Nokia E71 > Reviews (45)

I started off 2010 with E71 (white version) as a wonderful Christmas gift, and at the time this was quite a celebrity of a phone - business looks, business feel and business touch. Style met practicality, and although it came with a price of 299GBP, people would have agreed that E71 truly deserved such popularity.

My first impression:

* THE LOOK: for me, I had never seen E71 in life. I suppose I have not been fortunate enough to go into an O2 shop and fiddle with this beauty. Though having said that, E71 was quite new at the time, so I wasn't sure if all stored had it in their stores. Anyways, my first impression was that, the phone was significantly smaller than what I had imaged to be, from pictures (I must confess, I knew I was getting this phone and did a thorough research on it). It was narrower (width wise) and much thinner than what I had expected. It was a brilliant little gem! Especially also, that mine was in white, it was a stunning looking device. The back of the phone is decorated with chrome, with familiar faint lines of E-series, and the white plastic of the top of the back and the keypad feels very sturdy, and expensive - more like a marble feel, rather than plastic. Clearly, the materials used weren't cheap - at least not cheap looking.

* SPEC: Phone is equipped with slightly smaller than 2.4 inch screen of 320x240 pixels (which for current standards of Jan 2011), is quite terrible, but there it was. The Camera is 3.2MP, capable of recording videos as well. The input method is the QWERTY keypad, which is a definite bonus for me, as I had not had a great touch experience so far - HTC Touch Diamond, LG Prada, to name some, though iPhone 1st Gen was not too bad.

USER EXPERIENCE: so this is what it boils down to. How I felt about the phone, and how the phone responded to my life.

Pros:
* I really have to give a big thumbs up for QWERTY keypad, now, I'm most used to computer keys, and having QWERTY was the best thing about E71. For texts, this was a breeze. The keys aren't too small to be all pressed at once, and it's slight indentation makes it ergonomical. Sometimes, I get very frustrated at texting people with certain phones, but E71 made it exciting.

* Symbian OS - NOKIA has employed such operating system for quite a while now, and I had really gotten used to this OS. it's easy to use, it's simple and doesn't crash million times like Windows Phones. It will do most of the tasks you require a phone to do brilliantly, maybe not perfectly. Calling texting satNav music, it's all there. However... (well go to cons)

* Battery life - thanks to the big battery, you can go on hours calling and texting without charging - which is a feature not every phone has.

* Looks - look and feel of the phone is one of the most important factors, and this phone certainly makes an impression. The phone is quite heavy, around 120g, but not heavy enough to be a burden. You'll feel the weight when you're holding it. the keypad doesn't get scratched, the chrome stays clean (also didn't get scratched) although the screen looks a little cheap - can tell it's plastic, but then again, what else do you expect from a non-touch phone?

Cons: so this is what really matters.

* Symbian OS and 369MHz processor. There was once a time when all this MHz, GHz business didn't matter - decades ago, but nowadays, even phones need to be equipped like computers (well, they are computers now aren't they!). 369MHz may be fast enough to run a computer in 1997, but in 2010, it is not even fast enough to run a Symbian operating phone! Blimey, does this show faults at the OS, or the processor? Probably both - Symbian is simple, somewhat boring and tedious OS, with no trasitions and basic graphics. It's not like those live wallpapers you get from Android phones, or screen savers from iOS. Nothing really happens in Symbian OS - you click an icon and it opens. Now, this 369Mhz is not fast enough to run things smoothly - for example, opening texts, or phone book will take few seconds. Now this may not be a problem at all for some of us, but from prolonged use, things will get gradually worse. There's nothing more annoying than waiting for an application to open - even if it means split of a second difference. This gets worse in multitasking - SatNav, Music player, won't be open on their own - you will want to text or call, or browse the internet at the same time.

* Camera performance - 3.2MP. What an awful camera - unless you're in perfect photographing conditions - which is brilliant sunlight, blue clouds and high contrast colours, which doesn't happen all the time unfortunately in UK (not everyone's in Beverly Hills), then you will have photos with pixel noises - tiny tiny spots of wrong colours that will ruin all the other photos. This is typical with compact cameras, taking pictures in low light - now you will see this with most of the pictures for E71. If you want E71 to take half decent pictures, then you're barking at the wrong tree - or phone.

* Screen size - is really too small for... internet browsing or SatNav. To be fair a lot of Blackberrys have similar screen sizes, and if you want to be satisfied by that comparison then I suppose this screen size problem is no problem. But for certain apps, and also for just general use, 2.4inches is slightly too small for me - especially when the resolution is low and pixels can be detected.

* No 3.5mm jack - now I'm a big music fan and I'm sure a lot of people are out there, and at that time, I didn't like carrying 2 devices to work - 1 for music and 1 for phone. So it would have been very ideal if my phone could be my music player as well. E71 has a reasonable music player, thanks to Symbian OS (they have been using the same music player for years), but the problem was, it did not have the standard headphone jack input. Instead, it had a 2.5mm jack, and headphones which could fit into this provided in the box. Now, if the package provided contained an ADAPTER for 3.5mm, I wouldn't be complaining. But it didn't and I had to purchase one from Maplins (I don't like using Nokia headphones of dooming quality), and this adapter thing was large, sticking out from the phone and thus made my pockets very tight and ultimately causing discomfort.

Why would you do this Nokia?

CONCLUSION: you really need to prioritise your needs - E71 is no perfect phone, and some may argue there may never be a perfect phone, I can say now, there are many phones which are becoming near perfect (in my opinion anyways). E71 will be good for emails, texts and caling - general phone usage, and it will do them better or as brilliantly as top-end phones. However, if you're looking for SatNav, Music player, a camera and internet browsing as well, then I suggest you look elsewhere - unless you can live with all the cons I've mentioned above.

The full spec of this phone can be found:
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_e71-2425.p​hp

Also to note: there is a cheaper model of E71 released few months after, known as E63. This has virtually the same spec as E71, but with 2MP camera (E71's camera was bad enough), and without chrome-look. Instead it's made with cheap plastic and looks it as well - but the price difference is quite significant. Check that out too, if you really want a cheap smartphone (?) which would be almost the same as E71, but with cheaper clothing.