I’ve had the Nokia E71 for two weeks now and admittedly I am still in awe at the device.
I’ve been looking for a new phone for a while and had been waiting patiently for the iPhone 3G’s South African launch. But when Vodacom did the unforgivable and postponed the launch for the 3rd consecutive month, I started looking for something better.
First impressions of the phone is WOW! Its an absolute stunner to look at it. With its dark metal finish, the dimples on the back and the big screen makes this phone very pretty.
Its officially the thinnest smart phone and has an awesome form factor that fits comfortably into any pocket without bulging or being uncomfortable.
Check out the full specs on the Nokia site. The box has a nothing extra fancy in it and ships with the standard stuff that we have come to expect from Nokia: a very small charger, a single ear handsfree headset, a leather strap, a leather pouch, cd, booklets and of course the phone and battery.
The battery that ships with the phone is absolutely great! I keep the Bluetooth and wifi on all day for syncing with my laptop and for my push mail and I really hammer out emails on the phone all day long and I’m currently having to charge my phone every 2nd day.
I have setup Mail for Exchange and Nokia Email for my work and personal emails. They are both push mail clients and were phenomenally easy to setup. With super easy interfaces.
The phone bears a nice big bright screen. Its fairly easy to read under bright light conditions as well. It rings fairly loud and the built in loud speaker is nice and clear and the mic does a great job while I'm in the car.
The vibrating feature is a bit half-assed though. Having the phone on silent with vibrate only is not going to work for me, so I’ve had to edit the profile to beep once just to make sure it catches my attention.
The keyboard is cool, though the spacing between the buttons make it easy to mistype. The shift key is also in a very arb place and its fairly difficult to use at first, but you get used to it after a few dozen emails. But expect to be using the backspace button quite a bit.
The phone is a finger print magnet! I’ve had to start keeping a little clothe on my desk to wipe it down every now and again, because the prints become disturbing after a while.
Symbian has definitely made lots of improvements on the OS. I was using a Nokia N80previously and found that with 4 or 5 applications open at a time, the phone lags or even crashes and restarts itself. But the E71 does an amazing job of multi tasking. I have used upto 6 applications at once and have yet to see any sign of lag on the phone. Switching between them is seamless too.
I love the search feature on the phone which works the same as Windows Vista’s Search. I love the fact that from the homescreen, as I type, it sorts the contacts list, which makes for quick and easy calling.
I love how I can type a contacts name in the TO section of an SMS and it will auto search my contact list. It also supports auto complete, which is really clever.
I love waking up to find the weather report on my phone waiting for me.
I love how easy the alarm clock is to setup with multiple alarm settings that are each highly configurable.
Packed with a huge onboard memory, I have been installing applications on the phone from Nokia’s new Labs website called BetaLabs. There are some really great apps out there as well.
Talking of which, the default themes on the phone is absolutely shocking! It reminded me of Windows 3.1.1 and the very first hour of using the phone, I set out looking for a new theme! I also realised that there are SO many really stupid themes out there... but I found one that I really like!
I also don’t use the second home screen. Maybe because I’m used to having only one home screen, so for now, I don’t see the point of the feature. And I also HATE that all new SMSes, Missed Calls or Voice Mails are listed at the bottom of the phone as buttons. Its really annoying to have to scroll down through all items on the home screen to get to the SMS icon. Why did they do this? Maybe I'm missing the point.
I’ve read a lot of great reviews for this phone and I would like confirm that this is an absolutely great handset. Nokia has really done an awesome job with this phone, so well done Nokia!
I highly recommend the phone to anyone who is looking for business focussed device!
I got the Nokia E71 from MTN on a ProCall 120 contract for the MTN Service Centre at Canal Walk within 30 minutes of applying. I was helped by the most competent sales staff that I have encountered in a VERY long time, so well done MTN!
The Nokia E61 and E62i were evangelists in its domain, and the launch of the Nokia E71 saw the business phone grow up quite a bit. I'm a Nokia E71 owner and I absolutely love the device.
Everything from the E71 alarm clock to the Mail for Exchage integration. The design is stunning and the form factor is pure perfection. Kudos to the designers and engineers on the E71.
