Nokia E71 review
So there’s this phone called the Nokia E71. It magically showed up on our doorstep yesterday (shout out to FedEx Sameday!) and was begging for us to review it. Well, we’re not going to disappoint you. In fact, there will be no disappointment at all as you’ll see in our review. The Nokia E71 has officially entered the ring, and it’s coming out fighting. Spoiler Alert: we love this phone. Full review is after the break!
Design:
Obviously this is subjective, but this could really be one of the sexiest damn phones we’ve seen in a very long time. We could do without the tacky pattern on the back battery cover, but we’ll let it slide this time. The entire phone is chrome and while it’s definitely a fingerprint magnet (just have your assistant wipe it down for you) it looks really sharp in person. Everything is proportionate and sort of just works well together. The middle select key actually serves as the notification light, too. So when you have a missed event, the border around the middle key will glow white until you cleared the event, or until the expiration time you set for the notification light expires. It’s a nice touch and a creative way to get rid of the annoying older-fashioned status light. Oh yeah…did we mention this thing is thin? Seriously, we don’t know how they did it. Especially with everything that’s packed in here…man, that BlackBerry Bold is just huge compared to this. Everyone is going to have to step it up after this because as of now, we can’t find one single thing Nokia sacrificed to make the device this thin and compact.
Screen:
There’s a 320×240 screen on the E71 and it looks very sharp. It’s not as bright as the N95, but it’s very clear and easy on the eyes. Screen real estate isn’t a problem at all as we find it more pleasurable to use than an N95. Pictures and video look very detailed and clean. There’s a decent amount of contrast when looking at media, and you’ll especially appreciate the screen during some heavy web browsing.
Connectivity:
The world must be changing. Remember when Nokia would hold every single feature above your head and never give you the perfect phone? Well, we’re finally getting past that. We’re not positive if there’s support for the 2100MHz band here, so for now, we’ll assume it doesn’t have it and there will be a US NAM model, and European model. In terms of the hard connectivity specs, you’ve got a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone with 850MHz/1900MHz UMTS/HSDPA support, Wi-Fi 802.11 a,b,g, Bluetooth 2.0, and GPS. Like most recent Nokia’s, the GPS is assisted by the network, but fret not because there still is a physical GPS chip in here.
Sound:
Like the E61 and E61i before it, the E71 houses a single speaker in the upper left of the phone. It seems louder than the E61 and it’s pretty clear for ringtones and alert sounds. Music sounds fine on it, but it’s not perfect. Bass is seriously lacking and you do get a “tinny” sort of sound. It is very, very loud, though, so you can be sure that alarm is going to get your ass out of bed in the morning.
Email:
What good would an E-Series device be without email? Besides the normal POP3/IMAP supported protocols, Nokia’s Mail For Exchange comes with the device out of the box and is incredibly easy to setup. The handset supports BlackBerry Connect (though we didn’t actually try it) and we’d imagine Goodlink as well. The messaging application had a little bit of a visual makeover, and it’s for the better. Text is extremely readable and emails look great. We’d have loved to see support for HTML email, but oh well.
Keyboard:
If there had to be one negative to the E71 (relax, it’s not the end of the world) it’s going to be the keyboard. Again, not a huge deal, but if we had to pick one thing to single out it’s the keyboard and it quite possibly won’t bother you. It did annoy us, though. Think of the physical keys on the E71 the same as the E61, just a lot smaller. They’re also not as squishy which is nice, and they’re pretty easy to press once you get it down. Our issue is, again, Nokia has not learned the basic keyboard layout and we personally can’t stand it. On a normal QWERTY keyboard the letter “z” is not directly under the letter “a”. It’s either under the letter “s” or somewhere in between the two. This makes typing a royal bitch if you’re not looking directly at the keyboard and is totally unnecessary. All they had to do is stick the damn period key in front of the “z” key and all would be well. Again, this might not be a big deal to you if you’re coming from a QWERTY E-Series already, but for us hardcore freaks who bang away constantly on the keyboard, we’d like the normal layout that’s used on basically every other QWERTY phone on the planet. Fix it please, Nokia. The keys have a nice white backlighting which makes them very easy to read. Just like the other models, the actual keys don’t light up, just the letters and symbols which makes for a very clean and sexy look.
Something also interesting is the inclusion of predictive text on here. You might be thinking why you’d ever need predictive text when you’ve got a QWERTY keyboard, but it actually helps more than it gets in the way. It sort of works like how the iPhone does. If you’re typing fast and accidentally misspell a word but keep typing and hit the space bar, it will auto correct and suggest that word for you. It can also save you a good amount of typing time as it will suggest words for you when you are halfway through them and a simple press of the space bar selects the suggested word and keeps you moving.
