Nokia E71 and E63 tips and short cut keys

Nokia E71 and E63 are great phones, operating on Symbian S60 series operating systems. Its keyboard is easy to type, the LCD is sharp, the keys position are great and most importantly, the battery last long enough, approximately 5-7 days for an average user like me. The phone also comes with a lot of practical applications, e.g. word processor, spreadsheet, simple note pad, email client and etc.

The phone's operating systems is also able to upgrade from a normal PC or laptop with USB connectivity. The last upgrade my phone had have significantly improve the responsiveness and also some functionality. e.g. typing the phone book entry on the Home Screen will directly search for it (rather the usually need to access the phone book before able to search), press shift twice will activate the secondary input language and others.

But this post is about tips and shortcut keys available on the phone, below are some of it discovered along using the phone all this while :

1. Copy and paste operation.
First, highlight the text by pressing "shift" (do not release) and use the arrow keys (up, down, left, right) to highlight the desire text. Then press the shift key until the "Left Selection Key" appears "Copy" and then press it to copy the text. Lastly, go to the desire position (or any other application) and press the shift key again until the "Right Selection Key" turns to "Paste" and press it to paste it.

2. Bluetooth
* (long key press) activate / deactivate bluetooth from the Home Screen

3. Switching between Silent and General profile
# (long key press) activate Silent profile or activate General profile from Home Screen

4. Web Browser
0 (long key press) start web browser from Home Screen

5. List of running applications aka task manager
"Home" key (long key press) any time, any where

6. Another used of back space key
During the listing of sms or notes, use Tip 1 to select the desire sms or notes then press "back space" to delete the sms or notes.

7. Additional short cut keys to launch application

Other then "Left selection key" & "Right selection key", "navigation keys" (left, right, up & down) can also be used to launch applications. The "navigation keys" can be set through "Menu --> Tools --> Settings --> General --> Personalisation --> Home Screen --> Key shortcuts" (long deep menus...).

The other way to launch application using shortcut key can also be done with the "One-touch" keys. Its config can be accessible through "Menu --> Tools --> Settings --> General --> Personalisation --> One-touch". There are 3 keys available but with combination of "Short press" & "Long press", it can set up to maximum of 6 shortcuts. As for the "Home" key, it is not avaible as by default the short key press is set to "Menu" and long key press is set to "List of applications" aka Task Manager.

8. Quick search on contact during sms
Type in the search criteria on the "To:" field at the top then press the center button of the "navigation" button and the valid search list will appear.

9. Page up, page down for scrolling

Ctrl + up (navigation key) = Page Up
Ctrl + down (navigation key) = Page Down

10 . Phone Serial number

*#06#

11. Symbian software version

*#0000#

12. Wireless hardware mac address

*#62209526#

Most likely needed to access wireless access point with mac address filtering.

In fact, the above tips can also applied to all symbian S60 devices. Any comments?

Hasta la vista !!!