20 Nokia E7 tips and tricks

Hi there! This post is a successor of my best, most-read post,  Top 67 Nokia N8 tips and tricks. So, if you’ve finished that post, you’re ready for this one. 😀

The most of these tips apply to all new Symbian phones, but some are keyboard-related, so you can only apply them to the Nokia E7 (and the upcoming beauty E6).

1. Manage slide handling. In order to choose how your E7 behaves when you slide the screen up, go to “Settings -> Phone -> Slide handling“.

There are four fields, so you can tweak the settings to suit you best. If the first field, Transfer audio, is set to On, your call will be transfered to loudspeaker when you slide the screen up. In the second field, you can choose if you want the screen to be locked every time you close it, or not. If you set the third field to On, every time you close the screen, you’ll be at the home screen. Finally, field Home screen action allows you to set various actions to be performed when you open the screen (while on home screen). Here’s a screenshot of how I like to keep my E7, and I suggest you do the same.

2. Unlock the phone using the keyboard. If your E7 is open, and the screen is locked, you don’t have to use the lock/unlock slider key. Instead, you can press any keyboard button, and the screen will unlock.

3. Use keyboard shortcuts while typing. This is one of the main reasons I would choose E7 over the N8. Physical keyboard brings some handy shortcuts, similar to those on your PC. While composing a SMS or email, you can select text precisely using a Shift key in a combination with navigational arrows. Hold the Shift key and press the left arrow (if your cursor is at the right side of text), and you’ll select letter by letter. You can select the whole row if you hold the Shift key and press the arrow up. Similar goes to right and down arrows, if you’re left from the text. If you want to highlight the whole text, just press Ctrl + A.

Once the text is highlighted, you can copy it by pressing Ctrl + C, or cut it, by pressing Ctrl + X. If you do that correctly, you’ll see a screen that looks just like the one below.

Now, you can easily paste it anywhere you want by pressing Ctrl + V.

4. Use keyboard shortcuts in Email app. The inbuilt email client has a few handy shortcuts of its own, and they can save you A LOT of time. There are two groups of these shortcuts – while in folder (for example, Inbox), and while reading an email. All the shortcuts are very easy to remember, so here we go.

First, while in folder, you can compose a new email by pressing the letter C. You can easily start searching for some messages by pressing the letter S. Letter Z will synchronize the current mailbox, and letter H will open the Help. The screen below shows a reminder of these shortcuts – but shortcuts do not work while Options window is showed!

Now, while you’ll reading an email, you can easily reply to the sender by pressing the letter R, or to everybody who is involved, by pressing the letter A (reply to all). You can forward the email you’re reading by pressing the letter F, or delete it by pressing the letter D.

5. Use keyboard to navigate through home screens. You can switch between homescreens without touching the screen, simply by pressing navigational arrows left and right. You’ll see a highlight box around the app/contact you’re currently at (similar to non-touchscreen phones, s60v3), and you can launch it by pressing the Enter key.

6. Type a contact’s name while on the home screen. You don’t need to open the contact application in order to call someone, you can just start typing hers/his name on the home screen, and then, you’ll be able to call her/him simply by clicking on the name. If you want to send a message instead, just hold the contact’s name a little longer.

7. Start typing while in Calendar to create a new Meeting. This is a practical tip for those who are using the inbuilt calendar app very often. Once in Calendar, position your self on the desired date and just start typing – this will create a new meeting with that name and you will be able to modify the other fields as well.

8. Manage default numbers in a contact. A lot of your contacts probably have more than one number, and this is what you see when you open such a contact:

So, in order to lose the extra click, you need to set the default numbers. You can do that, while in a contact card, by pressing Options -> Defaults, and selecting the primary number for calling, texting, etc…

9. Call/text the non-default number. If you do what I’ve described in the previous tip, you may think you’ve lost the ability to dial the other number(s), that are not set as defaults. Don’t worry, all you need to do is to tap-and-hold the Voice call or Message field, and you’ll have an option to choose the desired number.

10. Create a contact group. This tip is a great time saver, and it will allow you to do various actions for a group of several contacts. You can create a group quite easily, by launching the Contacts app, and selecting the second tab, Groups. When here, just click “Options -> New group“, and give group a name, for example VIP or Business.

11. Add contacts to a group. Group by itself isn’t that useful, so you need to add some contacts to it! 🙂 Click on the group’s name, and then “Options -> Add members“, as shown below.

Now go through your Contacts and select the ones that belong to that group. Click OK when finished.

12. Remove a contact from a group. If you do not fancy someone, you can remove him/her from your (VIP) group by doing the following: open the group, and tap-and-hold the undesired contact, until a pop-up window shows up. Then click on the “Remove from group“.

13. Send SMS to a whole group. In order to do this practical thing, open the message editor, click “To”, and select a group instead of a contact.

