Take a look to my new Nokia E71 mobile phone

Mar 24
09:13

2010

Fabio Pizzolitto

Fabio Pizzolitto

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Read the review of this new Nokia mobile phone, the Nokia E71. Here you can find my personal overview of this phone so you will have all information to decide if it's time to buy it or not.

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I have had my Nokia E71 for about 6 months now and have nothing but praise for it. I upgraded from Nokia E62,Take a look to my new Nokia E71 mobile phone Articles so initial difference was huge. But once I got to use more features over the months, I realize this is no ordinary phone. Here is my personal overview about some Nokia E71 features

Phone:
Nokia E71 has great call quality, but needs a good signal. Used this with Tmobile first and was disappointed since the signal strength in my area was very low. Then switched to AT&T and am amazed what this phone is capable of. Loudspeaker is good, although has to be cranked up all the way high. Had a Nokia N73 earlier which is by far the best phone in terms of voice clarity and loudness.

Build Quality:
Nokia E71 build quality is exceptional. Phone feels solid and keypad is a pleasure to type with. After using it for about a month with only a screen protector, I see no scratches on the metal back or anywhere on the phone (touch wood!)

Nokia E71 Messaging:
This is a great phone for messaging. The physical keyboard makes typing a lot easier. Nokia email is installed automatically if you try to add gmail, hotmail or yahoo accounts. It provides true push email. However, software is still a little buggy. Also has support for Microsoft Exchange, although there is no HTML support. This phone can also read out your Text messages.

GPS:
Used with the A-GPS, Nokia E71 gets a fix even indoors. Outside the fix is within seconds. Phone comes with Maps 2.0, but can be upgraded to Maps 3.0. Nokia's navigation is excellent, but unfortunately is not free. The entire U.S. map can be stored on the SD card and is only about 1.2 GB. Google maps work very well with AT&T 3G, but was not able to update maps quickly enough on TMobile's Edge (while driving at 65mph).

Built in apps:
There are some very good, but lesser known, built in apps on Nokia E71. The podcasting app lets you view audio and video podcasts for free. The dictionary app is excellent for quick lookups as well as translating the word to other languages. Language packs can be downloaded from the nokia website. The internet radio app has quite a few stations to choose from and works very well even on 3G.

Nokia E71 VOIP:
This phone does VOIP quite well. It can be paired with Gizmo. If you have a Google number and set to forward your calls to Gizmo, you can actually take your call on this phone and not spend any cell phone minutes.

Nokia E71 Battery:
Battery life seems to be great in standby mode. I went through almost a day with Nokia Email in push mode without loosing even a single bar on the battery indicator.

Other apps:
Sports Tracker is a great app if you like to keep track of your exercise activity like walking, running, cycling. This app plots your route on a map and keeps track of your pace (and even what music you are listening to at that moment!). It works with only the internal GPS and doesn't need additional sensors. This app alone makes the GPS worth having in this phone. Workouts can be uploaded to the nokia sports tracker website. Fring works well for instant messaging as well google voice chat. I tried nimbuzz too. Although nimbuzz had a smaller memory footprint, I was not able to get google voice chat to work with it. Fring also has built in support for automatically switching from wifi to 3g and vice versa. e.g if you are on 3G, and get within range of a known wifi access point, Fring will within 5-10 mins automatically change over to wifi. Similarly if you walk out of your wifi range, it will fall back to 3G.
Google Mobile supports voice search that actually works! It is another must have app for the Nokia E71.

Nokia E71 Multi-Tasking:
By far the best feature of this phone is its multi-tasking capability. All symbian phones support multi-tasking in theory, however, due to memory (RAM) constraints, most phones are not able to run more than 1 or 2 apps simultaneously. This phone has a total RAM of 110MB and after startup has a whooping 62MB free. I have been able to run Microsoft exchange, Nokia email, Fring, SportsTracker and the music player all simultaneously and still have about 40mb free.

Nokia E71 Web Browsing:
The built in web browser works well for mobile websites, but is not able to handle larger web pages so well. Wlan speeds are slow. I am not able to get anything more than 1.5mbps using speed tests, even though my internet connection is about 9mbps. This phone supports HSDPA (3.5G) and works well with AT&T's data network. Opera mini is able to handle full blown web pages and makes the web browsing experience just about acceptable.

Nokia E71 Update:
Unfortunately the phone does get really hot after being on 3G for a few mins or on a call for 15-20 mins. Maybe I just got a defective piece :-( Sending it back for a replacement.