Posted by bodum
i've recently got a black nokia e65 from '3' australia. would like to share with you all regarding this fine phone, even though the phone itself is a bit old and all that. as stated on the topic, this won't be a review as we have many of those already. rather, this is a comparison between the '3' version and generic models (for this purpose, i shall use an unlocked and unbranded model from nokia singapore to compare). so here we go =)...
the black e65 is an exclusive to '3', the generic colours being mocha brown and red. i've heard that you can get black e65's in the phillipines, unlocked and unbranded. however i can't confirm on that. for prices on current plans, please check with the '3' website. mine is AUD10 for a 24 month tenure, with a minimum monthly spend of AUD20.
differences between the '3' version and generic e65.
- the '3' version is made in finland, while the generic version is 'made by nokia'. what are the differences between the 2? i'm not sure, though some has argued that finland models have a better build quality. this is not the topic of discussion however. what i've noticed is that build quality on both models are excellent in general. the '3' version suffers from slight 'play' to the right when in slider closed mode, however the slider mechanism is stiffer as i perceived with the '3'.
- the materials used are similar, with the velvety plastic bordering the front panel and the leather-like finish to the battery cover retained from generic versions. however, i do think the black version looks better when placed against the silverish panels, though it's only from my personal opinion =).
edit: the silverish panels on the front scratches very easily, even from wiping with a stiff cloth. so users might want to be aware of that one.
- branding wise, there isn't much on the surface apart from the '3' logo on the bottom front panel and below the camera on the battery cover. the branding is minimal cosmetically, and does add to the aesthetics of the phone i feel.
- software-wise, there is not much change in terms of branding applied. the phone can be UNLOCKED for free by '3' on request at any point of the tenure. there is a '3' start-up and shut-down screen, and some icons have been changed. however, you can get the normal icons back when you switch off the '3' theme to a generic theme. the font has also been changed, to a slightly squarish font from the generic. however, this doesn't affect the looks much, they look rather pleasant to me.
- the menu arrangement has been altered slightly in the '3' version. however they can be shifted back with the 'move' function. there is no blackberry connect/quickplayer and a few other softwares on the '3' version. these can be downloaded and added later on. and with all '3' phones, there is a link to 'planet 3' and '3 e-mail'.
my thoughts on the phone branding is that it isn't too obvious, which is a good thing. however, there is more to come. '3' has made some changes to the phone settings, which causes problems ranging from a slight nuisance to severe inconvenience. more to come in the next post.
[ This Message was edited by: bodum on 2007-07-23 16:20 ]
Posted by bodum
as from the previous post, there appears to be no major changes aesthetic-wise between the black '3' e65 and the generic versions. look deeper however, and there are major problems which '3's' inbuilt-settings have caused. note that my firmware version is 1.0633.18.01 11-01-07 rm-208 on '3' australia, and i am using my simcard from maxis malaysia.
- the first thing i noticed is that the phone keeps trying to connect to 'planet 3' every 10 seconds or so. there is no effect on my call charges as data transfer would somehow fail. however this has a HUGE effect on the battery life, mine currently lasts around 1 day at the most with average usage (30 minutes calls, 5 minutes video-calls, some sms, wifi, gprs surfing), which is nowhere near the generic version. also, this fills up the log with the irrelevent entries, resulting in some calls not being registered anymore after a day or 2 usage. this is a fatal flaw, as i cannot find some numbers or track some calls made from the day before which i need.
edit: after countless settings changes to NO effect and 5 restarts, the phone has stopped trying to connect to 'planet 3'. no idea why though, even though this is a good thing. so i won't be restarting the phone anymore for fear of it coming back. what does restarting do for symbian phones anyway? clear memory?
- there is no option to switch between dual-mode and 2G band, even though network search is changed to manual. i believe this feature is locked by '3'. this has some effect on the battery life, though scarce. a more major effect is that sometimes calls are dropped and fail to register when i switch between 3G areas and 2G areas, as the phone takes a few seconds before switching bands automatically.
- there are 3 browsers on the phone, which is the normal nokia browser, the 'planet 3' browser which is a copy of the normal browser and a WAP browser which can be found in services menu. sometimes, changes made to settings for either of these browsers can result in inconsistent effects, like some changes might not register even though the setting is manually made, and some changes might be carried over to the other browsers. is this a symbian error or '3's' fault? i am not sure. this is my first symbian nokia =).
other than the above stated, the '3' settings does not cause much other problems. normal calls and sms and surfing works fine. however, the problems stated above might be considered major for some, enough to turn them off from getting the phone. although the major cause appears to be the '3' firmware, i have no idea if a reflash to generic firmware would be a cure. anyone? also, nokia has resisted from publishing newer firmwares that fixes these problems for the e65 (to think that SE was bad with the p990?). my opinion is that although the phone works fine with '3' networks, the unlocking is a null point of relevence as to these problems. any discussion welcome, cheers =).
