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Nokia E7 review: Battery life and connectivity
The embedded 1200 mAh battery apparently offers a talk time of up to nine hours. We'd concur, having charged it every few hours when the battery dropped to two bars following heavy media and intermediate internet use.
Actually, we'd go further than concurring, to say that if you're not rabidly streaming video or consuming internet, you'd probably get a solid two days out of the phone, given that you can turn it onto standby at night and still be woken in the morning by the alarm. Plus, on the bright side, the battery beats its HTC Desire Z and HTC Incredible S competitors.
The Nokia E7 is seriously blessed when it comes to connectivity options, offering an HDMI port, micro-USB connector, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, USB On-the-Go, plus Bluetooth 3.0 as per the Nokia N8.
There is, of course, also a wall charger included in the box… for nostalgic purposes, we can only imagine.
Connecting to the TV via the HDMI cable is pretty awesome; there's little sluggishness except for what we've already seen and anything that's already of a high definition (so not YouTube videos) will be decently rendered on the larger screen.
Audio files sound great, and the Spotify app makes anchoring the handset to a TV the perfect party piece.
The only complaint would be the cutting off of image when playing video – apart from that, this is an excellent feature.
Tethering to a PC is simple – head on into the connectivity settings > USB settings and be prompted by a kindly Nokia note. The Nokia E7 makes for a relatively slow modem, but in times of need and no open Wi-Fi to connect to, it would be a passable connection.
We had no grumbles of 3G overriding any Wi-Fi connections, unlike the Nokia N8. All applications consistently opened using Wi-Fi where present, and only ever politely asked what to connect to when it wasn't available. Excellent job, Symbian^3, we'd pat you on the head if we could.
As for PC connectivity, Nokia Ovi Suite is what it is – not a revolution, but perfectly usable. Or it would be, had the E7 been able to connect to the PC via Bluetooth. Despite several attempts, the handset simply couldn't find the tester netbook.
Luckily, USB 2.0 was there to save the day. If you're not too taken with the Ovi Suite then there's the standard drag-and-drop (often quicker than syncing).
