NEC e101 Review
By Jonathan Cheah
At A Glance:
Price: RM 799
Local Distributor: Global Web Distribution (GWD) Sdn. Bhd / NEC (M) Sdn Bhd.
Contact: 03-2178 3674
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Build quality: 8/10
Applications: 7/10
Interface: 7/10
Value-for-money: 8/10
Overall rating: 7.5/10
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+ Comfortable to hold
+ Relatively fast response
- Data cable not included
- No Bluetooth/infrared
- Camera lens in unusual place
- Navigation ring is difficult to use
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This is the lesser of the two NEC phones in Malaysia this year. One can almost remember the time when the Primero was the king of the hill, the must have accessory for everyone from businessmen to politicians, and triad members to loan sharks. That was a good 13-14 years ago, if I remember correctly.
Anyway, NEC no longer has the hottest phone in the market, but nevertheless, I found the e101 to be rather good, despite having what can be termed as a bare minimum in the handset. Nevertheless, the capabilities are quite good, as the handset can even go online with GPRS if necessary.
The hardware
The NEC e101 comes in a silver-coloured shell, much like that of a Samsung. I found that it was easy to remove the back cover and install the SIM card, so that was done with a minimum of fuss. Flipping the phone open with one hand was not too easy, as the shell was a little smooth and did not have grooves where the fingernails could catch upon and aid the opening of the clamshell.
The navigational part of the phone is rather difficult to use. It consists of a circular piece of metal shaped like a ring, and this ring can be pressed down in any of the four cardinal directions. However, it is so thin that my fingers kept slipping off. As a result, navigating around the menu was a terrible experience because of this. The hash button is rather hard to reach and press if you are trying to SMS with your right hand only, and the same would be true for left-handed people and the asterisk button.
Software styles
The software responded faster than I expected. After a slew of phones with low speed from some of the better-known names, it was refreshing to finally get something where the processor is obviously faster. This is readily apparent from the way the text appeared quickly when I typed text messages into the phone. I would say that the speed of the characters appearing on the screen was about just as fast as that on any Nokia phone.
The specifications say it all. The NEC e101 has an Openwave browser capable of connecting at GPRS class 10 speeds. It conforms to J2ME MIDP 2.0 standards, and has a regular VGA camera inside. It is a pity that the e101 is not capable of video capture, which is something available in nearly all of the newer phones now.
| Editor's Opinion |
I can find little to complain about this phone, although it is not exactly a device that one would describe as being on the cutting edge. I would say that this phone is good as a starter phone, something for a new user to experiment with. The speed is quite good, and the features are acceptable in most instances.
Either way, for RM 799, the features of this phone make it really worth buying. The best feature of the e101 would be its quick response time to inputs made by the user, and its worst feature would be the pathetic excuse for a navigational pad that pretends to be a controller for the phone.
The data cable, or rather the lack of it, did confound me as to what NEC really did hope to achieve by having that small hole at the bottom of the phone. I did rather like the bluish external screen for its clock though, which was a rather handy way to check the time when I am not wearing my watch.
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