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?
Its great for a 3.2 megapixel!!
I got it!!
I have just returned my E71 to Vodaphone and am reverting to an old Nokia 5144 because it is an absolutely dreadful piece of ill considered rubbish.
It is the ideal device for the person who prefers the intricacies of slow, cumbersome, lock up prone, operating systems to the result they are supposed to produce. Scrolling round the screen was a pain and the time everything took to do nearly drove me mad.
The most serious fault of all was the phone itself. It’s RF performance is appalling, I lost countless calls simply because it is so much worse than any other mobile phone I’ve ever had.
At the same my business partner bought one, the first was faulty and returned and so was the second. He was so disgusted by the operating system and its inability to receive a phone call, he sent it back for a refund straight away. I should have done the same, but I made the mistake of thinking he was being hasty and stuck with mine for three months.
My business partner bought an iPhone instead and although battery life is shorter, it is a very much better phone in every respect. There really is no contest, but then it’s the same with Apple Computers and Windows people would argue that one to the death as well.
I’ve reverted to a reliable mobile phone with good RF performance because that is the primary requirement. IMO network coverage is still patchy for 3G and phones like the E71 are just foul to use, they just have novelty value and fascinate gadget lovers. The iphone is far too much money for a phone but the easiest and fastest by miles.
Ashley
this phone is superd .. its just perfect .. i have had many many phones in the past but this has to be the best! its nice to look at, it easy to use, the features are amazing. its just superb .. i dont really know what else to say about it.
We have brand new LAPTOPS,Plasma Tv, mobilephone,Apple Ipod , at good price Apple Mac Pro for just ..$1000, Apple NoteBook Laptop for just ..$650, Nokia n98 $520.00 usd nokai n96 $250.00 usd,Apple 60 GB iPod Video.$170, Apple iphone 4GB.$220,Mobile Sidekick II.$120 Blackberry 8700c.$220 Samsung LN-R328W – LCD TV – 32..$800 Samsung LN-R408D – LCD TV – 40..$1000Blackberry 8700f .$250usd and we have many in stock so contact on phoneworldlink1@gmail.com or phoneworldlink1@yahoo.com or phoneworldlink@aim.com
guys, this is one of the best mobiles I ever used. I have installed Cisco CM client and integrated to our call manager too, this feature provide the real mobility and it saves the cost too in terms of taking calls to one service provider to other service provider.
good mobile !!!! I recommend this to all the Nokia fans and it is value for MONEY !!!!!!
The keyboard on this phone is wicked. The curves are enough to make this small keyboard usable, but also good looking. Awesome design!
After 7 months of owning this phone I am finally compelled to sit and write this review. There is nothing out there like the E71. The calls are clear and I have a dropped call yet. After spending decent time and looking at the sites dedicated to this phone I have been able to stuff my SD card with a ton of goodies. I watch all my favorite shows on the subway and the music sounds awesome (Coreplayer), the Nokia messaging pushes my email to the phone before it even gets to my inbox on the PC (email. Nokia.com), I am able to make my skype calls, Msn call, twitter and muchmore from Fring (Fring.com) and sometimes the voip calls are clearer than my cell calls. I also use an awesome app. called truphone (truphone.com) which saves a ton on International calls. The list goes on and on.
If you think the phone is great out of the box you will really get your moneys worth when you see all that can be done on this great machine. If you have any doubts take it from me…..Get one NOW!
I forgot to say this ad I hope I am allowed. After going through 5 different head phones (a couple I lost and the rest were shit) and doing a little research i found what i would be the perfect headphones for this phone…..the Sennheiser cx400B. You can get them for 30 bucks if you look around the web. Sounds better than a pair I paid $100 for. Guys….you have not began to hear music till you try the combo of these headphones with coreplayer on your e71. I have no more use for the ipod cause this gives me all I need. I hope this helps!
Hi
I have this phone now on Optus in Australia. Does anyone know of any good applications for this phone?
The reason being…
My BlackBerry Bold on Telstra Next G (AU again) has been playing up so I’ve sent it away to get fixed. I can definitely say that the Blackberry Bold triumphs over this in user friendliness, playback of videos that I’ve downloaded, and the quick speeds of Next G’s network only make it better. I am also feeling the loss of the made-for-Blackberry applications and themes, such as Facebook and Dexrex SMS backup etc.
So any suggestions would be great!
Thanks
J
As a computer tech someone who’s been using mobiles / cell phones since 1990, when they looked like Maggie Thatcher’s handbag, I can truthfully say that, from my point of view, my new E71 is the best mobile phone yet.
