The Quad-Band GSM E61 uses the Symbian OS to power its internal software and components and Its got everything you could want from a connectivity point of view, but lacks a camera at the front/back which may cause a concern for some.

Other people have reported that the keyboard is also a tad too close together for comfort, thus this is one of the reasons why Nokia are bringing out the E61i - not sure when mind.

From the off the E61 looks stylish and is light and comfortable to use (weighing in at 144g). It also houses a fairly large 320 x 240 pixel display plus a qwerty keypad which we found responsive and did not have a problem with the keys spacing - for those who use mobiles this keypad is miles better.

The Nokia E61 provides 3G(UMTS), dual Wifi and Bluetooth support. We found that our Orange sim reception was really good and kept a pretty strong signal to the 3G network.

Though there is no front or back camera you can still do 3G video calls, its just that the person on the other end can't see you but you can see them sort of thing.

Its symbian OS is really easy to navigate and a quick click on the menu button reveals a shed load of useful utilities and applications, for example you have a 4 month trial of Telemap Navigator (requires Bluetooth GPS receiver to use),office style document viewers/editors that are compatible with Microsoft Office apps, VPN connection software for remote access, Exchange email support, Blackberry connect (that allows you to connect to Blackberry email), IM Chat programs, HP printer software, the list goes on.

Browsing web pages displayed fine through the landscape screen and it coped with large websites perfectly (that also contained flash), the web browser even provides you with a virtual on-screen cursor for navigating through pages.

Linking up to our test Wifi router was painstakingly simple and we were connected in moments, accessing our remote servers and taking control using VNC for Symbian was also easier to navigate than we expected thanks to the handy joypad.

Battery and general all round performance was good, with a claimed battery life of 5 hours for connectivity use and a standby of nearly 10 days this should be more than adequate.

You get 64mb of fixed user memory and an external 64miniSD card available out of the box , but the card is located behind the back cover making it hard to get to.