14. Set a special ringtone for a group. You can set your phone to ring in a different way when you get a call from someone in the group. Just open Contacts, select the “Groups” tab, tap-and-hold the group’s name and click on “Ringing tone“. Select the desired sound and you’ll be notified differently when someone special calls.

15. Set your phone to ring only when contacts from a group is calling. This tip is probably one of the most neglected things in Symbian, and I’m about to change that! 🙂 Imagine this: you want to take a day nap, but you’re expecting an important call from a certain person. You cannot turn off your phone, but, you also don’t want to be disturbed by some random guy/girl. There is a simple way to deal with this: create a group of the most important contacts, as shown in the tip no. 9. Now, go to “Settings -> Profiles“, and click on some profile you want to modify. Click “Personalize” and scroll down till you get to “Alert for“.

Select the desired group in the next screen, and your phone will only ring if someone important calls!

16. Access your Dropbox via phone! This absolutely lovely tip isn’t actually mine, so you can read the how-to here. Thanks to Michael Hell for this one!

17. Call several people at once. If you’ve missed tip no. 38 from the Top 67 Nokia N8 tips and tricks, read it, and activate call waiting. This tip is really useful if you need to speak simultaneously to several people (up to six!). Here’s how you do it. Call the first person regularly. When she/he answers, ask her/him to be patient and press the “Contacts” icon. You can alternatively use the dialer, by pressing the button with the same name.

Find the second person you want to call and press hers/his name, followed by the pressing of “Voice call“.

If you’ve managed to do this correctly, 1st person will be on the hold, and you will be talking only to the second one!

In order to put the first person back into the call, just press the “Conference call” button. Now, you will be talking with both persons at the same time. You can repeat this until you get to 6 persons.

18. Use LED flash as a torch. E7 (as well as C7 and C6-01) have a handy illuminating feature hidden – just pull and hold the lock/unlock key for 3 seconds, and dual LED flash will produce impressive amount of light. to turn it off, pull and hold the same button for the same period of time.

19. Use voice dialing. In order to call someone by saying their name, you need to activate this feature by long-pressing the call key and pressing “Activate”. After that, hold the call key and say the name of the contact you wish to call.

20. Set up speed dialing. You can call up to 8 of your contacts using the digit keys in a particular way. In order to set this up, go to “Settings -> Calling” and then select “Speed dialing“.

Tap on any number you like, and assign it to the desired contact. Now you can swiftly call someone by long-pressing of one of the digits from the dialing pad.

 

    • Suzie
    • April 18th, 2011

    Hi there!

    I just bought Nokia E7 lastweek.

    My E7 did not show the number or name of the person when someone is trying to call me. So i do not know who is calling me. For missed calls, it stated “No number” at the log and shows the time dan date of such missed calls.

    Outgoing calls are fine as it is recorded in the log as to name of the contact and also the time.

    Thanks for any answer!

    • Hi Suzie,

      That’s very unusual. The name of the person is not showing if you have two (or more) contact entries for that person.

      I think the only thing you can do is to hard reset the phone by dialing *#7370# . Before you do that, backup your E7 via OVI Suite, because this will erase EVERYTHING you have in your phone.

    • Pete
    • May 8th, 2011

    Hi,

    thanks for the tipps. Unrelated question, what Theme are you using on your phone?

    P!

    • jake
    • May 16th, 2011

    i also had the issue with not seeing who called you phone your network provider they send you a text and shazam

  1. Cheers bro… wow nic info and thanks for your time for writing this amazng review..

    Got my Nokia e-7 like a month ago but was very busy to play around with it Googled n found your blog which i loved it… Read your detailed review………….. and it did helped me about few things i was missing.

    thanks again

    Chandan

    • simon o’ connor
    • June 28th, 2011

    Thanks for all the E7 tips I will follow up when have time. Has anyone else had the problem of text messages sending themselves half way through typing? Seems like there is a keyboard shortcut built in for ‘send’ but I can’t work out what it is (so that I can avoid pressing those keys) or how to turn it off. Any ideas??

      • RJB
      • June 30th, 2011

      I’ve sent a lot of txts half way through by brushing the send tab with a finger whilst typing. I dont think its anything to do with keyboard shortcuts.Either keep your fingers tucked in or address the message when you have finished typing, not at the beginning (only works for a new message of course)

    • simon o’ connor
    • July 3rd, 2011

    Ok thanks – when you say send tab – you mean on screen? Or is there a key for this? Thanks

      • RJB
      • August 18th, 2011

      When I said send tab I should have said on-screen Send icon (top right of the screen in landscape) The E7 screen is almost too responsive!

    • Hadeer
    • August 10th, 2011

    thx for this gr8 tips
    my nokia e7 youtube desktop site does not play videos it loads the page and everything is there but the video screen gets black then goes to white with f sign on the left top of it ????! any solution ???!

    • babu
    • August 29th, 2011

    E 7 displays the caller name as well as the number.. How to hide numbers?

