Nokia E71 Grey

It's amazing. When I started this blog about two years ago very little attention was given to Nokia's Eseries devices. There was little anticipation and speculation before the device launches. Even the Eseries device announcement received relatively little coverage in the blogosphere as well as other media. What a difference two years make. Leading up to the announcement of Nokia E66 and Nokia E71 was a number of speculations, including leaked imagines. Now, a few days after Monday's launch event the never disappointing crew at All-About-Symbian has scored the first full featured review of the Nokia E71. This is an excellent, in-depth review well worth the read.

I can also recommend the first unboxing ritual of the Nokia E66. There is a video and a number of photos over at Symbian World. Instead of going for a boring nuetral background Symbian World chose to celebrate the summer and take the unboxing photos out on the lawn - Very cool.

One week has passed since I received my Nokia E71. Yes, I actually got a new phone that isn't an iPhone. And yes, I am sane. As many of you know from my past posts I am a fan of Nokia's, but I can also say that I am critical of some of their choices.

Having lived with the E61i for over a year (and still loving it, by the way), I was really excited to get my hands on the E71. I had been underwhelmed by the spy pics that I had seen online. But when I opened the box and pulled it out I was very impressed. It is very solid very clean detailing a nice weight.

As an object of beauty the E71 shines literally. This continues the Nokia tradition of pristine objects the 8800, the E65, the E61i, etcetera, etcetera. The screen is very bright and clear and all of the surfaces are high gloss.

Next I turned my attention to some of the features. The interface is much more responsive than the E61i, especially in the messaging and imaging applications. I took some pictures with the 3.2 megapixel camera and they came out great. The typical graininess is their as to be expected from a small CCD. The built-in email client is speedier and self-configures easier. I need to test their push-technology email client.

Speaking of which, the most notable omission is Blackberry Connect support. I understand that Nokia and RIM aren't on good terms but as a business device it needs to support it period.

Physical features, power and memory

Security features
• Device lock
• Remote lock
• Data encryption for both phone memories an microSD content
• Mobile VPN

Keys and input method
• Full keyboard
• Dedicated one-touch keys: Home, calendar, contacts, and email
• Speaker dependent and speaker independent voice dialing
• Intelligent input with auto-completion, auto-correction and learning capability
• Accelerated scrolling with NaviTMKey
• Notification light in NaviTMKey

Memory
• MicroSD memory card slot, hot swappable, max. 8 GB
• 110 MB internal dynamic memory
As a phone I am very happy with it. The sound quality is great. Over time with the E61i I noticed that the maximum volume level was too low (both incoming and outgoing) but this has been fixed in the E71.
For more details http://www.phoneandbeyond.com