Nokia's US E71 now on sale to the general public
By Darren Murph 
posted July 29th 2008 11:31AM
posted July 29th 2008 11:31AM
For those invited to private launch parties in New York and Chicago last Thursday, you've probably been playing with your shiny new US E71 all weekend. For everyone else, today's the day. The Americas version of the handset -- which includes GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and HSDPA 850/1900 support -- is finally on sale to the general public through a variety of retailers. Now, the only problems are sneaking out of the office early, finding a store with stock and coming up with approximately $500.
I got the device last Friday and it is a fabulous.
Everything work great and it is sexy as hell, you've got to see it in person to appreciate.
Pros:
Beautiful and sturdy
Fast and packed with features
The 3.5G internet works great
The GPS is amazing
The new Nokia push email beta works great.
Support for VOIP and IM clients
Cons
You have to pay for subscription for maps (which is highly overpriced)
Nokia push email will not be free forever.
Finally,
If you crave gadgets and reluctant to go with the herd (or just hate turtlenecks) this is the ultimate phone currently available on the market.
15fps vids, nothing spectacular about the pics, slow (unasissted) gps lock-ons. Apart from those things, I think this phone gets more right than it does wrong.
Those wanting a bigger screen and touch can go with what they like, but personally I love the form-factor of the E71 (but can do without the gaudy gloss, just quietly).
I disagree. Without good language support, it's a polished turd. This could be fixed with software updates, mind you, but after two years with my current phone, nothing has changed.
I have an E61, and won't buy another Nokia device until they get their act together with unicode fonts and input methods. It's really shameful to have to call someone and waste everyone's time and money because their email or SMS came out as a bunch of empty boxes on your screen.
You may think I'm picking at nits, but people like me are pretty much THE target market for this phone, and as long as this problem persists, it can only generate negative marketing for itself.
heard some mumblings about Asian and Hebrew (I think) language...can't say I've had any experience in this dept tho definitely something of interest to the wider market looking to get this phone, or indeed correspond internationally with others.
The E71 is a great phone, but why didn't Nokia fully utilize the keyboard?
I see at least a dozen keys that only have single functions (I.E. keys that don't have an FN key function, or whatever Symbian calls it). Why wouldn't you implement a secondary function to ALL the keys? I just don't get it.
Q, W, E, A, S, D, Z, X, C, O, P, and L could easily double as symbols.
Nevermind, I was thinking about the pre-production models I saw a good while ago. Didn't realize Nokia got it right when releasing the final product. All is grand in E71 land.
Oh, it's regional. I don't know if the NAM version has symbols-a-plenty, but I don't see why it shouldn't.
I thought I was going to miss those on the phone too, but I didn't. The standard symbols are pretty available, and the chr button gives you access to the other ones you would want (and, if you're not familiar with the chr button on the earlier models, it remembers which symbols you've used before, so it's easy to get to them if you use a few of them repeatedly). So, in practice, I didn't miss those extra symbols at all. And removing them from the keys makes things a little less visually busy, a nice touch IMO.
BUT ... I was using the E71-1, euro/asian version. Who knows what the E71-2 actually has on those keys.
Yeah, I've only used Blackberries and Blackjacks (BJII currently), so I can't really comment on how the lack of symbols affects the typing experience. But why wouldn't symbols be implemented as they were on the E61/E62? I'd understand if some licensing issue prevented them from going do so, but BoyGenius's review has tons of symbols, albeit on a Euro-regional spec.
And the iPhone is officially dead!
Well, not exactly.
IMO, they cater to two completely different types of users, despite some obvious overlap in functionality.
That device has really been hit for Nokia. you really need to hold it in your hand to appreciate the build quality and how slimm it is(world thinnest qwerty phone and world thinnest GPS phone actually).
Thought i like the grey steel more than this white version. Unlocked E71 seem to be 415$ at least in buy.com.
Agreed. The gray steel option is incredibly sexy (and matches my iPod touch *perfectly*). The while/silver option is pretty meh. I wonder why Engadget keep using the white/silver press photos?