Is it better than an iPhone? Well I’ve had both and the E71 is certainly much smaller and the build quality looks and feels better, and the call quality is at least as good. iPhone has lots more apps and a better OS but it’s NOT significantly better for the extra money (or increased network contract costs). BTW touch-screen keyboards are crap compared to a true hard-key qwerty).
I love mine to bits. Although it’s got lots of toys like TWO cameras (one is for for videophone), mp3 player, GPRS mapping, office apps, streaming video, etc., it’s main features for me are:
a) Excellent phone (small size, crystal clear reception on ORANGE network in remote places, quad band).
b) QWERTY keyboard with raised keys (absolute dawdle to use)
c) Internet access (if you really want it – remember that this is never going to be as good as a computer …. it’s basically a bl**dy phone, and a great one at that)
d) E-mail on the move via GPRS-WAP, Orange mail, or wi-fi (free access worldwide where available)
e) The wi-fi lan wizard makes it simple to set up wireless links anywhere. It remembers all your data (unlike the new N97 which apparently forgets it all )
f) Personal organizer / contacts list which syncs with your computer. The contacts list is intelligent in that you only need a single entry for each user and it holds all their e-mail, mobiles, home phone data and each application seeks out the correct data.
g) Weather forecaster – just set the area you want to know about and you get a 1-15 day forecast.
h) File manager – access all your photos, sounds, etc. from the main screen.
i) Downloadable applications – I downloaded SKYPE as Orange don’t supply it on contract but 3-mobile does.
j) It comes with a 2Gb micro-sd memory card but can be upgraded to 8Gb (cards are swappable too without detriment to phones onboard 110Mb memory).
k) Free case & in-ear headphones
So, if you want a great phone that does e-mail and lots of other tricks get a Nokia E71 (and it looks the absolute business)
Nokia claims that it works with an 8Gb micro SHDC card, although why it should be limited to that I don’t know (unless they’re just talking about what’s generally available on the market). Mine currently has a 4Gb card and works perfectly.
I just ordered mine. Should be here in about 3 days. I can’t wait.
AFTER UPDATE NOKIA E71 SOFTWERE SIM NUMBERS R NOT SHOWING.I,M IN TRUBLE SO WHAT I DO FOR SOLVE PROBLUM.
IF ANY BODY KNOW PLZ. TELL ME
THANKS
BYE
i hav this phone and its SICK!!! best phone ever , 4 those who dont hav onw , GO u dont know what your missin!
i think nokia e63 is better than e71 and n97 is best phone
Which do you think is better. Nokia E63 or the Nokia E71?
I realise that the E71 has a bigger screen so that is a plus on the 63.
am confused whether to buy motorola q9h or nokia e71…please advise me!!!
I need a program from N71(Call manager), could you uploud this program ??
I need a program from N71(Call manager)could you uploud this program ??
You can use up to a 32GB Micro SDHC card with the e71. Why Nokia tells no one this I will never know. They are pricey but but worth every penny for the unlimited space. A 16 Gig card will run you around 50 bucks on Amazon or newegg.com. So please do not believe you are limited to * gigs of space. Just make sure you get at least a class 6 or your downloads to the card will be very slow.
Also note that the best way to upload to the card is with Windows Media Player. Fast and easy. Hope this helps.
I am very tempted to but this phone – but to put it simply I am not a techno boffin. I would like to know whether this phone will do the following when I send SMS messages via PC suite:-
Bearing in mind that recipients of my messages do not all have smart phones and can only receive SMS and not MMS messages
1. not chop the message into 5 different messages when there are 1000 or more characters
2. save the message on my phone sent items with full details so that I can forward via e-mail to my computer for proof that the message was sent, delivered to the receipient at a particular time
3. Where I have the recipients cell number identified to a person on contacts the name of the person will be populated on the copy of the message that is stored as saved.
This would really help me in my deliberations.
After reading extensive reviews about E71 on the web, I finally decided to go for it and its in the mail! I am very excited and can’t wait for it to be delivered!
I love my little baby – E71 – phone but had a accident – it got wet! Yes dropped it in the toilet, shame on me! Please help. Have placed it in a bag of dry rice, put it by the heater, very, very, low heat. It worked for about 15 hrs and now there’s still some life but not able to do anything with it. Somebody please help.
Can anybody tell me if the e71 can be synched with a Macbook diary system please!
The isync plugin can be found here… http://europe.nokia.com/get-support-and-software/product-support/isync/compatibility-and-download and it should sync your Mac’s address book with the E71’s.