Nokia E71 smartphone

The follow-up to the E61 is lighter and thinner, yet packs a 3.2-megapixel camera, push email, HSDPA 3G, a better keyboard, more memory and AGPS... and no Pop-Port. Nokia often likes to push the style boat out for a little tour round fashion victim harbour. But when it knuckles down and applies its design experience to …

[Ty]

What a load of rubbish

Give me an iPhone 3G above this any day.

The end to end software solution is second to none.

Let's see how many people queue to get one the these Nokia doorstops shall we? haha too little too late. Give it up Nokia.

[Anonymous Coward]

bleurgh

they can stick all the buttons in the world on it and make it thinner than a bit of paper but its all just polishing a symbian shaped turd as far as I'm concerned

[netean]

symbian!

I have a nokia n95 and I love it.. its' loaded with all sorts of stuff, gps tracking, sports tracking, games, word docs, pdfs music, videos etc (thanks to my 8gb sd card) - it's a lovely lovely phone/camera/video thingy... but my god, symbian s60 is so damn slow and unstable (using latest firmware btw).

the lack of stability and speed really really let it down badly. So i'm sure the same will be true of this phone also

[jai]

ugly

that's horrifically ugly

and the screen is far too small to be useful for reading work documents or watching tv shows

this Nokia effort is a smart phone aimed at the old generation of smartphones before the iPhone and the SE X1 and even the HTC Touch Pro/Diamond

[David Webb]

None

"Let's see how many people queue to get one the these Nokia doorstops shall we? haha too little too late"

None? People won't need to because Nokia don't treat their client base like sheep so will provide more than enough mobiles to cover demand, thereby not creating a false "look, everyone wants this phone so much we've run out of stock!"

The N71 is a "smart" phone for "smart" people, not a hideous locked down pile of designer junk aimed at the "ohh pretty" market. Nokia will continue to dominate with more than 1 mobile phone, whilst the iphone is still nothing more than a pathetic attempt at a phone with a pretty UI, and not much else.

[Tom]

A phone for every occasion

That should be Nokias motto.

It's a business phone that execs will like, and it has security features which IT will like. You won't feel like a fool getting it out in a meeting. The camera is decent, especially compared to HTC or BB. Nice.

[Graham Wood]

@TY

Repeat after me: 'I am not the world'.

Personally, I'm avoiding the iPhone and will until various fundamental flaws are fixed:

- I need data access from my laptop through the phone (properly, not a hacked socks proxy having voided all warranty)

- I want to be able to use bluetooth and get good quality sound (A2DP)

- I want to be able to send MMS if I've got a camera. They may not be great, but they are widely (except on the iPhone) supported.

All in all, the iPhone is great for eye candy (should that be iCandy?), but for a serious phone this looks a lot better.

[Paul M.]

Nokia too late

Everyone who wants mobile email has a Blackberry, or will get one. They're damn ugly but they do the job. Nokia's business phones still bog down with more than a few messages in the Inbox. Adding Blackberry or Good or Nokia's own abomination (forget the name) to do push email costs extra.

@Tom:

"The camera is decent, especially compared to HTC or BB."

You need a new script: people don't buy Blackberrys for their cameras.

[Rob]

@ netean

yeah, I wouldn't hold out much hope for future versions, they've been stuffing the same things in different shaped boxes for years, yeah it'll be 'symbian s60 2.4.1119 instead of 2.1.42395, but it won't enhance the end experience to the user in the slightest, the picture just gave me horrible flashbacks to my n93, which impressed me at the time . . about 2 years ago, but I soon got sick of it's stupid stupid face, I still love my iphone after having one for a year, no nokia has maintained my interest for anywhere near so long, but then again, if I actually enjoy using anything made by apple, I'm just an ignorant fanboi and should be ignored, it's not like people buy any of their stuff because it's actually any good now is it

[pctechxp]

iPhone,iPhone, IPhone

If you are happy to hand over your hard earned to a greedy billionaire for a piece of turd than go ahead.

But have your iRection over it in the privacy of your own home and spare us people who prefer capable devices over flash crap.

[Brooklyn]

Nokia needs a new designer

Fwiw, the iPhone 3G does infact support A2DP, apparently, according to some sites who have pulled it apart, but thats by the by.

I'm tempted, looks like a nice phone, but S60 is so old now, and looks it.2 This doesn;t really offer much more than my, now ancient, N80ie

[Anonymous Coward]

iPhone fanboys...

I don't particularly side with either company, but I love how the iPhone fanboy appears right at the start to push their phone with the crippled Bluetooth and data provisions.

Nokia wins here I'm afraid, iPhone fanboys. End to end solution indeed...

[Frank Bough]

Thus, a new platform war began

We had Speccy vs C=64, Amiga vs ST, Win95 vs MacOS, Megadrive vs Super Nintendo, Playstation vs XBox, protestant vs catholic, iPod vs mediocrity and now, at long last, iPhone vs Nokia.

Keep those flamethrowers topped off boys, it's gonna be a long fight.

[Anonymous Coward]

No Pop-Port = No sale.

I see the iSheep fanboi's made it here first.

I'm sorry to say that I will not be moving away from my E61i anytime soon.

Full wired carkit compatibility with a proper cradle is a must for me as bluetooth quality sucks.

Though if I ever find myself without a car, which is more than likely thanks to this UK government, I'd have the grey steel E71 not the white steel version mostly pictured in this review as it's much better looking.