[ This Message was edited by: bodum on 2007-07-23 16:23 ]
Posted by mob453
like you i'm awaiting the firmware upgrade. several things need resolving on this phone. mine is black on 3 uk and the firmware version is the same,
Posted by bodum
just performed a hard-reset using the nokia *#7370# code. this deleted most of the apps in installations folder (skype, 3 launcher, mobile TV, ect.) leaving only quicktime. it also frees up around 10MB, my phone's memory is 60MB now as opposed to 50MB before. however, noticed a slight lag on my phone now when scrolling through menus? this might be just my perception. i have no idea what it does for the RAM though, i do not run taskman applications. the e65's default RAM is 20MB, with the 3 applications running in the background plus my active standby screen, i should have around 16MB RAM give and take?
a quick update. it seems that on my handset, the 'planet 3' malware stops connecting after a few restarts, and leaving it there to fill up the log (my log is limited to 10 days, it usually gets full after a few hours). with the connection no longer active all the time, battery life has improved dramatically, nearly 2-3 times from before. i can get 2 days easy now.
Posted by mob453
biggest problem i have is when cold booting the phone is it freshly installs mobile tv premier scores and mobilcast. this slows it down immensely and there is no way of removing these applications.
Posted by bodum
cold-booting? you mean the *#7370# code for the hard reset? or just a soft reset? as far as i know, soft resets doesn't delete any preinstalled apps, just the settings are restored to factory settings. hard resets though deletes most of the operator installed items. i have mobile tv on mine, and a hard reset deleted the app from the phone completely.
i'm not sure though that the apps take up any RAM. have you checked with taskman? i'm not aware of any apps running in the background on my set, even if it's operator branded. the only annoyance is the constant trying to connect to 'planet 3', which i suspect to be hard-coded into the phone's hardware?
on a side note, i've restarted the phone several times, and i notice that if you go into offline mode before turning on the phone, and then back online when you restart the phone, it would only try to connect for a few hours before stopping completely. my phone no longer tries connecting to 'planet 3' now =).
Posted by Danny_BFC
How come you ozzies have all the latest phones over there!
m600 black n white
880i
And more
Best SE you can get over hear is a silver k800 or w850i
[edit] smart arse scottt thinks thats phrased wrongly, so i meant
phones on 3 
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[ This Message was edited by: ..:/Ğanny:.. on 2007-07-31 10:55 ]
Posted by mob453
debranded my e65 to 1.0633.18.01 firmware euro 1 black variant.
Posted by bodum
what are the major differences that you find from your phone now, mob? apart from the removal of the 'planet 3' browser and operator softwares, does your phone perform differently? a comparison would be appreciated.
a few specific points i would like to ask. did you flash your phone using a generic PID code? where did you get it done, or did you do it yourself?
does your phone try intermittently to connect to 'planet 3' with the previous firmware?
does it still do so now? also, can the phone network be set to GSM roaming unlike before where '3' locks it to dual-mode?
and does the phone still ignore the default homepage you set in the 'services' browser, which makes it connect to nokia or '3' website regardless?
much thanks in advance. and a few '3' e65 specific tips for users out there. for user codes (just press the code in the standby screen):
*#7780# - performs a soft-reset on your phone. this resets only the settings on the phone to factory setting, such as your profiles ect. it would NOT delete any user data such as your contacts and so forth.
*#7370# - performs a hard-reset. this completely restores your phone to out-of-factory state, so all settings is reset, and user data and some operator preinstalled items is deleted. some would still remain though, as it is coded into the operator specific firmware of your phone. only flashing to a generic firmware would get rid of those in theory.
*#0000# - shows the software version on your phone.
*#06# - shows the IMEI of your phone.
other settings:
for a boost in wi-fi data transfer speed, you can change the settings in connectivity/wifi. go to the advanced settings menu, and scroll to the bottom line which says 'power saving' or something. change the option to 'disable'. this should theoretically increase your wi-fi speeds, although the downside to this would be a significant decrease in battery life.
these are just a few i have discovered on the e65, anyone got any other tricks i can do with it? disclaimer though, do this at your own risk. i never had any problems doing it on mine, but who knows?
battery life update: 2 1/2 days on 40 minutes calls, 30 sms, and no internet/wap browsing. decent =).
[ This Message was edited by: bodum on 2007-08-01 21:38 ]
Posted by mob453
did it myself using phoenix and a copy of the firmware. advantages are my battery has improved. can set to gsm not dual mode. can change homepage. gained download! application.
