with Symbian. Our main bugbear is the networking model; it expects you to select a connection method for each application individually, so rather than just turning on Wi-Fi, you have to create a Wi-Fi connection which can then be assigned to an application. The next application you open will also ask which connection it should use. You can save this preference, but needed to assign a connection for each application is annoying.

This results in some strange behaviour. For a start, there doesn’t seem to be an Airplane mode toggle, because connections are tied to applications, so as long as you don’t open an app, you won’t connect. If you don’t have a SIM card fitted, you’re restricted to Offline mode, even though you can set up a Wi-Fi connection. This results in confusing messages such as ‘Create WLAN connection in Offline mode?’. The menu system is also far too complex and disorganised. The top-level categories don’t seem to have changed over the years, reflecting out-dated hardware options and features, while the numerous menu levels often terminate in only one option.

On a more practical level, we couldn’t seem to set up our email account. Despite widgets on the home screen that promise support for Gmail and other web email providers, the only option when you enter the setup process is Mail for Exchange. We tried entering our Gmail details, but despite a spinning logo indicating progress, our email wasn’t displayed, with no error message to tell us why. Nokia’s help page only suggests setting up an Ovi Mail account, and offers no help for Gmail or other free mail services.

Nokia’s Ovi app store is laughable compared to the Android, iPhone and Windows app stores. The featured apps on the front page are mostly casual games, graphical themes and other lightweight applications, whereas official apps from popular services such as Facebook and Twitter are missing.

With such gorgeous hardware but frustrating software, the E7 evokes mixed emotions, but, in short, we can’t advise our readers to invest in a handset whose operating system is obsolete, especially when that investment will set you back £440 SIM-free. For the same price you could have the pick of the best Android phones, such as the Google Nexus S, which offers the same amount of internal storage and has a larger screen resolution.