Nokia E71 / E71x
Phone Scoop Review
Aug 8, 2008 by Eric M. Zeman
Nokia refreshes its E Series with the addition of the powerful, QWERTY-equipped E71. It's classy, it's smart, and it's nearly perfect. Find out what's holding it back. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
Great all in one device
I have owned a Nokia E71 (Grey Steel version) for a week, however I have been a symbian s60 user for 9 months, and it is simply the best cell phone I have ever used. Not only does it have the amazing functionality and flexibility afforded by the s60 OS but it has an amazing QWERTY keyboard, outstanding battery life (as I'm writing this I'm on 5.5 days since last charging with moderate to semi-heavy use), a good camera, and more features than most will need. I've owned about a dozen cell phones including 3 windows mobile devices and an N95 and this is by far the best.
pro's:
s60 os
WiFi
GPS
3.2 megapixel camera with LED
amazing QWERTY
compact, attractive design
great battery life
con's:
can't think of any, other than photos come out a little grainy in the dark
Do not buy this phone, unless it's for your mother in-law
I purchased this phone about a week ago and after countless hours of messing around with it I am completely frustrated. I would NEVER EVER EVER recommend this phone to anyone. It is not a good beginner smart phone, it is not a good intermediate smart phone and it is certainly not an advanced smart phone.
Pros:
Speedy Internet
It feels and looks good.
Cons:
Horrid keyboard.
-If you type fast, and I do, the phone arbitrarily skips letters. At first I thought it was due to not being familiar with the keyboard, no, it just doesn't register keystrokes.
Operating system.
I purchased this on recommendation, I was told that Symbian makes one of the best smart phone operating systems on the market. 100% not true. It is slow, aged and lacking any real features that stand out.
Applications:
It seems like EVERYTHING on the phone is a free trial version. You have to pay for everything that should just come with the phone. Upsetting to say the least.
Graphics:
Really. Really. Bad.
period.
Internet:
Choppy, somewhat fast but it is hard to navigate, extremely irritating. Maybe downloading skyfire will help, but honestly I don't even care.
Syncing:
The phone does not come with ANY software to sync with ANYTHING. At least give us outlook!!!!! I need my contacts and I need them NOW. \
Email:
Pure text. It does not download full HTML emails and they are frustrating to delete "are you really really really sure you want to delete this piece of spam??" YES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! DELETE IT!!!!
The email is hard to read and the phone does not let you download a Gmail app to fix this. Everything seems to be very very ATT-only.
Texting:
Once you click on the messaging shortcut, select "in-box" click on the text you want to respond to, hit "menu" click on "reply" scroll to "reply via sms" type your message and again hit "menu" scroll again to "send" texting is a breeze..... *rolls eyes*
DO NOT PURCHASE THIS PHONE
E71 update
Its very easy to use phone but if ur a texter u might want to pass on this phone.
keypad very small and if ur blind like me not a very good choice.
scrolling through the applications is very easy but also very annoying.
the central keypad is very slow.
Very nice, but...
A sweet little gem. Solid performer. Does most things the way they should be done.
But now that the BlackBerry 8900 (Curve 2) is release, it takes a back seat.
Over rated
I had a Motorola Q9h and wanted to get away from the Windows mobile menu system and to get a phone that had WiFi. The E71 seemed like the perfect phone. It turned into a big disappointment
Pro:
The phone LOOKS great, build quality is good
Keyboard is almost as good as Q9h, would be better, but the keys are a little small. This is a tradeoff with the smaller size of the phone. Function keys are better placed than Q9h.
Nokia PC Suite included. Allows you to sync with Outlook. Much faster and easier to use than MS Sync.
GPS with either Google maps or the included map program hooks up very quickly.
Camera takes decent pic IF there is enough light. Quality goes downhill very fast when light is not perfect. Quality did not seem be as good as expected with a 3.2 meg pic though.
Speaker phone and sound is good, but no better than Q9h.
Reception and phone quality is good, maybe a bit better than Q9h which is better than any LG, Pantech or Samsung phone I have ever tried.
Menu system is much easier to figure out than Windows mobile, but it also doesn't give quite as much flexibility.
Included browser is very flexible is reading pages. I think as good as Opera Mobile and much better than IE or Opera Mini.
Cons:
Email is very disappointing. No way to move email to IMAP folders not synced, Have to open address book to get email address, general layout of messaging is not convenient.
Does not charge with USB, this should be standard on all phone now.
Not nearly as many application as Iphone or Windows mobile.
Not as as many options to customize home screen as available on Windows mobile.
No way to assign/sort contacts by category. Have to use Nokia "groups" which adds complications.
Nokia support is not great. Never got a response to two emails with questions about the phone.
Could never get the new Nokia messaging working.
Overall the phone is a big disappointment and I have returned it and gone back to using my Q9h. The E71 was just not an upgrade.
