Nokia E71

Review by Julian Prokaza on Fri 25 July 2008

Page 1 of 4

Summary

Cheapest price
£229.99 from Amazon Electronics UK
Rating
 5 out of 6
Good
Excellent keyboard; stunning design; crammed with features
Bad
No BlackBerry Connect support; 2.5mm headset socket; Micro-USB port
Verdict
The E71 is a fabulous business smartphone that's packed with featurs, but Nokia's decision to omit BlackBerry Connect support severely limits is potential market.
Manufacturer
Nokia

Review

Nokia E71Although the Microsoft Exchange support that’s part of Apple's new 2.0 firmware now makes the iPhone and iPhone 3G a more plausible choice for business users looking for a sleek and shiny smartphone, the lack of a keyboard is still a deterrent for some savvy users. One alternative obvioulsy lies with Windows Mobile handsets, but now Nokia has another.

Wafer-thin and clad sleek stainless steel, the E71 looks every bit as stylish as Apple’s latest effort and while it may not have the same large, lush touch-screen, it does have that vital business smartphone ingredient – a keyboard.

The value of a physical keyboard is not to be under-estimated if you spend large chunks of your day (and night) tapping out emails and as good as the iPhone’s virtual keyboard is, some people are far more comfortable with the real thing.

Although it’s quite compact with very closely spaced keys, the E71’s keyboard is actually rather pleasant to use. The hard plastic keys are taller than they are wide and their ample travel ends with a palpable click. Their steeply curved profile makes each key distinct under a fingertip, through this type of keyboard is more comfortable to use with two thumbs.

Nokia E71

A 4x4 group of keys in the middle double-up as the number pad, but the number legends could stand to be a little more obvious, since their pale grey background doesn’t really stand out against the dark grey keys.

Nokia E71 keyboardNokia E71 keyboard

You’ll need to press the Function key at bottom left of the keyboard to type numbers on anything other than the Home screen, as you do to type the smattering of punctuation symbols on the right of the keyboard. For some reason though, Nokia has relegated some frequently-used symbols to a separate pop-up panel, activated with the ‘Chr’ key at the bottom-right of the keyboard.

So, this means that five key-presses are required to type the ‘@’ symbol, and seven to type an underscore – which is very annoying for such frequently used characters. The pop-up panel does also show your most recently typed symbols in a row for speedier access, but we can’t understand why Nokia didn’t just put these symbols elsewhere on the keyboard for Function key access – just like the sensible arrangement on its predecessor, in fact. 

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Nokia E71 specification

Operating system
S60 3.1 Edition
Processor
Unknown
System memory
NA
User memory
110Mb
Memory expansion
microSD (8Gb max)
Screen
2.36in TFT (320 x 240)
Bands
Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 900/2100 HSDPA
Camera
3.2mp (CMOS) + front-facing camera
Connectivity
802.11g, Blueooth 2.0, infra-red, microUSB, 2.5mm Nokia AV
Other
A-GPS, FM Tuner, media playback, Flash Lite 3 and MPEG4 playback
Quoted battery life
Talk time – GSM: 10h 30m; Standby time – GSM: 17 days; WLAN: 166 hours (1500mAh battery)
Size
114 x 57 x 10mm
Weight
127g

Comments


Comment 1
neutral
AJ 00:16 on 27 Jul 2008

You guys are biased. You write that Nokia is muscling it's way into the qwerty phone market, even though it's been making magnificent communicators for many years now, long before any other qwerty phone arrived.Furthermore, it seems to me Nokia is just now longer pre-installing the blackberry client, which does not necessarily mean there is no BB client that can be installed.You are fools to so prematurely dismiss such a cutting edge piece of technology.

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Comment 2
neutral
Julian Prokaza | registered | 58 posts 10:04 on 27 Jul 2008

Hi AJIf you can point me at a Qwerty keyboard candybar smartphone (ie like the Blackberry) that Nokia made before the E61, I'll amend the piece. Similarly, if you can explain how you can install the BB Connect software on the E71, I'll make the appropriate changes, too. -Julian

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Comment 3
neutral
A-P 11:37 on 6 Aug 2008

"So, this means that five key-presses are required to type the ?@? symbol, and seven to type an underscore"Actually, there is a @-key so it's only one key-press.. and at least for me, the underscore ended up being the first of the frequently used characters, so that's two key presses..

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Comment 4
neutral
Mystonique 08:42 on 22 Aug 2008

I have had an E71 for about a week now (before that 6110). I have never owned a crackberry but have navigated a colleagues a few times. Crackberry's a much more complicated gadget to navigate, IMO and it has fewer features. I spent a lot of hours researching devices before taking the plunge in an effort to get one that will do as much as possible, as efficiently as possible and E71 hasn't disappointed - it's a great device.

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Comment 5
neutral
Bennie 08:36 on 29 Aug 2008

You mention that only your folders appeared when you installed MS Exchange - is this a limitation on the E71 or is there a way to get folders synced too?Thanks

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Comment 6
neutral
Bennie 08:37 on 29 Aug 2008

That should have been '...only your inbox and NO folders...'

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Comment 7
neutral
Greg 23:48 on 2 Sep 2008

hi guys,Im looking at getting this mobile but I wondered, i get an e-mail that is sent to my e-mail address for my website on my laptop, is there a way that it can go to my E71 aswell? How does that all work? This will be the main reason I will be getting this mobile so your help is appreciated.Cheers

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Comment 8
neutral
Greg 23:50 on 2 Sep 2008

PS - mails go to my Outlook Express at the moment.

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Comment 9
neutral
oli 15:54 on 8 Sep 2008

hican anyone tell me where the underscore (_) is on the E71?thanks

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Comment 10
neutral
Christina Ramsand 11:45 on 10 Oct 2008

the e71 is available to preorder in the UK on [url]http://shop.nokia.co.uk[/url]

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Comment 11
neutral
dan 01:54 on 24 Oct 2008

Get one email address ie gmail and forward everything to that.

Then us the E71 email client to recieve your gmail acc.

ps its a great phone.

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Comment 12
neutral
Peter 02:30 on 29 Oct 2008

I just got myself an E71 and for the most part I love it. What annoys me is the lack of multilingual support. What is the use of a Japanese dictionary, when the E71 can't even display the Japanese characters? I browse websites of several different languages, and it would be nice if the browser could display those characters.My own web searching has indicated that I just need to change the default font to a unicode supporting one, but as yet I've found no way to do that. Any ideas?

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Comment 13
neutral
Jacqueline 08:39 on 3 Nov 2008

Hi Am asloUsing the Nokia E71 & am not able to find the (_)Key.Can Anyone out there tell me.

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Comment 14
neutral
Mathew 17:37 on 4 Nov 2008

Press Ctrl/Chr. Its the first selection on the list.

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Comment 15
neutral
Dee 21:49 on 9 Nov 2008

I love the look of this but I'm just a regular phone user but want a QWERTY keyboard - WHY are these always designed towards business users therefore making the phones and price plans really expensive?Would I be nuts to get this phone if not using for business purposes and if so PLEASE can anyone tell me if there IS a mobile phone with a QWERTY keyboard for us non-business users out there? Thanks

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Comment 16
happy
Dee 11:41 on 6 Jan 2010

Even i don't know, please mail me when you come to know.

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Comment 17
neutral
govpok 12:19 on 28 Jan 2010

What key is the underscore ( _ ) on a Nokia N63 phone? Ctrl/chr doesnot have underscore(_).

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