I was actually thinking the same :)
E71 looked damn hot on those press shots, but the metal parts don't look right compared to the white plastic used on the front.
I got my ipod touch + E71 combo as well.
A message to all those planning on posting something pertaining to iPhones: don't.
^
your post
so close!
Missed it by 2 mins...
E71 or N96?
Nokia should have new announcments coming in September so if you want N96 better wait till that because i think that N96 is supposed to be the wierd one in Nokia's portfolio like N77 that's party piece was the DVB-H. N96 is pretty much dead before it even gets relased to shops if not by some other Nokia product it will be dead because of Samsungs new S60 devices.
E71 and N96 don't really have much common.
Not sure you can write the N96 off - it's got Nokia Maps for one and I'm waiting for someone to confirm the INNOV8 has TV-out or not. Plus it's prettier and I'm familiar with Nokia's UI.
@Lee: Are the keyboard buttons easier to push compared to the E61i?
The keys are much better. Although the keys are smaller, due to their shape are easier to use.
So I got this phone last Thursday and all I can say is that it ROCKS!!! The phone last me 4 days without charging and the 3G is superfast. Camera is awesome and setting up the email was easy. Thus far no problem. Plus it looks good.
Everything you say i agree(especially that battery life), but camera really isnt really up to the standarts of Nokia's N series 3.2mp phones. Example you can only record video 15fp while with N series devices you can record 30fp. It's one of those ways that Nokia tries to separe E series and N series from each other. Example E66 and N78.
I agree compared to an Nseries the camera lacks but from a business phone aspect is better than the blackberry and iphone I had. The camera comes in handy when needed. Plus the camera flash is good and helps capture images.
Great phone played with it the other day for a while. Nice way to step up to the plate on this Nokia and pound some WinMo butt with some Symbian coochie. Though I will say that cellular reception is the same rock solid as most of my nokias...MOTO has stepped up to the plate the last 8 months or so and I will still put my Q9 and Z9 a notch or so above the NOKS. Love the standard headphone jack and the software that comes on this bad boy is awesome!!!! ShareONLINE plus with flashlite and H.264 support and A2DP this phone will last me a while. I will say I'm not a fan of small keyboards so this was a bit annoying to me but I rarely type on my phone but the tiny keys are very very useable. I will say that the camera sucks. 3.2 pure BS no way no how... well it might be but it still sucks. Though autofocus and the flash are nice.
"Nice way to step up to the plate on this Nokia and pound some WinMo butt with some Symbian coochie."
That would be a site to see. Never heard of coochie pounding butt.
headphone jack is 2.5mm, not 3.5mm (which, IMO, is 'standard'). You will put your Q9 above the Nokia in what department?
I didn't find the reception to be up to Nokia's usual standards. Not sure if that's because it's smaller, more compact, mostly metal case, or what. But, it just wasn't as good. I'd be curious to compare it to the E66 as well.
tekdroid: on phones, 2.5mm is standard. And, you can get 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapters. So, it shouldn't be a problem. (moving forward, 3.5mm might become more standard, and it might be more common on very-new phones, but really, look out there ... 2.5mm is still a lot more common in the general phone ecosystem right now)
john @ Jul 29th 2008 1:58PM
I didn't find the reception to be up to Nokia's usual standards.
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Thanks for this. Currently considering getting one but you don't often get reviews talking about call quality or unassisted GPS quality, or they simply gloss over it or don't spend enough time with the device to say anything of substance. Much like speakerphone, etc. Not enough basic performance criteria is reviewed well most of the time. People just talk features.
The Q9 mentioned earlier in the thread I have heard is really good with regards to speakerphone, call quality, etc.. but it's a larger device and no wifi.
