The Nokia E71 has arrived here at the Nokia Guide and having just a weekend to play with the new enterpriselicious QWERTY device so far, it’s not enough to write a full-blown Mega Review, but how about a few random thoughts and opinion based on my usage for now? The E71 arrived in a box similar to what we are used to with Nseries devices, except for two interesting things: a much much smaller box and using the color red as an “accent color”. Normally we are used to the grey, white and even pinkish Nseries, but red for the Eseries?! As you’ll soon see, it’s not only a part of the box that’s red.
The sample received was a “Grey Steel” E71-1 supporting Dual mode WCDMA (900/2100 HSDPA) and Quadband GSM (EGSM900, GSM850/1800/1900MHz) with the v100.07.76 firmware. The standard retail package comes with:
· Nokia E71
· Nokia Battery (BP-4L)
· Nokia Charger (AC-5)
· Nokia connectivity cable (CA-101)
· Nokia Headset (HS-47)
· Nokia Eseries Lanyard
· Nokia Eseries Pouch
· User Guide, Quick Start Guide and other documentation
· 2GB microSD card
-Build-Quality is exceptional. Coming from something like N95 8GB, N95 or even the N82, the E71 stays true to Eseries tradition by delivering outstanding build quality that only gets better with the use of metals and the tight gaps between parts. The E71 leaves the N95 and N95 8GB far behind when it comes to build quality.
-The textured metal on the back adds a surprising amount of grip, yet adds an interesting and sophisticated design element.
-The E71 has a layout that’s the closest thing to perfect I have ever seen from Nokia, everything from the QWERTY keyboard, the overall size, the space between the elements, the buttons, it all just works perfectly, if only they could make the screen bigger: 2.8 or even 3”. The Nseries definitely should get such a device with such a layout and QWERTY keyboard.
-The included 2.5 mm Nokia AV connector is a disappointment and believe me it’s a big one. You truly appreciate the 3.5mm audio jack when a device lacks it. This is probably the biggest negative side of the E71.
-No TV-Out. With full-office editing and viewing functions, having this would have been the ultimate “leave your notebook at home” feature. Doing presentations via a TV-out function would have been ideal for the business user.
-The E71’s keys remind me of the excellent N93 keys, only slightly smaller and not as “spongey”, with the same rounded shape pointing upwards. The keys on the E71 work really well and are a positive change from flat keys we’ve seen so far from the likes of the N78. N93i. Even though the keys on the N82, N95 and N95 8GB worked, they should have been like the N93 and W71. Every key on the E71 exudes a quality feel, including the solid feeling Naviwheel.
-The new Nokia Tune is an interesting change, but where’s the original one?
-The addition of a lanyard and a pouch is nice touch and Nokia should this every Eseries and Nseries device. Too bad the pouch doesn’t have a belt loop or clip.
-Remember the red color on the box? This color is again repeated on the power button, lanyard and even the inside of the pouch. Red isn’t the accent color I would think of using when designing a business device, but it sure works well. This leads me to believe that the E71 and slider E66 are despite their business roots, they seem to have robbed a few ideas from Nokia L’Amour and Super Nova fashion devices.
-Despite the inclusion of a fairly decent (on paper atleast) 3.2 Megapixel Auto-Focus camera, the E71 falls behind other 3.2 MP devices like the N73 and N93 or even 2 Megapixel devices like the N70. The reason why the camera falls behind is due to the noisy sensor and poor dynamic range. This is expected from a business oriented devices, but this probably means that unlike devices like N82 that can double as a camera, the E71 should be left for emergencies only. In the case of the N82 you could leave the camera at home, in the case of the E71 you’ll probably need to carry more devices to cover the multimedia side of things.
-The breathing light is a cool, yet functional touch.
-The E71 is smaller in person than what I expected and let’s not forget how thing the device is, especially when you realize that the battery takes quite a bit of space.
-Speaking of batteries, the E71 battery life is quite impressive.
-Devices like the N76, N800 and even N93i screen were almost unreadable in direct sunlight, luckily just like the N95, N95 8GB and N93, the E71’s screen stays readable even in the brightest tropical sun.
-The E71 is a finger print magnet, especially the back. This is probably caused by the abundant use of metals and shiny surfaces. Just in case you were wondering the E71 should double as a signaling device in case of any emergency due to the shiny surfaces. Even when taking pictures of yourself, the back can be used as a giant mirror.
-The menu is very responsive and apps open up very quick.
What would you like to know about the E71? And if you were lucky enough to score an E71, what interesting things have you noticed?
I live in Singapore and I scored dark grey E71 just a week ago when the telcos here bundled it with new subscriptions/renewals for a mere SIN$68!!! My previous phone was an E61i and I was looking forward to this baby for a while now. And I must say that I’m not disappointed! I got a trade in value of SIN$200 for my E61i, so I even walked away with cash in hand!
