NEC e616V Review

Overall Rating

Big, high quality screen.
Speakerphone.
Expandable memory.
VGA camera.

Battery life not great.
UI tricky, takes a bit to get used to.
Only able to use AGPS for 3 services, and not able to use the compass.
5mb file size limit.

I've had the NEC e616V handset since it was released and I like it.

I think I should start with what most people consider to be the most important points:

1. Battery
It's not great, you will get 2 days out of the standard battery if you are lucky! In the box you get a standard battery(1100mAh, protrudes about 2mm from the back of the phone) which has an official standby time of 86 hours, and an extended battery (1800mAh, protrudes about 6mm from the back of the phone) and that has an official standby time of 127 hours. Both batteries are made by iTec. In the box you also get a dual charger, it lets you charge the spare without puting it in the phone.

In reality I honestly have not had a problem with the battery, it's a shame they didn't provide two standard batteries though, because the extended is huge! What I do, however, is when it needs charging (the standard battery), I pop it in the charger and in the mean time use the extended battety, it only takes a few hours to charge.

2. Size
It's not lightweight, you will notice it in your pocket, personally it doesn't bother me. However, the size of a phone is a personal decision, some people like big phones, some like tiny phone (like a Samsung S300). I think there is no point trying to convince anyone that this phone isn't really big, because it is, and it's a personal choice.

Those I feel are the two main stumbling blocks, I think the battery life is an issue if you will be unable to charge for long periods of time, but if you are it's less of an issue. You get into a routine, like I said I only use the big battery when the little one is charging, which is usually every other day.

3. The Screen
The handsets screen is about 5.6cm diagonally and is a good resolution (quite what I'm not sure to tell the truth), it displays pictures, graphics and videos well, and is usable in sunlight (not direct though as with most colour LCD's). The handset also has a smaller oustide screen, about 3cm wide and a bit under 1cm tall, it displays the time and signal etc, and tells you if you have a message or missed call (also says whom off if you push a volume key). This smaller screen lights up with you push either of the side volume buttons, incidentally the camera light goes on if you push and hold one of the volume keys.

4. The camera
It's got two camera's, the outer one being VGA resolution, and the inner one being CIF resolution. While VGA, the quality isnt overy great, its viewable, but theres just not enough colour in the photos unless the lighting is perfect. The quality just isnt as sharp as say with the Nokia 7600. The inner camera is similar, but i think the overall quality is of less importance as its only really used for video calling (low quality anyway) of taking snaps of you and your m8's to send via MMS.

5. The UI
It's not the easiest to pick up and use, but once you get used to it it's really quite logical. It is very different to a Nokia I'll say that much.

I find the home screen to be well layed out:
You have a Softkey for messages, and one for camera, in the middle of those it displays the time, and the date, has a little area to display icons (like alarm, call divert, or handset profile) and through the options key you can change the profile. It's nice the way it's all grouped together at the bottom like that.

Also at the top of the screen (all the time) is the battery, signal strength, network indicator, Packet switch indicator (3G data, or GPRS availability) also has the message icon, memory card icon, AGPS icon, or the USB connected icon when needed.

6. Features, other points.

Multi-Tasking
I love this feature, if you are say browsing services you can just push the menu key and it brings up the main menu, then you could say, write a message. Press the menu key again and then you could select to view a picture. To switch between them just push and hold them menu key and it brings up the taskbar, you can switch between then, or end them. You can have up to 3 different function running at once, quite handy I think.

Speakerphone

The handset has a quite effective speakerphone, the speaker is located on the top left handside of the front of the phone. Good for viewing videos, or video calling etc. Also you can play MP3's and close the handset, and they continue playing, and even displays the elapsed time on the outside screen.

Conclusion

Overall I find this to be a good phone that has a LOT of functions. In this review I have not commented on the service provided by 3 as I do not feel it is appopriate, as this review is of the handset not 3. I have also found that people have had somewhat mixed experences of 3, and because of this I feel it is inappropriate to comment on 3 other than saying that I personally have had no problems.

I recommend that if you are unsure of 3, and the service they provide that you shouldn't take anyones word on it. Try it yourself. There is a 14 day money back guarantee on contract handsets, and a 60 day money back guarantee on ThreePay handsets.