Posted by bodum
phoenix? is that freeware? going to have to google that one. one question, i need the PID code for the generic firmware for my region (APAC australia), and can only flash it to that region, or can i flash using say, an european firmware? cos' i'm confused where the 'black' firmware comes in, i thought black is just a cosmetic change and doesn't affect the hardware?
where did you get the copy of the firmware BTW, does it come with the phoenix software? and is this 'downloads!' you mention the nokia catalogue?
do post a comparison of battery life. i'm looking to justify flashing to a generic firmware, if only there's a significant improvement.
cheers =)...
Posted by mob453
Been on one bar battery all day. And currently posting on phone over wlan.
Posted by mob453
switched to e60 while e65 charges. phoenix is not freeware, it's nokia's internally licensed service tool. though there are several blogs and threads on how to get it working on a home pc. similarly you have to find the firmware.exe by googling.
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=382634
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=388918
[ This Message was edited by: a site on 2007-08-03 20:59 ]
Posted by bodum
thanks for the reply. however i was thinking in my case, the only major advantage would be battery life increase. as with my previous posts, i've figured out how to disable the phone trying to connect to 'planet 3'. that greatly increases my battery life, i would say i can get around 4 days easy now with about 1 1/2 hours of calls and a few sms, but no wlan (and still 2 bars or so left). that's quite alright for a smartphone, comparable to my k800i. so i can't say i would want to debrand now =).
Posted by mob453
Okay. Only other advantage is generic gets updates quicker than branded.
Posted by bodum
updates? does the e65 even gets updates? that's a null point, nokia has forgot they even released the e65
...
Posted by bodum
a quick note. previously i've mentioned the 'trick' to disable the phone connecting to 'planet 3'. however, this has a side effect in that the phone's GPRS and 3G would no longer work and a fresh reboot is needed to use data again. haven't tried that with video-calling though.
WLAN on the other hand still works fine.
Posted by mob453
still no software update for e61 or e65, but the 6110 navigator and 6120 classic both have updates.
Posted by bodum
i'm seriously needing a firmware upgrade now. my phone has just experienced it's first major crash. i'm not unused to crashes, but the nature of this crash was very disturbing and serious i think.
what happened was my e65 refused to make calls, stating 'connection error' regardless of the number i dial. i have no idea how long it has been 'broken', since i don't make that much calls anyway. the disturbing part was that my phone was showing a full signal, but i can't call my own number from another phone. and i was still receiving sms. god knows how many calls i missed cos' of this!
so i rebooted the phone, but then the signal bar is blank and fails to register my operator. a second reboot did no good. i'm not sure whether my area's signal tower has anything to do, but i suspect the phone primarily. only by removing the battery and sim and reinserting was i able to regain the phone's function again.
and another thing. my phone creaks when smsing =(. do yours?
need. update. soonish.
[ This Message was edited by: bodum on 2007-08-18 20:21 ]
Posted by mob453
My sandisk ultra micro sd has arrived. Big difference in speed between ultra and standard. Busy installing applications, is yahoo! Go available yet?
Posted by thingy011
On 2007-08-01 23:55:00, a site wrote:
did it myself using phoenix and a copy of the firmware. advantages are my battery has improved. can set to gsm not dual mode. can change homepage. gained download! application.
Did you use a special cable or the one the cable that comes with the E65? Can you give me instructions to the flashing process?
Posted by mob453
used the cable in the box. posting from phone will post flash method when home.
Posted by bodum
i've been considering long whether to flash to generic firmware. as a purist (i like my phones the way they come out of the box), it's kind of a hard decision. i don't mind branding on phones, so long as they don't interfere with my daily usage which is essentialy basic. but the slight annoyances in the case of this handset has become MAJOR faults and is too hard to bear. i don't want to reset my phone just cos' i want to use WLAN or some other things...!
so then, looking forward to the flash instructions from you, mob. very much appreciated, you're my phone's saviour =)...!
first question: does a flashed phone retain it's original IMEI? let's say if i flash from my current australian firmware to a european firmware? and can the phone be reflashed back to '3' firmware when say, i go back to australia?
[ This Message was edited by: bodum on 2007-08-25 09:59 ]
Posted by wabre
i am not sure if that has been answered or if it changes a lot...but nokia is finland..
Posted by carkitter
post deleted
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[ This Message was edited by: carkitter on 2007-08-25 14:04 ]
Posted by bodum
indeed, nokia is from finland. but what has that got to do?
you just reminded me of that scene from transformers, the one with the n93...'the way of the samurai'...LOL!
Posted by mob453
flashed phones keep their IMEI
Posted by Prom1
You'll also notice that the E65 is almost forgotten the way of firmware updates.
Beautiful phone which I too considered as my return to S60 but so glad I didn't spend $$ on one.
Too many issues with normal usuage of its functions. Just wait till that unique finish on the back starts to wear off.
