Nokia E7 review

Nokia E7 review: Contacts and calling

This should be the bread and butter of the Nokia phone. Contacts and call log are accessed through Home screen shortcuts and laid out in a scrolling list view (whichever way you tip the handset).

Here, it's a trademark Nokia phone all the way – utilitarian, useful, and a bit boring, frankly. Supported smart dialing and minimal social integration is about as interesting as it gets on the Nokia E7.

After transferring SIM contacts to the phone memory, we could search through 'social networks' (by this, Nokia simply mean Twitter and Facebook) and sync, adding imagery to the phonebook entry.

But to see any sort of social network status updates we had to then click through the Nokia Ovi client, wasting time while it loads and you sign in, to then have to dip into the Facebook or Twitter mobile site.

Clearly this handset has nothing on the HTC range, including its closest in design, the HTC Desire Z. It also misses a trick not linking contacts to Foursquare, plus populating your contacts list with imagery takes a huge amount of time.

So, from the features it doesn't have, to the simple things it can do:

If you're called by an unsaved number, simply dip into the log, long tap the number and the option to save to contacts will appear.

Dip into the settings to set up speed dial shortcuts, which can then be accessed through the Call button on the Home screen.

The dialler is easy to reach through a Home screen shortcut, as is the call log, though you can get to this through the dialler, too.

Favourite contacts can be added to the contacts list, ensuring they're always at the top.

And smart dialing ensures typing in a number will bring up the corresponding letters from the alphanumerical pad, for quicker, intuitive dialing.

There is the option of voice operated dialling, but amusingly the voice dialling recognition isn't very keen on Northern accents apparently; asking it to dial "Mel" would result in choosing to dial "Neil" or "Dan". Obviously not what was said, though others may disagree.

Unless your voice sounds particularly robotic in the first place, we'd stick to regular dialing.

There's also a video calling option, though we'd hedge a bet that most of your contacts won't be utilising this particular feature, it's nice to know it's there.

Of course, this is the one type of smartphone that will excel at actually calling people. Nokia's can never be faulted for that. The connection was tenacious, even in a loud pub with one bar of signal we could still have an clear-enough conversation.

It's great that despite being a sleeker-looking, fully featured phone, it still retains its 'Old Faithful' Nokia calling capabilities.

Call quality is clear and the volume gets nice and loud, and can be adjusted using the volume slider. However, clicking to the Home screen doesn't result in the call ending, meaning a few awkward voicemails were left before realisation dawned. Lesson learned: always click red, kids.