Nokia E71 carries along the footsteps of the E61i messaging phone, one of a rare Symbian mobile phones to come with a QWERTY keyboard.
It is significantly more compact and lighter and thinner than the old E61i, it comes with faster networking, a better camera and GPS too. But on the negative side, the E71’s display and the keyboard looks altogether more cramped. Measuring mere 114 x 57 x 10mm and weighing little higher at 126 grams, the Nokia E71 is certainly larger than most contemporary 3G phones, but this is mainly due to the wide 2.4″ 320 x 240 pixel display, keyboard and large 1500 mAh battery. At just 10mm thick, it will be easy to slip into a pocket, unlike its bulky predecessor.
On the back, Nokia E71 has a good valued 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, and there is a secondary video calling camera on the front too. We do hope that Nokia will make a camera-less version of this phone, as they did with the Nokia E51, however there are no words from Nokia yet in this regards. Nokia’s launch information is inconsistent about video capture resolution, but as far as we can tell it is 640 x 480 pixels at 22 frames per second, which seems pretty good.
QWERTY arrangement of keyboard is a plus along with some navigation keys, but they are bunched quite closely together where the E71 had spacing in between them to help prevent multiple keys being pressed down at the same time. Bear in mind though that the E71 is 57mm wide, and the E61i is 70mm wide, a whopping 13mm difference.
Built by-default into the Nokia E71 is A-GPS that comes with the Nokia Maps application, which is free for basic functionality but requires a fee for full satellite navigation. The 2.4″ screen isn’t particularly large, and the E71 will suffer because it lacks touchscreen capabilities.
This is an HSDPA capable device, with a maximum download speed of 3.6 Mbps (not supported in Pakistan). The E71 comes in three dual-band WCDMA variants, 850/2100 MHz [E71-3], 850/1900 MHz [E71-2] and 900/2100 MHz [E71-1] depending on region, plus quad-band GSM with GPRS and EDGE data. On top of that, the E71 has 802.11b and g WiFi.
Local connectivity is via a microUSB connector, Bluetooth or infra-red. The Nokia E71 also has a 2.5mm AV output for wired headphones. The E71 has a pretty typical suite of enterprise-class applications, including a document viewer, push email support and the usual array of S60 functions.
Nokia say that the E71 has “two home screens”, presumably a “work” and a “home” one. Of course, the E71 also has a multimedia player. Internal memory is 110MB, expandable to 8GB using microSD cards. The large 1500 mAh battery can drive the E71 for up to 4.5 hours talktime on 3G, 10 hours talktime on GSM and 18 hours of music playback.
Nokia E71 is available in around PKR 38,000 in Pakistan with United Mobile and Advance outlets (PKR 38,000 is for United Mobiles, Advance Telecom price may vary)