I'd say get rid of it and move on to a proven S60 unit.
Posted by mob453
I would move but:
It's my upgrade from an e60
The E61i does not interest me, nor does the N95, 6120, 6110, N76.
I use VOIP
Tried using my k610 over the weekend came back to my e65.
Tried using my e60, but the wlan scan plugin is missing from that phone
E65 housings are cheap, can see me changing mine to a white version in the future.
Posted by bobbydoedoe
could you post a DIY for flashing the E65 w/ a generic e65 firmware? thanks
Posted by *Jojo*
On 2007-07-22 13:00:16, bodum wrote:
i've heard that you can get black e65's in the phillipines, unlocked and unbranded. however i can't confirm on that. for prices on current plans,
@bodum - Yes, the Nokia E65 model is availabale now at my end . . .
As can be seen on this LINK (5th column-rightmost) . . . exchange rate is US$ 1 - Php 46.50 . Mobile phones sold on this LINK are openline/unlocked:
http://www.greenhills.com.ph/cellphonegalore.asp
Screenshot:
Posted by bobbydoedoe
OKay, i promise myself that if i got it to unlock, to post what i did. I have successfully debrand the pos "3" firmware out of th e65, and i am enjoying the phone alot more as battery life almost tripled. Here is what i did
1) read this quote and follow the post on that forum
quote]
On 2007-08-03 00:04:00, a site wrote:
switched to e60 while e65 charges. phoenix is not freeware, it's nokia's internally licensed service tool. though there are several blogs and threads on how to get it working on a home pc. similarly you have to find the firmware.exe by googling.
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=382634
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=388918
[ This Message was edited by: a site on 2007-08-03 20:59 ]
[/quote]
2) when finished, go here http://www.ipmart-forum.com/showthread.php?p=1511423 and dl all of the and save the file on to your desktop
3) Now, double click and install v1.0, than click on v1.1, than v1.2...... till the last version that you have dled.
4) open up phoexic, plug in your phone, than goto file=> refresh device
5) if it detects your phone, there will be an extra row that comes up.
6) Now goto flash, and flash firmware. Than click on the "..." after product code, and choose the firmware you want, and than click start.
7) Now go get some coffee while its doing so
Hope that helps, O, follow these rules at your own risk, as i am not responsible for any damages that arises from following my directions.
Posted by bodum
i've yet to debrand, as i found a workaround for the 'planet 3' filling up the log. i just deleted all the '3' settings, and when the phone prompted for an access point, i created an empty one which the phone defined to be the default one. now the phone is always connected, instead of dropping connection every few seconds. not much effect on battery life as i notice.
@ jojo, the picture....! that's not a nokia e65!
Posted by mob453
picture is of a nokia 6270.
Posted by bobbydoedoe
On 2007-09-10 09:44:49, bodum wrote:
i've yet to debrand, as i found a workaround for the 'planet 3' filling up the log. i just deleted all the '3' settings, and when the phone prompted for an access point, i created an empty one which the phone defined to be the default one. now the phone is always connected, instead of dropping connection every few seconds. not much effect on battery life as i notice.
@ jojo, the picture....! that's not a nokia e65!
well not only did debranding it cure the planet 3 connecting problem, but it speeds up the menu considerably, and alot more ram when loaded.
Posted by Alexandra
On 2007-07-31 11:36:49, ..:/Ğanny:.. wrote:
How come you ozzies have all the latest phones over there!
m600 black n white
880i
And more
Best SE you can get over hear is a silver k800 or w850i
[edit] smart arse scottt thinks thats phrased wrongly, so i meant
phones on 3
_________________
MY XBOX LIVE GAMERTAG
I LIKE SMILIES
Although some dont seem to like me
^^^
[ This Message was edited by: ..:/Ğanny:.. on 2007-07-31 10:55 ]
We don't get that many good SEs on 3, all they sell are CDMA phones, and they have never sold the W900, making the K800 and K810 the only good phones that 3 can sell, and they don't even sell the K810! So the K800 is the only good SE that 3 sells.
Anyway, most phones on 3 are crappy lower-end 3g phones (a.k.a K610) and LG flips.
Posted by bodum
a bit off topic here, but could anyone describe how to copy a theme from the e65? i'm trying to copy the '3' theme as a backup before i flash my phone. anyone?
Posted by humantrashca
hi all -
I'm in the UK and I'm thinking of getting the e65 from 3 - I was wondering if the Wi-Fi works or if it's been disabled?
All the online people from three say they cannot comment.
So if anyone in the UK has recently bought the e65 could let me know if their wi-fi works that would be awesome.
Also - if it doesn't work, would using the phoenix software sort it out?
Many thanks
Posted by mob453
E65 from 3, wifi works fine, not disabled. People are removing the branded firmware because of memory issues and lag.