First thing I did was go out an buy an extra 3rd party leather pouch, since the one provided by Nokia is beautiful and not available as a separate retail item. I’ll just use the Nokia one for when I want make a good impression I guess. LOL. lame I know, but I think the pouch is really pretty.
Never used the provided lanyard. Instead modded a Lego Darth Vader mini-fig to a lanyard string and attached it on as a phone token. I’m a designer, so I can get away with such displays of eccentricity in my work life.
I’ve been deathly afraid of scratching the screen and 2 days ago, managed to find a small phone shop close to my home that had screen protectors that were pre-cut for the E71. A mere SIN$5 for peace of mind.
The built-in SWITCH app is fantastic. Running it from the E71 with no SIM card, it paired with my E61i over Bluetooth and pulled over all my data, even the SMS messages. Must say, that porting over was painless.
The MODES function is a curious touch… I can’t decide if I like or hate it… but am leaning towards liking it. Have set the PERSONAL mode for entertainment functions.
The provided stereo headset doesn’t fit well in my ears so I had to get sponge padding for them. But the sound quality left much to be desired when playing music. I picked up a generic 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter for SIN$5 and hooked up my Sennheiser PX200 and the music mproved a great deal. Only drawback is that I need to speak into the phone when making a call… kinda goofy looking. So two days ago, I snooped out a couple of phone shops and scored a brand-new looking, pre-loved Sony-Ericsson HBH-DS200 Bluetooth Stereo Headset for just SIN$50!!. Pairing took all of 5 seconds and they work great. This Bluetooth unit has a 3.5mm connector so it allows you to use your own ear/headphones. At home I left my phone by my bed while I went ard the room doing stuff and there was no signal dropping. Incidentally, the included SE earphones were miles ahead of the Nokia ones, so I’m quite happy using them with the Bluetooth unit instead of plugging in my PX200s.
Pity that the radio can’t work unless a jack is detected in the 2.5mm connector. Planning to leave the 2.5-3.5mm adapter in the connector, and see if the E71 will still stream music to my HBH-DS200.
The Music Player is pretty crap in functionality. Can’t move tracks within a playlist. Sigh. Can anyone recommend a better music player app that’s free?
Missed call and SMS notices now show up at the bottom of the home screen. Great thinking. I much prefer this to the older E61i’s listing of missed anythings.
Despite the smaller keyboard, I’m not making as many mistakes hitting the wrong keys as I expected. The significantly raised buttons help a lot and make text entry very easy despite the rather cramped keyboard.
One thing about text entry that bugged me was the fact that auto-caps seems to no longer work after deletion. Start typing a new note and the first letter will be capitalised. delete it and type again, and it’s no longer caps. You’ll have to manually capitalise the letter. Same goes for first letter after punctuation. Not a huge deal, but it bugs me, since the E61i had it before.
ABSOLUTELY love the current mass storage options on the E71 when connecting it to a Mac with the USB cable. The E61i could not be navigated previously, so file transfer was either through painful Bluetooth (and each file became a new message received) or through a card reader. This latter option was a drag since you had to take the E61i apart and remove the battery in order to access the micro-SD card. The E71 has access to the micro-SD built into the left edge. Though others have criticised the port covers for being too flimsy, I’m not complaining. Just having easy access to my micro-SD and directory access to my E71 more than makes up for it. And with micro-SD getting cheaper and cheaper these days… easy access to the card makes sense as people start thinking about owning more than 1.
Overall, I am soooooooooo impressed with the E71. I’ve loaded a few albums of music into the included 1GB micro-SD and am planning to get an 8GB micro-SD to load even more content into it. The build quality is superb and I daresay it’s setting a whole different standard for phones and PDAs out there. Whatever lessons they’re learning from the VERTU line, I hope Nokia passes more of such learnings down to the rest of the phones they design. it’s incredibly slim for something that does sooooo much. I’m pulling my mail, surfing and playing my content anytime I want with a device that’s sexy and looks like it belongs in the pocket of a secret agent. Absolutely No regrets… just wondering what a future E81 or E91 will look like.
Doesn”t the “2.5 mm Nokia AV connector” provide a TV-out function? Seems like this cable can do it – http://europe.nokia.com/A4397376
Does the Nokia E71 have the same Font system as the Blackberry. I have poor eyesight and the ability to change font size is the single most important choice in selecting a phone.
I’ve just bought a Nokia E71 and it’s very cool. The only problem I have is pairing my previous bluetooth earpiece. The earpiece is a Sony Ericsson HBH-610a. I set the earpiece up to pair with the E71 but nothing happens. HELP!! (please)
Upgraded my contract to a better one for only £5 more than I was paying and a free E71. I haven’t put the sim in yet as the contract don’t start till Tuesday. But played with the phone connecting to my home wifi. I have to say, I’m disappointed. The phone is no where near as good as everyone is raving. Have never used Symbian before I realise why, it’s shit. It’s really not user friendly and I’m an IT engineer.
