There is another manifestation on the hardware side in the form of a button sitting beneath the screen which you can use to do several things in the conference call line. It can, for example, be set up to call a specific number that dials in to a conference call service. It can also be used to merge two current calls into a conference. 

Add in document readers for PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, unit converters and support for mobile email and you get the point that Nokia wants to push the E65 to business users.

But underneath all that corporate appeal is a very solid 3G mobile phone with plenty that should appeal to a wider audience, and a couple of things that Nokia should have really thought twice about.

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Let’s just knock those problems on the head first. First off, there is no front facing camera. That smacks us in the face a bit, as we rather think that there are plenty of people out there who find video calling rather useful. In a professional capacity there are occasions when it is useful to be able to see the person you are talking to, and having video calling on board is great when you want to chat to loved ones from afar.

Second Nokia has seen fit to ship the phone with a mono earbud. We find this a bit mean spirited of them, frankly. The music player that is part of the S60 operating system inside this phone is pretty good, but to get the full benefit of it you really need stereo earphones, and that means you’ll have to splash out on a set that are compatible with Nokia’s Pop-Port.

But for all those gripes there is plenty to like about the E65. First off, it is one of Nokia’s more successful attempts at the slider format.

The phone it pretty tall when closed, but the space is well used. The screen is large (two and a quarter inches corner to corner), vibrant and capable of showing 16 million colours. Underneath it sits a big bank of buttons that includes the conference key noted earlier, one for muting the microphone, another for dropping into Contacts, and one you can programme to do whatever you want.

Add in Clear, Nokia menu, Call, End, two softkeys and a navigation button and you are pretty much covered for getting around the phone. The Nokia Edit key, volume rocker and a key for voice commands and recording sit on the right edge and round the suite of controls off nicely.

All that is left to need is the numberpad and when you slide the phone upwards, the spring loaded mechanism delivering a solid feel and satisfying click, the numbers are revealed large and ridged so that they are very easy to use for texting at speed.

The Wi-Fi is in many ways the start of this phone’s show. It is becoming a more common feature in mobiles generally and Nokia is less reluctant to put it into higher end phones like the E series handsets than it has been in the past.

But the company sticks its neck out here and includes the ability to search for Wi-Fi networks at regular intervals with a notification on the front screen that shows when one is in range. Hopping on is fast and easy, and there is no reason at all why this phone can’t be used for Voice over IP calling. We wonder how the networks will react to that!

The other great use for the Wi-Fi is likely to be Web browsing and Nokia’s browser is really very accomplished. Zooming text sizes up and down is a doddle, automatic bookmarks can be made, and generally Nokia seems to be finding ways of making the most of browsing in a small 240 x 320 pixel screen. It is a shame you can’t flip the screen on its side for a wide angle view, though.

If you are keen on filling your phone with photos, music and the like, then the 50MB that is built in should keep you happy for a while. Add more using the microSD card that is on the right side of the casing protected by the battery cover. 

We can’t say we like the brown and silver colour scheme of the E65 a great deal. If you are with us on that look out for the red incarnation which is rather more eye-catching. Either way you’ll have to put up with the faux leather look on the back of the casing, though.

If you try to balance out the plusses and the minuses of Nokia’s E65 the plusses hold more allure than the minuses can pull us back from. It is just such a shame that Nokia let us down on the mono earbud and left out a front facing camera.