The groundbreaking Nokia E6 offers something never before seen on a Nokia QWERTY business phone, and that's a touchscreen. It's a great business all-rounder, so make sure you're not paying over the odds with our guide to the best Nokia E6 deals around.
Nokia E6: 10 things you need to know
The Nokia E6 follows in the strong QWERTY keyboard tradition of handsets such as the Nokia E71 and Nokia E72, but adds a whole new twist in that its 2.46-inch display is a capacitive touchscreen.
In terms of communication the result is a dream combination of the intuitive flow of touch and the reliable foundation of physical keys, so whether its surfing the web, browsing through pictures or tapping out a quick email to the office you've always got the ideal interface for the job.
Together with the Nokia X7, the Nokia E6 was also the first smartphone to appear with Symbian Anna on board, and while the rest of Nokia's leading smartphones have now caught up thanks to the Symbian Anna software update, we now know that all of them – including the Nokia E6 will be in line for an upgrade to the impressive new Symbian Belle OS in the months to come.
With all that to look forward to, now's the time to act if you're in the market for a business phone upgrade, so let's look at the kind of deals available at the moment:
Nokia E6 deals
You're certainly spoilt for choice if you're looking at Nokia E6 contract options at Carphone Warehouse, with deals available through four of the big five networks – Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile and O2 – and prices starting at £25 per month, with the handset itself coming free.
Well, that's what Orange is offering anyway, with the pick of the three bundles offering a spread of 300 all-network minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data.
But spend just 54p a month more, and T-Mobile will give you double the minutes, and “unlimited” internet (in accordance with the network's fair use policy) though you have to make do with 500 texts a month.
O2 and Vodafone both offer deals starting at similar prices, though their cheaper contracts are weighted more towards calls and texts than data. In fact, the cheapest Vodafone tariff with any monthly data included as standard comes in at £31 a month. O2's best data deal is more affordable at £27 per month, but you're restricted to just 200 minutes of free calls.
Most of these deals are available over 18 months too, but your monthly price is typically bumped up by £5, which makes the two-year deal cheaper overall in just about every case.
If you're looking for the lowest monthly premium, meanwhile, Orange will hook you up for just £10 a month over two years, but you get a tiny allocation of just 30 call minutes and 100MB of data (though unlimited texts, strangely enough) – oh, and you'll need to fork out £230 at the start for the Nokia E6 itself.
Also consider...
The big supermarket chains are always worth a look when you're in the market for a new handset, and Tesco has an interesting online-only Nokia E6 deal that may be well worth a second look.
It's a Vodafone deal, and costs £26 a month over two years. You'll have to make do with 100 minutes and 500 texts every month, but you get a reasonable 250MB allocation of data to play with, plus the double sweetener of 2GB of BT Openzone WiFi data and a £50 Tesco Gift Card to thank you for your custom.
Needless to say these aren't the only deals or providers you can go through, but they do a good job of setting a benchmark to make sure you're not getting fleeced by what you thought was an attractive offer.
What sort of mobile deal would attract you to a business-minded handset such as the Nokia E6? Would you be willing to live without the data, or is that just unthinkable in today's always-on smartphone climate? Tell us what you think by leaving a Comment below.