The E71 is Nokia’s latest flagship E-Series business/smartphone. I’ve had mine for just over a week and I absolutely love it. It’s definitely worth dropping the cash for.
In sequence, the last three phones I’ve used are the Nokia N95 8GB, the Nokia E61i and the Nokia E61. I’m happy to be back with an E-Series phone. If I were to compare the N95 to the E71, I’d say I miss the 5 megapixel camera. The E71 comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera that I would classify more as a toy.
Features I missed with the N series are back as well – one touch voice dialing – hold down the voice key on the right hand side of the phone and speak the name of your intended victim. It seems that the voice recognition has improved as well. More after the jump.
A couple of tidbits for the Nokia E61 and E61i user – the button which allows you to switch tasks on the E71 is now located as the second key on the left of the joystick. I’m so used to the E61i task switch on the key next to the joystick that I frequently push the wrong button and consequently wind up creating a calendar entry – pain in the butt to say the least. Some more ‘self training’ will have to go on to unlearn that one.
The other button feature I miss is the ability to program the middle button or voice button as I like to call it on the side of the phone. With the E61i, by tapping this programmable button, you can call up the voice recorder. By holding it down, dial by voice. With the E71, you can’t program a tap – only dial by voice exists.
I am also really happy with Nokia Maps and the built in GPS in the E71. I transfered my CITIES folder from the ‘memory card’ portion of the N95 8GB to the memory card of my E71. I don’t know if this had any effect on my Nokia Maps license but I was able to transfer the remaining time on my license (about 2 years worth) to my new phone. Now, it’s possible that Nokia maps identifies the license by SIM card but by transferring the CITIES folder, I was able to re-use the cache and maps I had already downloaded to my N95.
On the Internet, there’s a copy of the N-Gage first access program that can be used to ‘unethically’ install a preview version of N-Gage to devices like the N95 8GB. You can either extract the file or search for ‘9_n-gage.sisx‘ – this program seems to also install on the E71 although that’s about as far as I got. I didn’t actually test any games, but theoretically, N-Gage with that suite of demos which came out with first access might be possible on the E71. When I tried to upgrade N-Gage to the full version, I ran into an error – same with uninstalling it, so be forewarned – a full wipe of your device will be necessary if you want to get rid of N-Gage. For aspiring S60 hackers, I’d try to see if the release version works on a brand new device in the future. Who knows, I might go out and buy another E71 for my travel phone and will experiment then.
Mail is the most important issue for me – I’m really appreciative that Nokia added the ability to monitor two mailboxes on the active standby screen. Two mailboxes means that I can view my corporate account and the critical technical support mailbox quickly. Everything else is just to keep in the loop.
Mail setup:
One of my gripes in this situation is that the E71 complains that I have too many accounts auto-retrieving messages when I try to set my third IMAP account to auto-retrieve.
It also seems like auto-retrieval at fixed intervals is still broken and intermittent at best so the only reliable way to get email to the E71 is to use push-based systems.
One thing that I miss from the N95, E61 and E61i is the visual feedback on the front screen. The mailbox with the lightning bolt through it would most likely mean that your mailbox is connected. With the E71, the only feedback you get is on the mail accounts screen or by opening Roadsync or Mail for Exchange to see if they’re connected. Roadsync is easy, just switch the task to it. MFE is a bit more painful since you have to launch the application.
On my E61i, I use BlackBerry Connect. Thus far, I have not tested it on the N71 but if I get enough time, who knows.
Well.. or at goodbye least ‘Access Point Groups.’ In the E71, you no longer have the ability for your device to intelligently switch between several WiFi access points, for example – a great feature for the user looking to save some cash. Sadly, now you’re confined to a since access point. Really sad since Devicescape doesn’t allow you to use your 3G or GPRS connection and Birdstep’s Smartroaming went the way of the dodo bird.
The SIP or Internet phone works great on the E71 as well – as good as it worked on the N95 or E61i and better than on the E61. You can read more about how I connected my E61 to Vonage back in 2006, HERE. Since then, I’ve switched providers but no comment thus far other to say that it’s functional.
With Nokia’s built in Podcasting client, you can subscribe to podcasts fill the memory card (mine’s 2GB but you can get 8GB and hopefully 16GB soon) without the need for your computer. So long as the program is open, you can use it to find podcasts, manage your subscriptions and download as required. The built in music player is as slick as the music player in the N95. It would be nice for Podcasting to open up on its own when the phone starts, though – makes sense for people on the go.
As for the built in RSS reader which is a subset of the web browser, you can tell it to auto-refresh feeds for you as well – no improvement here – seems to refresh intermittently at best.
Overall, the E71 is jam-packed with features. It’s sexy, small, rugged and has more functionality than you can shake a stick at. Some of which needs to be refined for the power user but outside of that, I’d say for the corporate mover and shaker, it’s a really good match.
For the anyone considering a serious telephone, the iPhone whether it’s the original or the iPhone 3G is simply nonsense. Have you ever tried to type on that thing? IMAP is slow on the iPhone and despite having an ‘Exchange’ tab in the original iPhone, there is no support for Calendar, Tasks and Contacts. The 3G model may have these features in but given the dog-like performance of its predecessor, why would anyone subject themself to this?
Final note for the uber geek – the E71 has built in support for SSL certificates from Stargate aka GoDaddy and Facebook, etc. which means you won’t need to deploy CA certs to the phone to access some encrypted sites.
Kudos to Nokia, 9/10 -
