Combined touch screen and full slide-out keyboard...Nokia has put elegance into this form factor

The slide-out keyboard is quite comfortable. I can also touch the screen to get the cursor where I want, no need to tap the scroll keys or reach for a mouse.

Push mail is now more convenient than ever (use multiple email accounts, choose Ovi Messaging, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Mail for Exchange, Lotus Note Traveller, IMAP or POP).
Maps works even when you are not connected to any network (just pre-load maps of the geographic areas you need).
Camera gives excellent quality 8MP pictures and HD video. The lack of auto focus simply means I can't take close-ups of documents or displays.

MS Office documents can be created and edited (.doc, .xls and .ppt) while waiting at airport terminals and on airplanes.

Now I don't need to carry my laptop around for meetings and presentations.
Just an HDMI cable to connect to LCD TVs or projectors.
E7 can connect to external HDD...I have not yet been able to get it to work with my HDDs, but that may be due to my HDD partitioning scheme and filesystems.

Nokia looks to be at a crossroads of the mobile mindshare.
If Nokia wants to improve the User Experience or UX...they should seriously take a look at the MOAP UX used on Japanese Symbian smartphones.
In 2007, a long time ago in mobile mindspace, these Japanese phones with MOAP UX wrapped around the Symbian OS, had rich media, DVB-TV and push email.

The Nokia E7 shows that Symbian can still beat any phone OS available today with features like:
  - Networking
  - Multitasking
  - Efficient CPU and Memory Usage
  - Longer Battery Life
  - Multiple form factors (touch screen, QWERTY keyboard, T9 keyboard, or any combination)

There's a lot of BS going on about Symbian being 10 yrs old technology.
Technically, most "modern" mobile operating systems are repackaged with graphical interfaces wrapped around "old" operating systems.
Very few companies can claim to come up with a "new technology" mobile phone operating system...a lot of the "innovation" is the user interface.

Under the hood, Symbian is a solid tried and tested truly mobile phone OS kernel.
If Symbian is 10 yrs old then...
  - Android is even older (with the 20 yr old Linux kernel)
  - Apple iPhone iOS is 25 yrs old (iOS contains the Unix Mach/BSD kernel)
  - WP7 is 15 yrs old (WP7 contains the Windows CE kernel)

Besides putting in great graphics, animations and eye candy for the GUI...Nokia certainly need to take better care with doing a "task analysis" of the user interaction on each phone model (since Nokia have an abundance of phone models that are most likely designed, built and shipped by different groups within the company).
This should help bring about consistency with the key press and screen taps for
 ....different operations for related user actions
 ....steps to perform similar types of operations.
Combined touch screen and full slide-out keyboard... Nokia has put elegance into this form factor

The slide-out keyboard is quite comfortable. I can also touch the screen to get the cursor where I want, no need to tap the scroll keys or reach for a mouse. Push mail is now more convenient than ever (use multiple email accounts, choose Ovi Messaging, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Mail for Exchange, Lotus Note Traveller, IMAP or POP). Maps works even when you are not connected to any network (just pre-load maps of the geographic areas you need). Camera gives excellent quality 8MP pictures and HD video. The lack of auto focus simply means I can't take close-ups of documents or displays. MS Office documents can be created and edited (. doc,. xls and. ppt) while waiting at airport terminals and on airplanes. Now I don't need to carry my laptop around for meetings and presentations. Just an HDMI cable to connect to LCD TVs or projectors. E7 can connect to external HDD... I have not yet been able to get it to work with my HDDs, but that may be due to my HDD partitioning scheme and filesystems. Nokia looks to be at a crossroads of the mobile mindshare. If Nokia wants to improve the User Experience or UX... they should seriously take a look at the MOAP UX used on Japanese Symbian smartphones. In 2007, a long time ago in mobile mindspace, these Japanese phones with MOAP UX wrapped around the Symbian OS, had rich media, DVB-TV and push email. The Nokia E7 shows that Symbian can still beat any phone OS available today with features like:
  - Networking
  - Multitasking
  - Efficient CPU and Memory Usage
  - Longer Battery Life
  - Multiple form factors (touch screen, QWERTY keyboard, T9 keyboard, or any combination)

There's a lot of BS going on about Symbian being 10 yrs old technology. Technically, most "modern" mobile operating systems are repackaged with graphical interfaces wrapped around "old" operating systems. Very few companies can claim to come up with a "new technology" mobile phone operating system... a lot of the "innovation" is the user interface. Under the hood, Symbian is a solid tried and tested truly mobile phone OS kernel. If Symbian is 10 yrs old then... - Android is even older (with the 20 yr old Linux kernel)
  - Apple iPhone iOS is 25 yrs old (iOS contains the Unix Mach/BSD kernel)
  - WP7 is 15 yrs old (WP7 contains the Windows CE kernel)

Besides putting in great graphics, animations and eye candy for the GUI... Nokia certainly need to take better care with doing a "task analysis" of the user interaction on each phone model (since Nokia have an abundance of phone models that are most likely designed, built and shipped by different groups within the company). This should help bring about consistency with the key press and screen taps for.... different operations for related user actions.... steps to perform similar types of operations.