Nokia E63 photos

Though the Nokia E series has typically been aimed at business users, the company hopes to break that mold with the Nokia E63 and attract more consumers to the line.

One way Nokia hopes to do that is by offering the Nokia E63 at a lower price point. The E63 is available unlocked in the United States for $279, compared with the Nokia E71, which goes for around $500 unlocked.

Here are the two E series siblings side by side. The Nokia E63 is on the left.

While we miss the steel chassis and sleeker profile of the E71, the E63 is quite attractive and brings a fresher, hipper look by adding some color to the smartphone. The Nokia E63 is available in red or blue.

The E63 mostly keeps the same dimensions of the E71 (4.4 inches tall by 2.2 inches wide and 4.4 ounces), but is just a hair thicker (0.5 inch vs. 0.4 inch), so it'll make for a bit of a tight fit in a pants pocket.

The E63 features a 2.36-inch QVGA (320x240 pixels) nontouch display that supports up to 16 million colors. The smartphone also offers two different home views, Business or Personal, depending on whether you're at work or at home.

Overall, we found the Nokia E63's full QWERTY keyboard easy to use. The buttons are slightly larger than those on the E71, but the keys feel a bit soft and mushy when you press them. Still, we were able to compose messages with little error or problem.

Unlike the E71, the Nokia E63 features a 3.5mm headphone jack on top of the device, so you can use it with your favorite headphones. The jack is protected by a plastic cover, but it's tiny and not attached to the phone so you can lose it very easily.

On back, you'll find the Nokia E63's 2-megapixel camera. It offers video recording capabilities, an LED flash, digital zoom, and more.

We weren't particularly happy with the quality of the E63's 2-megapixel camera. Though objects were clear, colors looked faded.

The Nokia E63 comes with about 110MB of internal memory, which you can expand by using the microSD expansion slot on the left side. The smartphone accepts up to 8GB cards.