Nokia E71 Review

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In a nutshell: The Nokia E71 is Nokia's greatest challenge to BlackBerry yet. With full support for push email, attachment editing and web browsing, Nokia have definitely parked their tanks on the BlackBerry lawn. The E71 also features full multimedia capabilities, including a 3.2 megapixel camera, video calling, and a media player. HSDPA, WLAN, GPS and big battery power complete the package. It's available in a choice of Grey Steel or White Steel.
Best buy: *Free* with a free Sony Vaio laptop from Mobiles.co.uk or free from Vodafone Business Shop or Three (Grey).

Review: September 2008.

It's the Nokia E71 vs the BlackBerry Bold for the title of best business phone of 2008! For the past couple of years, BlackBerry have been carving out a niche as the brand of choice for corporate users, with their winning combination of full or near-full QWERTY keypads and push email systems. Nokia have been steadily improving the user-friendliness and power of their E series phones too, and now it seems that both BlackBerry and Nokia have made a further leap forward and both landed up with highly polished mobile communications devices. Whether you choose the BlackBerry or the Nokia, you shouldn't go far wrong when it comes to communicating on the move.

Nokia E63 Review

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In a nutshell: The Nokia E63 is arguably the company's first BlackBerry-beater. With full support for push email, attachment editing and web browsing, an absolutely superb QWERTY keyboard, WLAN and 3G support, it meets the full needs of the business user. The E63 also has a camera, video calling, and a media player. It's missing HSDPA and GPS, but these are really its only faults.
Best buy: *Free* from Three (Black); or £149.99 on PAYG from Three (Black).

Review: March 2009. Last updated August 2009.

The Nokia E63 is the little brother of the E71 business smartphone. We liked Nokia's E71 BlackBerry-buster a lot, awarding it 5 stars and concluding that it was better built than the BlackBerry Bold, had great applications, connectivity and battery life but was beaten by the Bold on the size of the display, memory and ease-of-use. Can the E63 address any of these issues without compromising anything important?

Nokia E51 Review

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In a nutshell: The Nokia E51 is a powerful communications device equipped with email, a wealth of organiser applications, web browser, camera and media player. With 3G HSDPA and WLAN it can connect to a wide range of networks and devices. It's also a slimline and lightweight phone that looks good and is very easy to use.
Best buy: *Free* from Vodafone Business Shop.

Review: February 2008. Updated June 2009.

The Nokia E51 is a business smartphone that is packed with useful features. It's a slim phone with classic looks, although with a rugged edge to its appearance too. Although it lacks the QWERTY keypad of a BlackBerry, it's still a competent email device, and unlike the very disappointing E50, the E51 really does deliver on its potential.

The E51 is available in a choice of three colours - black, silver and pink - although the front face of the phone remains black, with just the edge and back changing colour. Design-wise, this is a no-nonsense easy-to-use phone, with a classic shape, a nice conventional keypad and a 5-way navigation key for easy scrolling and selection. There are also some handy shortcut buttons for email, calendar, contacts and the active standby screen. On the right side is a mute key next to the volume keys. On the left side you'll find a Push to Talk key and a voice recorder key. An LED indicator is used to notify you of new email and messages, as well as missed calls. It's a nice-sized phone too, and very slim, at just 12mm. First impressions are excellent - the E51 looks and feels like a quality device.

Motorola U9 Review

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In a nutshell: This cute clamshell phone comes in a choice of pink or purple, and has a curvy rounded shape and soft feel. The beautiful mirror finish conceals an invisible external display that springs into life with custom animated screensavers and touch-sensitive music controls. Complete with a 2 megapixel camera, music player, memory card slot and Bluetooth, this is what every girl needs in her handbag! Beware though that the soft finish scratches easily, and we have deducted marks from our score because of the phone's habit of freezing or switching off.

Review: February 2008. Updated November 2008.

No question about it - the Moto U9 is definitely a girl's phone. It's a cute, curvy clamshell and comes in a choice of two colours: pink or purple. Weighing just 88g and petite in size, it's a phone that's been carefully designed to appeal to the senses. Not only is the shiny metallic finish easy on the eyes, but the soft-touch feel makes it a lovely phone to handle. The external display is very cool. The screen uses a mirror effect that blends with the shiny surface so that's it's invisible when not in use. A range of cool screensavers have been designed to complement the colour schemes of the phone, and give the impression that the whole surface of the phone is alive. Touch-sensitive music controls appear when using the music player. The U9 really is a sensual delight!

Motorola Aura Review

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In a nutshell: The Motorola Aura is the most expensive phone that we've ever reviewed. We can't say that it's value for money though. Feature-poor, albeit with a nicely-crafted metal case, it doesn't come anywhere near justifying the price, even if you can afford it.

Review: April 2009.

Rarely has a mobile phone manufacturer made such an error of timing. Releasing a £1,300 phone in the middle of a global recession - duh. Motorola have been trumpeting the Aura for months, but when we learned the price we nearly fell off our chair. We freely admit that we haven't seen the Aura in the flesh, so this "review" is just informed speculation, but to be honest we don't expect anyone to actually buy this thing anyway.

Featurewise, there's nothing special about the Aura. It has a very basic camera, an MP3 player and basic connectivity (Bluetooth & USB). With a small circular display, you can't do much with this phone other than make calls and pose.

LG Viewty Smart Review

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In a nutshell: The LG Viewty Smart is a massively upgraded version of the original Viewty. Its feature list includes a 480x800 hi-res 3 inch touchscreen running LG's new S-Class 3D user interface, a brilliant 8 megapixel camera with autofocus and a quality lens, music player, FM radio, A-GPS, 1.5GB memory, WiFi and HSDPA. All this in a slimline and lightweight modern-looking phone makes this a winner!
Best buy: *Free* with half-price line rental from Mobiles.co.uk (Silver) or Dialaphone (Silver).

Review: May 2009. Updated July 2009.

The LG Viewty Smart (or Viewty 2) is an upgraded version of the immensely popular LG Viewty, and is very similar to the LG Arena, except that the Viewty Smart has an upgraded 8 megapixel camera. Here at Mobile Phones UK we loved the Viewty and the Arena, so it will come as no surprise that we are awarding the Viewty Smart 5 stars too

LG KC910 Renoir Review

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In a nutshell: The LG Renoir is the first 8 megapixel touchscreen phone. Added benefits include 3G video calling, a high quality video camera with slow motion effects, an MP3 player, an FM radio, Dolby Mobile, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps for broadband internet speeds, Assisted-GPS and an 8GB memory card. This is one of the most powerful multimedia devices ever created.
Best buy: *Free* with half-price line rental from Mobiles.co.uk (Black) or Mobiles.co.uk (Pink).

Review: October 2008. Updated June 2009.

The LG KC910, released at the end of October 2008, is the replacement for the LG Viewty. We loved the Viewty, and we love the KC910 too! The KC910 is nicknamed the "Renoir". Renoir was a famous impressionist painter (you knew that, didn't you?) and so the name gives us a clue that the KC910 is a pioneering imaging device. It's LG's first phone to have an 8 megapixel camera, and it pushes the highly capable photographic capabilities of the Viewty to new heights.