Expandability:
There’s a microSD card slot right above the microUSB port on the handset, so you should be able to expand the memory of the phone to the largest microSD card you can find. We haven’t checked data transfer speeds to the memory card over USB yet, but we’re assuming it’s on par with the rest of the Nokias.
Call quality:
Nokia and call quality go together like ham and burger. Kool-Aid and sugar. The E71 doesn’t disappoint. We’ve had such a pleasurable experience with it that we’ve been calling people randomly just to talk on the phone. In all seriousness, it meets or exceeds what we’ve come to expect and love from Nokia. A phone that excels as a phone, as it should. It actually went toe-to-toe with our BlackBerry Curve in terms of holding onto a signal in low coverage areas. And all you BlackBerry lovers out there know that RIM makes one hell of a cell radio in those things.
Battery:
There’s a 1500mAh battery in the E71, and with a full day of heavy use like constant email, phone calls, web browsing, and all around messing with the phone, we’ve still got around 2 bars left. There should be no concern with the battery life here.
Conclusion:
We’re at the end of the review, but by now, you’ve seen how impressed we are with the phone. It takes a lot to get us excited but the E71 has done it. This thing, in our opinion, is the best phone Nokia has made to date. That’s a very bold statement, we know. But this really is going to be the phone to beat by a lot of manufacturers. From the design, to the specs, to the size, the feel — it has the entire package. It’s not for everyone, though. Some people prefer a straight up phone like a flip phone, but in terms of a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard, this takes the cake. It is just striking compared to the shit device the E61 was. It’s ok, we still love y’all that carry the E61, but this puts it to shame. One thing I personally can’t get over is the awesome dimensions of the device. It’s so perfectly thin, yet incredibly comfortable to hold and use. We just hope Nokia doesn’t wait too long to bring this to market as they need to strike now. Like right now. This second. After seeing all of the detailed shots and our impressions, how do you guys feel about the phone? Are you foaming at the mouth waiting for it or ice-grillin’ us?
Reading your review has not impressed me. After beening sold an E71 on the promise of instant emails by a dreamy Orange supplier and a not so bright Orange customer services i have concluded that emails are not sent to the phone like a blackberry. In some cases I have not received emails for two days and then get 47 in one hit. Great product!! Orange retail cannot help. Orange customer services cannot help and just for the hell of it Nokia say that you can only gat emails every 30 mins but i still cannot do that. Boy Genius can you throw me a fish!
Mines on it’s way 2day!! i cant wait!!!!!!!
i’ve got one from my bf.but i’ve a little bit problem with this phone especially when online chatting.the problem is i dont know where should i press the “enter” key coz the enter key didnt work when online chatting.hope someone will help me.
hi..itz an awesome phone..it has everthing..
can any one clear the following issues:
1. Does Gtalk,skype,yahoo applications are available 4 dis version?
2.Does voip works well using wifi?
I love this phone. It’s the best phone I’ve had so far. I realy enjoy all the features specially the wi-fi.
Take a gamble and buy a NOKIA E71 “dumbphone” – good luck!
I bought an E71 on 10 Oct 08. It developed problems shortly.
When I hit the menu key – the home screen shows a partial “menu” screen on the top right hand corner of the screen but I can’t get access into the menu window.
I have to keep restarting it in order to enter into the menu. This occurs like 3-4 times a wk.
The Nokia service centre, Singapore reinstalled the new OS into it and “fixed” it.
It still had the same problem!
They replaced it with another one after I faxed NOKIA MD, FINLAND. NOkia SG wanted me to bring it in for checking again. Which I refused.
The replacement E71 has the same problem. Now it has a new feature – the organiser reschedules my appointments by 3hours later.
Nokia quality control is bad!!!!!!!!
This is the last time I’ll buy a Nokia product.
Can you make word, excel, ppt files on the E71 and later store and edit them?
Is it possible to make word, excel, ppt files on the E71 and later store and edit them?
got one today. previously i had sony ericsson p910i and this e71 is simply great. great for a office guy like me.
yes you can @ ST.
I purchased the E-71 while working in the middle east. Yes the phone is unlocked and it works in the USA. All of the phones functions work, and there no problems with the phone. I left some of accesories for the phone back in the middle east, and I wish I had them. I had to buy 110 volt charger and the phone works no problem and takes a charge.
sincerely,
Larry
u need to go to user setting and change email retrieval to update every 30 minutes and no it does not update like a blackberry if it did it would kill the battery life. love this phone btw
What cell carriers does this phone work on? Verizion???
this phone is simply “the bomb”!!!!!!! i also use an i-phone but this takes the cake.
