Nokia E55

Available now
16th February 2009

The Nokia E55 is Nokia's slimmest and most compact messaging phone to date. Weighing just 98 grams and coming in at only 9.9mm thick, the E55 squeezes in all the features of a much bigger phone into a handset about the same size as a standard business phone.

The most obvious difference between this phone and other E-Series messengers is the "compact QWERTY" keyboard which is somewhat similar to the one found on the popular BlackBerry Pearl.

Nokia have done more than just shrink the phone down, they have also had a good look at the battery life. the large 1500 mAh cell can power the E55 for up to 6 hours talktime on 3G and 8 hours on GSM. Standby time is an impressive 19 days on 3G and an astonishing 28 days for GSM users.

Despite the small size, the E55 still manages to pack in WiFi, 3.5G support (HSDPA and HSUPA), a 2.4" QVGA display, A-GPS, an FM radio, multimedia player, microSD expandable memory, a 3.5mm audio socket and stereo Bluetooth.

On the back is a standard 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and VGA-resolution video capture. This is common to many E-Series phones and is pretty decent despite its limited resolution.

Because this is a Symbian S60 smartphone, it comes with a whole load of applications such as support for several different types of email account, the ability to edit Office documents, VPN support and data encryption. You can expand the software by using Nokia's upcoming Ovi Store, or you can buy direct from a number of independent developers.

These compact QWERTY keyboards are a love-it-or-hate-it thing. The E55 supports predictive text and on-the-fly error correction, but some people will prefer the larger and more traditional keyboard on the E75 and other E-Series handsets.

The standard sales package includes a 2GB microSD card, expandable up to a maximum of 16GB.

Underneath, this is a quad-band GSM phone with tri-band UMTS / WCDMA support (frequencies vary according to region). The maximum download speed on HSDPA is 10.2 Mbps, and uploads of up to 2 Mbps can be achieved using HSUPA. These capabilities should mean that the E55 will make an excellent tethered modem for a laptop.

Nokia say that the E55 should be available during Q2 2009 in White Aluminium and Black Aluminium colour combinations at an estimated price of €265 before tax and subsidy.