Nokia Launches ‘Big’ E7 Qwerty Phone

Nokia’s big event in London saw the launch of a qwerty-equipped device intended to fill the role of the much-loved Communicator series.  “It’s big,” said Nokia’s shortly-to-depart head of smartphones, Anssi Vanjoki.

The much-leaked E7 joined the N8 and the C6 and C7 in video demonstrations at London’s Excel venue, in keynotes led by vice president Niklas Savander and smartphone boss, Anssi Vanjoki, whose resignation announced this week does not take effect for six months.

The Communicator lives on

The much-loved Nokia Communicator, also known as “the Brick” predated most smartphones and was popular from its 1996 launch until the line folded in 2007. It included a qwerty keyboard and built-in email, and was regarded as an office-on-the-move by its fans.

The E7 reproduces a lot of the Communicator benefits, and is essentially a version of the N8 with a sliding keyboard. Other details of the product, including delivery date and price were not announced, but Vanjoki – clearly enjoying his last Nokia World appearance – repeatedly boomed that it was “big” with a four inch touch screen and thinner dimensions than its Communicator forebears. “Nothing beats a real keyboard,” said Vanjoki, adding that the phone can edit powerpoints on screen.

“Not the same old Symbian”

Early looks at the Nokia N8 expressed disappointment that the new version of the Symbian operating system, Symbian^3, has not been upgraded very much. Vanjoki asked the audience not to judge by the widgets on the screen, which would be like dismissing a new turbo-charged car “because the dashboard is familiar”.

He reminded anyone in the audience who had forgotten, that the N8 has a 12-megapixel camera and high-definition video, showed a trailer from Tron Legacy on the big screens from it, and also ran 25 apps at the same time, to emphasise its “real multitasking” ability.

Two other expected phones emerged – the C6 and C7. Respectively, these are a small elegant social media-friendly phone, with an 8-megapixel camera, and a slightly larger version, both in stainless steel, with “clear black display”, a “blacker than black” screen in which a polariser removes unwanted reflection making it more visible and less power-hungry. “It’s also greener,” said Vanjoki.

These phones are being promoted with a social media competition – whoever can get most coverage for a launch party for the devices can win 20 of them for their Facebook friends.

Nokia is back

Niklas Savander, preceding Vanjoki, had a harder job. After leading a possibly-sincere round of applause for sacked chairman Oli-Pekka Kallasvuo, he read an apology from new CEO, ex-Microsoft exec Steven Elop who was not able to be at the event, and then pumped up the volume for Nokia as a major force.

Savander reminded the audience that Nokia is still the world leader, selling more smartphopnes than Apple and the Google ecosystem combined, despite recent predictions that it would fall behind. Nokia sells 260,000 smartphones a day, he said.

The company is preparing to shift into high gear for “Nokia’s fight back”, with the new Symbian central to its return to greatness, he said – “faster, easier to use and more developer-friendly”.

He compared Nokia’s free Ovi Maps service to Google Maps, pointing out that it was faster and less data-hungry, as it was optimised for mobile devices, and it also works when the phone is not connected to mobile broadband.

“We won’t apologise for not being Google or Apple,” said Savandar. “We are Nokia,” he said, and concluded: “Nokia is back.”