Nokia E71

Nokia E71 - After a few weeks on the Nokia E71, I can definitely say this is the best and most equipped smartphone coming out of Nokia doors for the longest time. The smaller form factor has some drawbacks but it is something expected because of size constraints.

nokia e71 Nokia E71 (see the unboxing pictures here) is the successor to the popular Nokia E61 & E61i but following the same characteristics from the candybar Nokia E51 (see review here). Click the thumbnail images to see the bigger picture.

Nokia E71 is the shrunked to just 57mm (E61i is 70mm) and trimmed down to an amazingly 10mm (E61i is 13.9mm) thick. That's slimmer than the E51 in 12mm and as slim as the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic (9.9mm) and the Nokia 6500 Classic (9.5mm). The size of E61 is the main reason why I chose the Samsung Blackjack over it.

nokia e71 Because of that, the display screen got a little narrower to 2.36 inches (320 × 240 pixels) from 2.8 "to E61. That includes QWERTY keyboard with the keys a little too tight. However, I think the Nokia made a good trade-off by making the keys more embossed to not accidentally hit neighboring keys. Type becomes uncomfortable when you nail-oriented than thumb-oriented. The number keys are all positioned in the middle so you can easily type in alone.

The cable department, the Nokia E71 offers all imaginable in its form factor - 3G/HSDPA 3.6Mbps, WiFi 802.11 b / g, built-in GPS receiver and A-GPS function, MicroUSB, below - red and Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP. The internal memory of 110MB is a little small considering the E51 has 130MB, but a dedicated 128MB RAM and ARM 11 369 MHz processor which makes answering the phone. Besides, you can add to 8GB of storage with hot-swappable microSD card.

nokia e71 camera The only disappointing feature of E71 is 3.15 megapixel camera (2048 × 1536 pixels). This is to be auto-focus but no way I can see it work the autofocus will be manually toggled every time you make a shot. You must press the "t" or "4" key to make this.I did some sample shots here (click thumbnail) - can not make even a modest and focus on shooting had a more decent shot here but if you are going to take moving pictures with a camera, forget about it.

No dedicated camera button next too, so you need to use the middle button to take pictures and video. Video quality is not better it maxes to 15fps. A second front-facing camera for Video calls.

I guess Nokia does not bother to make improvements in optics considering that it is mostly business phone. I once had a chat with the Nokia N78 Product Manager and he told me that the camera is on top of the list of characteristics that affect the thickness of the phone (so does the cost).

The audio quality is decent and sound volume is good though the speakers are placed at the top side. With support for 3D sound and MPEG4 video playback is smooth.

A cluster of mobile office productivity tools is pre-installed - QuickOffice, Dictionary, Adobe PDF reader, Zip manager and printer. A secure intranet feature connect to your office network via VPN. You can also enable the built in encryption features to secure files on your phone's memory or external memory card.

Nokia E71 review

Battery life is good and the BP-4L lithium polymer is rated at 1500 mAh. Nokia suggests a time to speak of a whooping 10.5 hours! Just make sure to turn off WiFi scanning to store more juice. From experience, using lasting 2.5 to 3 days with normal use 3G and WiFi.

All-in-all, I'd give the Nokia E71 a good buy for data / connection dependent user. It is not for multimedia fans though.