Nokia E71 hands on
It’s my first day back but that’s not stopping us from bringing you guys a little hardcore Nokia action! We’ve got a Nokia E71 in hand and we’ve got to say, this thing is nice. It’s the perfect size — a cross between the Nokia E51 and E61 — and it’s built like a tank. Did we mention that it has US 3G bands? Oh, ok then. The keyboard is going to take some getting used to, but it’s worlds better than the old E61 and E61i. Also, this bad beast of an Eseries is thin, and thin is in folks. It is noticeably thinner than the reigning thin smart phone champ, the iPhone. All in all, we can’t seem to put this thing down. Our resident S60 nut Zach confirmed to us that the E71 will definitely be launching with the US 3G bands, so we’re just going to have to do a little bit of waiting game to see when this is finally released. In terms of specs, the E71 we have is a quad-band GSM EDGE phone with 850MHz/1900MHz UMTS/HSDPA. It’s rocking a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, Wi-Fi and GPS. We’re putting our full review together and we’re doing a video walkthrough but in the meantime, hang tight and hit the gallery. We’ve got some shots of the E71 with the N95 8GB and iPhone so you can really see the size of the thing.
Click on over to our Nokia E71 hands on gallery!
what is the processing power and onboard memory on the E71? I’ve got the E61i and I find that it struggles to carry out multiple functions and/or applications at once.
otherwise can’t wait to see this released!
Wow! Thats a prize catch!
PS: The gallery link has an extra “http://” so link isn’t working.
beautiful phone…i would definitely buy it when released.
Fixed link, thanks!
Wow I’m really digging the phone. I had been a slim QWERTY slab fan for a long while and tried as long as I could to hold out for one with WiFi, US 3G bands and GPS, but I couldn’t quite make it and bought an AT&T Tilt. Now I’m kinda hooked on the Tilt’s (albeit chunkier) form factor so I don’t know if I’d be able to go back to the smaller screen on the E71. But damn if this isn’t almost slick looking enough to make me really really REALLY think about it.
Thanks for the gallery, looks good…
I’d like to say, I told you so :p
I would switch to ATT to get my hands on that, if it’s cheap like my E51. Will this sit in ATT’s labs for 6 months to a year like other s60 devices?
Is this def coming to AT&T?
While the phone capability of the s60 phones are excellent and the OS is generally rock-solid (if a bit slow), the PIM applications are frankly dreadful – especially, as many business customers are, you are tied into the outlook, exchange model of working.
U already know ATT is going to lock the OS down tight.
As far as I can tell it’s 320×240.
OH MY GOD THAT IS BEAUTIFUL!! That is my next locked phone, no question that is it. Absolute winner, beautiful, amazing…dare I say, perfect?
coming from me who has been growing tired of windows mobile, and microsoft all together, this phone looks perfect. if att gets this phone there probably going to labotomize the wifi and everything else on the phone. i had an e62 but it was horribly slow, hopefully this is not.
is that “setup internet tel.” straight from the OS, not third party?
looks like a very good phone.
Yes sir. That’s part of the phone, not third party or carrier added.
@ Lucas
Looks to be a 328MHz processor with 110MB of RAM with around 70MB free
1700MHz?
Can we comfirm or deny whether or not it will have Tmo 3G as well as at&t? How about expandable memory? I’m getting ready to ebay every single handset I own as soon as this hits the streets! Great work on this one Boy Genius!
does this have FM radio? Any chance of trying if a BBC client, of maybe E90 ,gets installed?
This and E66 got announced by TIM on Saturday in Madrid. My guess is Nokia would announce it too by the next week.
BBC will work fine, and the display is indeed 320×240. Also the VoIP client is the same as the one in all S60 devices. It’s ok, not great.
As someone who’s been using an E61i full time for nearly a year now (since mid June 2007), your wonderful photos show a host of improvements that aren’t evident in the high-level spec list:
1 – They’ve added some space below the bottom row of keys (or moved the keyboard up slightly). On the E61i, it’s a bit hard to use the bottom row one-handed due to balance of the device.
2 – Added a 3.5mm standard headphone jack. Maybe I’ll actually use the music player on the E71 (and the pretty good music sync software).
3 – Added a USB port. I can’t tell (due to the flap being closed) if it’s standard mini-b or a micro-b variant…but if this means I can charge it natively (out of the box) from my laptop, then yahoo!
4 – Auto-focus (and 3.2MP) camera should be a great improvement over the already pretty-decent fixed focus 2MP of the E61i. Hope it has macro mode, though that may be asking for too much.
Now, if I may ask some questions, BG:
A – Above the USB port – what’s the next button? Looks almost like “play” type of arrowhead, but I can’t tell for sure.
B – Is that an IR port still present 2 steps above the USB ?
C- Is that a front facing camera on the right of the main speaker?
D – Does the UI Navigation feel snappier compared to an E61i ?
Thanks for the good photos and hand-on preview. Looking forward to your further comments!
@ Scoopster
I’m not BG but I do know A, its the microSD card slot.
Hey BG – nice work, just a quick question. Does it charge over USB? This is a a long-standing missing feature in S60 phones.
@ Scoopster
I don’t believe the headset jack is actually 3.5mm. At least it doesn’t look like it. Will check it out.
The USB port is a microUSB port. Will also check out charging it via USB, but I doubt it.
It has a software macro mode, but not something that’s controlled by the camera hardware.
Above the USB port/cover is the microSD cover/slot.
There is definitely still an IR port.
Yes, the front-facing camera is to the right of the ear speaker, and to the left is the light sensor I believe.
In general, the phone flies! It completely destroys any other E-Series device I’ve used, and its pleasurable to use, too. This will set the Nokia bar way high and will potentially do some damage to other smartphone manufacturers.
@ Graeme
Like I said above, will check on it, but highly doubt it. Only Nokia that I’ve seen that will charge over microUSB is actually the Vertu Ascent Ti, which isn’t exactly a regular Nokia.