E71 is the latest fashion statement from Nokia
Its only 10mm thick and is rich in features. We will run through all the important features in this ESeries device
I admit that being a die hard Nokia fan. I just loved to get my hands on the device . Its such a sexy phone.
I would say its the sexiest and most beautiful phone Nokia has ever made .
Form factor , Display and styling
The phone looks damn small compared to the E61i and the metallic body makes this phone feel special and classy.
display has undergone reduction in size only 2.36 inches but it packs a 320X240 resolution and is clear and easy on the eyes
the phone comes with a 2GB microSD card and its hot swappable – port is present on the left.
volume keys are present on the right.
Connectivity
Its a Quadband GSM phone with support for 3G and HSDPA
Infrared , Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP , WIreless LAN a/b/g or WI-fi , A-GPS and 3G support . It’s also got support for HSDPA
There is a also a data cable which comes with the phone and port is below the memory card slot on the left.
Calling
Call handling was fine , no issues .
Keypad
The keypad has improved a lot over the E61i and E62 . As a matter of fact , I traded in my E61i to get this E71 and i am not regretting it
The click and feel of the new keys is great and gives you a good experience overall
There is also support for Predictive Text Input although most QWERTY phones drop this feature.
Frequent Texters / SMS freaks will love this phone for sure.
Theres is the normal D pad which has good response.
there are dedicated keys for home,calendar on the left and for phonebook and messaging on the right
keys are pretty close to each other and occasionally you might press the wrong key.
User modes
This phone has interesting new way of separating your work and personal life
Theres something called Switching modes and you can basically have 2 home screens for the phone.
You can have you personal mail accounts show up in one screen and have you corporate email show up on another.
Its a bold attempt to solve information overload.
Messaging and Email
Emailing has not got better in any Nokia phone. I added my gmail account and I did not have to enter any server information.
I just entered my email and password and chose my Wi-fi connection and it started .
I was up and running in under 30 seconds. Thats pretty good
SMS got a lot better and you can do a lot of stuff with the improved notifications system.
Mobile web browsing
Mobile browsing has got a bit better but not as cool as the iphone. I admit i have been bitten by the iphone bug
But one killer feature all of you would love . you can watch youtube videos within the browser it self .
you can actually watch streaming vidoes within the browser only which is a great improvment.
Nokia might beat the iphone hands down in this league if it improves this feature a bit.
Software , Applications , Performance and Memory
This phone runs Symbian Os 9.2 with S60 Feature Pack 1. There is some software which comes preloaded on the phone – Quickoffice(Quickword, Quickpoint, Quicksheet), Adobe PDF Reader, Active Notes
We installed Google maps , gmail app and youtube app.
It seemed to run much faster than E61i which was damn sluggish.
Theres about 110MB of phone memory and it ships with a 2 GB card, so you might not have to buy one immediately . It supports upto 8GB of memory expansion.
Camera
This e series phone has a 3.2 mega pixel camera with flash and zoom. this is good enough considering the fact that this is not a multimedia phone but a business phone.
[Sample image taken with phone]
VGA video recording (320x240px) similar to VCD quality is possible and fine for capturing great moments. Camera does not have shutter. There is a mirror on the right so that you can look into the phone while clicking your photo. There is a camera on the front but is meant for video calling.
Multimedia
Audio
There is a single speaker on the top left of the screen . Its louder than the E61i and is not bad at all for music playback. Its not perfect. Music gets a bit choppy with bass.
music playback is time upto 18 hours but sadly no 3.5mm port only a 2.5mm
There’s FM Radio too
Video
You can capture upto 1hr of video . Theres Real Player and it supports Flash Lite 3, mp4, .3gp; H.263, MPEG-4 VSP,RealVideo,H.264
Battery
Battery life is great ! 10 hours of GSM/2G talk time is as good as it gets . A 1500 mAh battery is packed at the back for device.
Conclusion
Considering the fact that the Nokia E71 is a business phone competing with the blackberry phones and other enterprise devices,
its a clear winner in most areas. Camera’s not the best but decent enough compared to E61i.
If you are looking for a phone for mainly calling , messaging and plenty of connectivity options and a fast OS plus phenomenal battery life this phone is a great buy for around Rs.20000.
This is a short review , please leave a comment if we have forgot to mention any feature.
We are still playing with the phone