My wifi at home is hidden and has mac filtering. The problem is the hidden. Means I have to go into connections most times to connect to the wifi from there. In other applications they seem to be incapable of seeing the hidden wifi you’ve setup in connectivity.
Mail for exchange is a nightmare to setup. Has a big bug in it that makes your profile disappear. You have to exit it before it will reappear. Also the error today ’cause Mail For Exchange to totally disappear as if it wasn’t installed.
I couldn’t install most of the software at first, then found via connecting the phone to Nokia Suite, that I think it was ’cause Nokia Suite wasn’t actually installed on the phone. Had to do that before Nokia Suite would work. Once I unplugged the phone and plugged it back in. Nokia Suite refused to detect it. I had to reinstall Nokia Suite about twice before it would detect the phone again.
GPS appears to be poor. I went in the garden and it picked me up within seconds. I’ve just walked to the post box and back and it didn’t pick me up till I got back to the house.
Within certain applications that require network access. Some won’t allow you to connect to the net via the wifi and insist on a sim card being installed into the phone.
When playing games or applications with sound there appears to be no quick easy way to turn the volume down. The volume controls that control the media player don’t appear to work for games, which is odd.
Overall the phone is a big disappointment and doesn’t deserve the praise it’s getting. And the Symbian OS REALLY needs to be reworked.
I noticed one major bug in the software of E71. When I connect E71 with PC using the data cable and choose the option mass storage and transfer the data. Then close the USB storage and remove it from the PC after assuring the safely remove hardware. Then try to open the messages or access emails then it showing me error that unable to access memory card and storing messages in phone memory and removed all the email settings, messages, sent messages. We can reconfigure the emails but cannot recover messages which are lost. The same behavior can be noticed after changing the SIM card.
One of my colleague is also using E71 and facing the same issue. So I believe there is an issue in its software, we are waiting for the next update of the software. If there is any other specific solution of this problem then please let me know.
I can’t seem to get my emails fast… I find myself going into the ‘messaging’ first to check if there was an a new email. How can I make my email notification to show up at the bottom? Am I setting my emails incorrectly? How many emails I can set up? Please help.
You can setup any number of emails like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Rediffmail, Work etc but you can set email notifications only for any of two emails. You are not getting notification for new emails because you haven’t set. You can set email notification for any of two emails by Menu->Tools->Settings->General->Personallization->Home Screen->Mode Settings->Home screen applications->E-mail 1 notification and E-mail-2 notification. For configuring work email, you will be required “Mail for exchange” or you can install any freeware for emails like SEVEN-beta etc.
Middle portion of LCD screen top part, certain alphabets tend to fade away. For instance if u go to active notes, the alphabet ‘s’ is almost disappearing and the alphabet ‘e’ is half faded. At tmes, the faded alphabets will reappear again.When I asked the nokia personnels they said its an ongoing problem with the LCD screen interface. anyone can verify if prior batches have this problem?
we are having issues with brand new E71,the memory card is not detected but it works when the sim card is removed
please provide some solution
All went well with setup. Got IM+ for Yahoo and Jabber, Fring for VOIP accts. All works ok.. EXCEPT..
Lotus email. There is only one provider in my area and they block port 25. Can get email in, can’t send through Domino Server. Work-around was to forward all my mail to gmail, and use it to send. The gmail client for mobile works fine.
Not unhappy at all. Love the phone.
The case is another issue. Bought a 3rd party case. I really liked the case on my previous Blackberry phone, but the Nokia case is a non-case.
I have used my E71 for 2 weeks. I discovered a very disappointing design defect. Dust some how finds a way into the LCD screen.
For Lotus Notes mail, I’d highly recommend Seven Beta. You can get it from http://community.seven.com. You’ll have to keep the desktop connector running though in a machine which is always connected to the internet. It pushes your mails and calendar to your phone. You can also access your domino contacts.
I’ve been using it in my older E50, E51 and now the E71.
The keyboard is a charm to work with (am typing this on it now).
GPS lock is pretty fast and accuracy is acceptable. Just avoid the ‘Urban Canyons’.
A great phone in a beautiful package.
my email setting did notwork .iam from nigeria and using mtn network ,my phone is nokia e71 pls help me out
i cannot open my text messages;inbox,draft,sent items etc.i usually use my memory card memory but cant acess anything now.please help.
at first, i could connect my nokie e71 to my pc and use it as a mass storage device. but, strangely now, i can do that anymore. keep getting a message that that the disk is not formatted… what should i do? cant format either even if you chose the option to format disk
I am having Nokia E71.some reason i given to nokia service center.they formated my mobile.now i lost all my contact number and message.how i can take back my contact numbers.please guide me
my nokia e71 can not acess yahoo mail?