It has office and realplayer… has it all….I have one and loves it.
for VOIP on mobile fones there is only one REAL solution – http://www.fring.com its available for all nokia symbian fones includng the E71 – download it and give it a try its REALLY REALLY GOOD – if you have any problems give send me a message
3.2 mp with flash
I just got this phone and am having trouble downloading tones and graphics from at&t …..can anyone help?
you could also try EMOZE. Free service for Push email…works with Symbian.
Use to have it on my 6682 worked great. hard to set up first time though. call CSR support for setup help.
All the bells and whistles were nicely pointed out at http://www.gsmarena.com – search E71
give it a look through…might be useful!
Ok people out there. Im an apple freak! been working on apple for god knows how many years, and for that matter have been following the pursuit of the iphone accordingly. Well the 3G was released, and after waiting till basically lots of friends got one. i had a play. yes great device, but that really it. its just a great device. not a great phone.
Iphone also has a low battery life, its fiddly, and any way im sure you have read the reviews. As well as bloody apple trying to control the market and their device. (not phone) eat my dirt Apple.
Im upgrading from a HTC TyTnII – which is a top phone if not a little bulky.
Well i research everything, and hence it finally came time to proceed with my next choice of phone.
I went with the Nokia E71 and OMG am I happy about that.
Now let me say. Im 6′4 weigh a healthy 100kg, and have big hands. and after getting my E71 all i can say is i am the happiest i have ever been with a phone ever. Its slim. stainless steel with a glass screen it feels like jewelry! mmmm chrome..
The keys although small, do take a day or so to get the right vibe. however they are raised ergonomically to the perfect height and ridge for ease of use and now im classified as a freak, based on the long text messages i send really quickly.
8 friends who have seen my phone and played with it, now also have one based on how they feel after playing with it
Here are the list of phones I compared and could have bouht during this process.
• HTC touch pro. – too flimsy, feels like plastic and low build quality well for me any way
• Iphone – Great device but average phone, low battery life and really quite a few other disapointing features!
• Blackberry Bold – nice looking phone and dig the little mouse ball. but in reality, still feels just ok, and rather large!
• Nokie N96 – cool phone, but still no QWERTY
• Nokia E71 – SOLD
All i can say is this is the phone that in theory other phones should base build quality and look and feel (although iphone does look divine).
The E71 is solid and simply a joy to use.
CONS:
1. GPS is not free?? What The it is on the HTC TyTnII which i now have on my dash just for that
2. Will not play .mp4 or .mov quite a stupid move on nokia it just playes REAL PLAYER – silly
3. Graphics although nice dont compare with apple or HTC touch (hey im a designer, even I could power Symbian with insane graphics and user interface (Hope Nokia read this)
4. Camera – Average picture quality hence why i have 3 cameras lol (no herb Ritz pics on this phone)
5. The 2.5mm headphone jack – Helloooo Mc Fly… Ok why would you use a 2.5mm jack when every headphone is 3.5mm and even more stupid was Nokia’s decision to put it on the side of the phone DoH! so add an adapter which is alo straight, and suddeny you have over one inch of head phone jack sticking out the side which is bloody stupid and will soooo snap off and bust ya phone, Phew Blu tooth. but honestly what were they thinking. (ipod still my music player)
That’s it…. it took me a long time of research to get to here. and after several months with the E71 even with the above cons I am still the happiest i have ever been with a phone and all i can say is get it!
Lastly. get the black one – The white just doesn’t quite cut it and can get dirty quite easily, one friend got it and wish they went BLACK… i can hear a few chuckles on this comment…
Well im glad I got that out of my system and hope it brings some light to those wanting an awesome phone. Enjoy it as much as I do….
Take care and I hope this helped.
Lawrence from soundfoundation.com.au =-)
i didnt have any of these issues with the one phone i got straight out of the box. i so wish this didnt happen to you.
I just bought my e71 in india . I am not able to send emails sometimes when I hit reply to a message. Also want to use push mail as it takes a lot of time to retrieve emails . And bpl does not provide a push mail service for the nokia e-71. Any solutions to this ?
Lawrence from soundfoundation.com.au,
Loved your review and comments, especially the Helloooo McFly for the headphone jack – yeah, what were they thinking?
I’m due for three new phones (for the family), so keep putting off a choice as every one has a problem or two. I’ll go take a look at this one….
I have a 64 bit Operating System on an HP laptop…running Vista…will the E71 Synch my Outlook email? Currently I ahve a Treo 755p that will only run on 32 bit…I also want to make sure the Bluetooth will work in my car as a “hands free” system…I ahve an 2006 Audi A8…help!