    • dennis
    • September 6th, 2011

    Really helpful tips, thanks.
    Quick query, which as the most knowledgeable E7-user I’ve found so far, I’m hoping you may be able to help with… 😉
    Can you save more desktops shortcuts to favourite contacts without using the ‘scrolling’ option, eg by having another block of s/cuts or using a different method?
    Cheers.
    PS Just off to set-up the direct dropbox access 🙂

    • Nope, the same 4 contacts are always shown, on any screen… Dropbox may not work anymore, because dropdav is not free anymore… I recommend cuteBox, from Ovi Store, it’s free and works great!

  2. Just got an E7 as a replacement for my junky N900 have a few thigs I’m not too happy with..
    Icon size, is there a way to make them smaller??
    shortcuts to whatever you want on the screen only come in 4’s & even if you only wamt 1 or 2u r stuck with the others that are not set up for anything, is there a way to only get say 2 @ a time.

      • Cassie
      • November 8th, 2011

      Hi,

      Have you found an answer for this question yet?

      Regards
      Cassie

    • patrick lewis
    • September 10th, 2011

    How do you text someone who has just called you but is not in your contact list? Surely there must be a number log without actually calling them. Please help, its driving me nuts!

    • Stergios
    • September 23rd, 2011

    From the Recent Call Log, if you choose the desired number and press it continuously for 2 seconds, a list would be displayed with various options. One of them is create message.

    • patrick lewis
    • September 27th, 2011

    so many thanks, thats genius

  3. thank you very much for this tips
    I bought nokia e7 few days. this help me a lot. I have been looking for that, because I like to copy and paste text, so I found this on you blog.
    thanks again

  4. Great post…THX very much

    • delna
    • October 17th, 2011

    hi just want someone to help me i have installed software for calling but when i go in that software to call it dose not show calling button on my touch screen and it dose not have calling button no keyboard as well.

    • Ajay
    • October 18th, 2011

    In E7, is there any option (/ shortcut key) on key board for the calling key (i.e. green colour”Call Key”)?
    Please help me, for some net calling software it is required.

    Thanks & regards

    • kris
    • October 25th, 2011

    I have a question for anyone who has had a similar prob……. my nokia e71 was working fine up till a couple days ago. Now when i receive a txt it only shows the number with a + in front of it. It won’t show the name of the person sending the txt. please please help.

    • Yaz
    • October 27th, 2011

    Thank you so much !
    I now am able to voice call any of teh saved numbers for a given contact by holding the field and watching the numbers appear. I thought E-7 could not do that, it was so annoying.
    You have saved the day!

    • rohitash
    • November 18th, 2011

    hello friends, pl help me. my E7 has developed a problem. at times it switches off automatically while i m talking through it. also, at times when i switch it on it reads” phone start up failure , contact phone retailer”. what do i do. i do not want it to fall prey to the incompetent lots at nokia care. do help me

    • Ioannis
    • December 7th, 2011

    Hey,
    is there any way to call numbers with extensions? I had a NOKIA N900 and I could save a number with its extension. For example: xxxx789p101. And the N900 could all it directly?
    Thanks in advance

    • shixa
    • December 19th, 2011

    i can only send the message to my number from my nokia E7 while to other numbers text message goes goes in pending and after some time it fails….if there would had been any pb with service center then message would not b sent to my number…i changed d sim card but problem persists…it shows that there is some thing wrong with phone….it is miserable that such a phone also creates problem in a month….nokia is losing its credibility day by day……i bought nokia C3-01 bt with in 3 months it started to create problems now i bought nokia E7 bt still ds is pb creating….it hangs too much…plz help me in my pb of txt messages

  5. Hello friends, pls help me. I can use touchpad for dialing certain phone no, but when i use it for tying message, its not working. My touchpad is blocked when i try to compose message using touchpad… pls suggest..

      • Jacob
      • February 11th, 2012

      I’ve just bought a nokia E7 and it gives a problem. I cannot not type a message with touchpad but with keypad I can. What can be a problem cause it was working fine

    • dony pranata
    • January 18th, 2012

    i don’t have indonesian bible application. Is there someone have? Tq.

  6. This is a great phone

    • Ravi
    • May 15th, 2012

    My Nokia E-7 does not work properly in the evening say from 7 P.m onwards. I cannot make calls nor receive any calls during that period. Switching OFF and ON also does not help. After 2 Hrs. It starts working fine again.
    One more problem , My airtel Internet suddenly stops working. I need to switch OFF and ON for it to work.

    Thanks in advance for solution of my problem
    Ravi

    • firoj khan
    • November 28th, 2012

    when we open contact ,we only see the name of contact. Is it possible to see name and contact both when open the contact apps?
    Also during the service command is it possible to have send buttun on the same screen instead of selecting option button and send ?

  7. i can not rotate my phone display so u can help me?

  1. April 13th, 2011
  2. April 13th, 2011
  3. April 14th, 2011

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