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When it comes to messaging, the Nokia E6 excels, benefiting from the Messaging, Mail, Social, Chat and Communicator apps provided on Symbian^3 and accessed through the Contacts screen.
With the physical QWERTY keyboard, the Nokia E6 is a dream when it comes to text entry. No touchscreen interface provides the feedback quality you get with a physical keyboard. Although the keys are small, the rounded feel and raised centre tell the fingertips that the correct key has been pressed.
To aid in text entry, the standard Nokia T9 word completion and corrective word prediction is provided. You can disable this and install the recently released Adaptxt software if you prefer the predictive text functionality provided on Sony Ericsson smartphones.
The Messaging app is a standard text message app, with inbox and conversation views with MMS support.
Useful cross-functionality between the Messaging app and the calendar means that meeting requests can be received by SMS, prompting meeting creation if accepted. Also, map locations can be received via SMS from other Nokia phones, opening OVI Maps to show the location.
The Mail app supports Ovi Mail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, Mail for Exchange, BT Internet and Virgin Media. Our main disappointment is the lack of a universal inbox as provided on the iPhone 4 and even on the Vodafone 360, released back in 2009.
This just seems to be a logical progression that should have happened a long time ago on Nokia phones.
Instead of integrating social media with other messages, as seen on rival phones, Facebook and Twitter are accessed through the Social app, which shows separate and combined timeline views.
Instant messaging is available through the Chat app, which supports Ovi Chat, Yahoo Chat, Google Talk, MSN and ICQ. This doesn't come pre-installed, which is disappointing, but can be downloaded from the Ovi Store.
Communicator is a corporate IM app that links to a Microsoft Office communication server through an enterprise firewall.