No Blackberry Connect, too bad :(
Blackberry Connect was included in my e61i so i am pretty sure the installer will be there in e71 as well!
holycow: it was reported on engadget yesterday that it doesn't come with blackberry connect, and that it will require RIM porting that in order for it to happen. So, there's no known delivery schedule for blackberry connect on this phone.
it is a nice phone a great improovement over an e61 i used to have speed is good in the interface and web browser is ok for the screen. The 2.5mm headphone jack is annoying but after soldering some decent headphones onto the nokia ones i can cope (stupid that i had to do that though) The keyboard is not as good as the e61 but is a lot smaller so to be expected. I would definetly recommended imap email with idle and syncml suppport means it works great if you dont work in a blackberry or exchange world.
Can't agree with you on the keyboard. The feel of the keyboard is amazingly great compared to the E62 and E61i. At first I found it to be two small. But that was when I was trying to use it two handed/two thumbed, like an E61i. Then I realized I could actually hold it one handed and reach the entire keypad comfortably. Once I realized that, it was actually very comfortable, and I liked it a lot more than the E61i.
The only problem with one handed thumb-typing was that the nearest buttons (to the thumb) were slightly uncomfortable, but not enough to be a problem.
As I say below, my problem with this phone is the reception quality.
I _LOVE_ this phone (I've been using it via WomWorld since the beginning of the month, and will be writing a review of it in my blog in the next day or so). It's more than just an incremental improvement over the E61i (which I also reviewed and own). Everything about it is better... smaller (small enough that you could comfortably type one thumbed on the keypad), slicker (the UI improvements are great), better camera, keypad has MUCH better ergonomics, etc.
Everything except ONE thing:
The reception is worse. Consistently 2 bars worse than the E61i. More carrier drops, etc. This might be partially that I was using the E71-1 (Euro version) with T-Mobile ... but I was letting it roam over to AT&T, and it still didn't help. It was actually a really huge surprise to me, as Nokia phones are usually the signal-strength champions among phones I've used. But not this one.
That is, for my house, a very bad thing, as my reception is right at the 2 bar level in the house, and sometimes drops down to 1 bar. So, the E71 wasn't very reliable inside my house. For me, that's a bit of a show-stopper... unfortunately, because, like I said, I otherwise LOVE this phone.
If you've got great reception in your standard locations (3+ bars at home, work, etc.), then you'll probably do well with this phone, and love it. If you've currently got standard locations that give you 1 bar or "0 bars with carrier" (as opposed to "no service at all), then you'll probably be frustrated with this phone.
The other issue, for us Mac users: this may have changed in the last week, but Nokia hadn't yet released an iSync plugin for it. So I was constantly doing a phone to phone sync with my E61i (which does sync with iSync, via a Nokia supplied plugin). I expect THAT issue will be resolved in the nearish future, though.
Heh there seem to be alot of happy E71 owners here and i'm surely one of those!
Only thing that iritates me is 2.5 jack and crappy camera compared to N series 3.2mp offering like Pdexter said unfortunately one way of Nokia separating N series from E series. All that i of course knew when i was buying it so i can live with those.
Where in Kalamazoo MI can I find this phone?
And when is the E66 coming out?
Where can I get the white one at?
I'd recommend any white phone except the white E71. It is half white from the front, and looks awkward IMO.
I'd recommend any white phone except the white E71. It is half white from the front, and looks awkward IMO.
Which carriers provide service to this phone?
I can't stand my E61i, it's UI is SUPER slow and clunky. I'm kind of envious of the E71's speed, which in all honesty should have been there with the E61i. But I'm just going to stick with it until T-Mobile gets a blackberry or similar that work on their new 3G network. Hopefully not too far into 2009..
My, what a dated, crappy look to the device.
(That's what y'll would be saying if it had "Palm" and "Treo" written on the front.)
Blackberry Connect is *NOT* available, and would people stop saying "install the E61i or E51 one", Blackberry Connect checks the phone model after install and will refuse to complete install if it's NOT for a supported device. So NO, repeat NO on Blackberry Connect support.
Another Nokia want to be Business phone. Mail for Exchange requires ActiveSync which any IT admin with a brain won't turn on.