I guess, when you have something so close to perfection, its tough to beat it. SO the designers at Nokia must have had a real hard time coming up with something decent for the E63. But judging from the spy shots of the Nokia E63, it looks like it was designed at 4:45pm on a Friday by a Finnish designer who just bought himself a new set of colouring pencils!
<--Nokia E71 Nokia E63-->
Early reports show it as having a 320 x 240 resolution display, WiFi, Bluetooth, Symbian S60, a microSD card slot, 3.5-millimeter headphone jack and UMTS / HSDPA. And judging from the pics, the keyboard has been altered slightly to include easy access to brackets and the space bar has been shortened. Good move!
Just as I finished my last Nokia article, I stumbled across another hot topic. That is the low end market. We have seen the product range go through a major storm of late with the iPhone, the Nokia E71, the HTC Touch HD, etc etc, but we really haven't seen much movement in the lower price bracket! And this is the cue for Nokia's latest army of budget handsets. Designed specifically to target emerging markets, these handsets range in price from as little as $25 to $90! Most of them come packed with the standard features of late, MP3 playback, cameras of at least 1 Megapixel (but going up to 3Megapixels on the higher end phone), GPRS and browser functionality.
At $25, this is set to be Nokia's cheapest handset ever and it sports a monochrome screen and basic features that we have last seen on the Nokia 3300 :)
On the back of a super successful full touch screen phone, the iPhone, we have seen just about every handset manufacturer release a touchscreen phone!
Samsungs Omnia, the new HTC Touch range is said to compete, and now.. all hail the Nokia 5300!
This is Nokia's first mainstream handset with full touchscreen functionality. Nokia does have preceding devices that were way to expensive to have taken off successfully, like the N800 Tablet and the 7700. This handset is said to be targeting the sub $400 price bracket with tweaked OS driven by Symbian S60 Version 5 (Yes, I said Version 5!) to push the multitouch screen through its paces!
All About Symbian has done an extensive review on the device and I must admit... the boys at Nokia have been really working hard lately!
It is really great that Symbian is starting to show signs of maturity across their OS. One of the really great features of the Nokia E71, is the highly manageable alarm clock. We take this feature for granted, but we must admit that we use this feature alot more than quite a few other features on our phones.
Setting up the alarm on the Nokia E71 is slightly different to the standard Symbian S60 layout, in that it is now found in a new folder in the menu and the alarm settings now allow it to be a lot more customisable.
Follow this easy step by step guide to set up the alarm:
Press the menu button. By default, this is the button with the home icon. See the diagram below:
Open the Office folder.
Open the Clock application
Use the right scroll to open the alarm tab.
Press the Options button and click on New Alarm.
Set the time.
Give the alarm a name.
Set how often you would like it to repeat, daily, weekly, or workdays.
Click OK!
You can have multiple alarms set for multiple tasks, with multiple repeat schedules, which is very cool.
Sphere: Related Content
When the N95 was released, it was all but universally adored. Even today, nearly two full years after it was first revealed, it's still one of the most respected in Nokia's lineup. From the get-go, we knew the N96 was more evolutionary and less revolutionary; after all, the two handsets even look alike. The general consensus this time around is about what we expected: the N96 is a fine phone, and a worthy successor, but probably not worth the high price it's currently demanding. Oh sure, the call quality was stupendous, battery life was satisfactory and the multimedia playback was superb, but some critics were a bit displeased with the fit and finish given the premium price tag. All in all, don't go into the links below expecting any huge surprises -- the N96 is a nicely revamped, high-priced N95, and if that's what you're looking for, there doesn't seem to be any underlying issues that should hold you back from indulging.
Read - PhoneArena ("Nokia seems to have taken more of a lateral step than pushing forward with innovation.") Read - MobileArsenal ("...doesn't have anything we didn't see before...") Read - LordPercy ("...an improved, quality phone...") Read - Mobile88 (4 out of 5 stars)
Packed with a huge onboard memory, I have been installing applications on the phone from Nokia’s new Labs website called BetaLabs. There are some really great apps out there as well.