[Brooklyn]

Old Tech

I'll stick to my Motorola StarTac thank you ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to upgrade

I'm currently an E61 user and I really like it. Particularly compared to the Blackberry 8800 I also have use of which I find very unintuitive.

I'll most likely upgrade to an E71 soon. Particularly as I'm not paying for it myself.

[Richard Cartledge]

OK Spiderman we're going flux capacitor

This reminds me of a couple of Nokia 6630s I had years ago. Firstly the dated GUI and awfully rendered fonts, then the hideous shape.

[StopthePropaganda]

as long as Cingular doesn't screw it like the E62

locked down a lot of the flash functionality, forced Nokia to remove the factory ROM flash, and made it so proprietary that there has been only one update in the last couple of years.

Other than the abuse foisted on people by the carrier, the E62 has been a good phone. Hopefully this new one doesn't get locked into a particular carrier, then I can buy it and unlock it later.

[Antidisestablishmentarianist]

Qwerty keyboards are fugly

Apart from the (very) latest Blackberry's, all Qwerty phones are friggin ugly. This one is right up there on the fugly scale. How long will companies spend polishing this turd of an idea. Use a slide out keyboard or anything, but not this ancient looking design. Everyone is running after RIM here, too scared to have a different design. As soon as RIM start having sliders, then you'll get the chasers copying. Nokia is just another chaser these days.

And why does the RIM Bold look like an iPhone with a keyboard? Now who's the chaser?

[mario]

at last

nice review. thank you.

[Monkey]

It turns out

...It is actually a very, very slick little device. I've had one on test for the last two weeks. No it doesn't do BB connect any longer, which is a crying shame, but I can genuinely say that the comments in here slagging it as a device are pretty much wrong. No one was more surprised by that than me either before anyone says!

Design and aesthetic preferences aside obviously.

[Simon Greenwood]

Looks good here

I've had an E61 for over 18 months and it really has been the phone that I've wanted for years. I didn't miss a camera much but as a smartphone it's nicer than the SE P series and less ungainly than the Nokia Communicator, and doesn't run Windows Mobile like most of the Blackberries. I have used it to log into servers from the pub and it does VoIP pretty well over WiFi with a decent connection. I even didn't bother upgrading my phone when renewal time came around this time as T-Mobile didn't have anything that I wanted. Will I shell out for the update then? Well, not at the moment but that might change when I hold one in my hand. The buttons on my 61 are getting a bit tatty for that matter. Nokia do try and corner every aspect of the market, but as they've made the phone business their own, that's what they do, and when they do it properly, they make solid products. It's not an iPhone and you won't be buying albums from Starbucks on it any time soon but it looks like a rock solid business phone so I will be fondling it as soon as I find somewhere that stocks it.

[gjw]

@ monkey

What is BB connect, and why is it such a shame that it's gone?

[Anonymous Coward]

haters

honestly, the fanboy-ism (on all sides) is like a kiddies pissing competition. comeon, people; grow up.

[Thomas Kenyon]

Wired Car Kit, To the E61i owner

I am also a happy e61i user (well I'll be happier if the battery lasted longer), It's worth noting that the lack of a POP port does not stop anyone being able to make a cradle for it.

The E62 only has a USB port on it, and with the correct kit can be used with a nokia car kit.

Although in all honesty, the sound quality of our (nokia) bluetooth kit is as good as any wired car kit I've tried.

[Simon McGarry]

@ gjw

I assume they are talking about Blackberry integration.

[Monkey]

gjw

Yep, Blackberry Connect. The E61 did it from what I remember but it has been removed from this device. I guess they figured there was no point in paying licensing fees to RIM to try and compete for a market RIM devices have sewn up virtually exclusively.

[karakal]

E71 vs. iPhone

I currently own a E61... And I really think, I will switch to this one in a moment...

Some friends of mine asked me if I would buy their iPhone 0.1 because they want to buy themselves iPhone 0.2. I like Safari on the iPhone much better than any other browser available on the E61, but I wan't pay EUR 300 for an old used phone when I can get the E71 for about EUR 370 new and unlocked.

So it's just this: I can't buy an unlocked iPhone. The iPhone ist too expensive. The iPhone doesn't have a decent bluetooth implementation. I can't send mms. I can't use videophone. I can't use it for connecting my laptop.... (And in the old version, it doesn't have GPS)

So... nope... No sold iphone to this customer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fit for purpose

The iPhone 3G scored 80% and the E71 scored 90% - this does not one is better then the other. It means one does the job it was designed to do really well. I am glad we have choice, as not all people have the same requirements and same view on form/function.

[[e-mail]]

Miles more practical than an iPhone

Really great device I got mine for £299 delivered from play.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Good work Nokia

The E71 is one of those phones that is just extremely un-photogenic, once its in your hand and you can compare it to the iPhone it really does beat it hands down. The iPhone is basically just a shiny screen. Safari on the iPhone is nice, but after a while its just annoying (my opinion), the browser that comes with the E71 is fairly awful, but a quick install of Opera Mini and you have similar functionality as the iPhone but you can actually browse more quickly than the iPhone. Obviously the Apple fan-boys won't agree, but getting things done on the E71 is actually much quicker and enjoyable and you don't have t spend 10 minutes after every use trying to rub off fingerprints. The iPhone is definetely an excellent creation, but for style and substance there is a certain group of people that will choose the E71 over the iPhone every time. Who after all could take out an iPhone in a meeting without looking like a complete pri*k?

Trusted reviews gave the E71 10/10 on every front, can't say I disagree.