Nokia E71 user reviews (gray, unlocked)

Pros Yes, you can send attachments with this phone.
Great Wifi functions
Great POP email functions
Great office apps

Cons Poor media functions (no divx playback; flash player is choppy)

Summary Particularly a good choice for people who do not want to get an expensive data plan for email - I can find a wifi connection often enough (at home, or at the university or at coffee shops) so I can just download all my emails by wifi. I was looking for a phone that can download all the emails (including attachments) by POP (instead of IMAP) so i can read and draft replies offline, and the E71 is excellent for this purpose.

Also, I've read some people had trouble getting gmail POP to work on E71: using recent:username should fix it. See link below
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=47948

The office applications are also good enough for me to write my cover letters and resumes on. With 8 gb of ram I can carry a backup of my documents with me and refer to any documents i need.

I've always used nokia phones since the the 1990s, and this phone has impressed me the most since my 6100.

Pros 1. Solid Build
2. Very Sleek design
3. Easy to Use
4. Class Querty Keypad
5. Voice Quality top Class - beats everyone else here
6. Very attractive graphics
7. Battery life - beats any other phone I know
8. Extremly quick browser!!

Cons 1. Some of the functions are difficult to navigate
2. People say the camera is not upto the mark - but compared to the HTC Windows Mobile I had before owning this one, I woul say the camera is top-class (you know relative performance)

Summary This is my 4th smartphone in the lat 2 yeas. From ordinary phones, I graduated to smartphone on 1/1/2008. I bought an HTC WM and it served me reasonably well. After using it for 6 months I bought another HTC WM which I lost in the train. I bought another HTC phone (TYTN II) smart phone 6 months back for its qwerty keyboard. A week back I got my E71. Having tried Windows mobile on threee different phones, it would take a good deal of convincing move me back to Windows Mobile/HTC phones.

When I started using the E71, the initial thought that came to my mind was "Wow, why did I not buy Nokia smartphome right at the start?". I regret having bought 3 HTC phones when all that I was supposd to do was try out a Nokia smartphone.

Now I can say that I have found the phone most appropriate phone for my business use. The 3.2 camera is grand compared to the HTC camera even though it also boasted of 3.2 MP.

The phone connectivity is extremely good compared to my earlier WM.

The only place if is inferior to the WM is in the e-mail interface. Since I am too much used to the MS outlook interface, the Nokia e-mail interface looks a bit tardy, but I am getting used to it.

If you want a good business phone, then you should give the E71 a chance.

Pros WI-fi, Slim and sexy, user friendly, great on board apps, very extensible. Predictive text is the best i have seen. Best battery life of any smartphone on the market.

Cons Camera could have been better, 2.5mm jack instead of 3.5mm, expensive depending on where you are.

Summary I was a long time Nokia fan but flirted with the W sony ericsson series because I loved their multimedia capabilities. Since that time my job has evolved where I needed a smartphone to support my new way of working. Being a road warrior it was either the Bold of the E71. The E71 won hands down.
It is perfect for me because I don't live by email so the excellent email push qualities of a blackberry wasn't for me, however I am in a wireless environment for most of my day and would rather make a quick check of my email rather than making paying for a data plan. The E71 wireless discovery is fast, you can go from discovering an access point to browsing in 5 secs(literally, I timed it).
A lot has been made about the cramped keyboard but I am 6ft tall which means big hands and I was able to bang out a document with few mistakes because of the excellent predictive text. In this area it also beats back the Bold because you can edit and create new documents(doc,xls and ppt) whereas with the Bold you can just view them(you have to pay for the upgrade to be able to edit on the Bold). I could see myself pulling this out on a flight and editing a document rather than firing up my laptop.
Finally the battery life is fantastic this thing keeps going and going again another plus if you are a road warrior.

You would realise I see the choice is between this and the Bold(not the iphone). If you live by email and can pay for Blackberry services go with the Bold. If however you want a nice into the smartphone world and at the same time want to experience one of the best phones on the market go with the E71.

Updated on Jan 18, 2009

Quick update for those of you who are considering this phone. Nokia has recently released a firmware update(13/01/2009) that makes this phone a must buy. Several stability issues have been rectified and some of the issues with the camera have been fixed. Since I installed the update I have been pushing it hard trying to force a crash and it has performed exceptionally. Their are a lot of sites (including Nokia) that has all the details of what's in the update. They have also released it in two new colors (red!! is one of them). Load up some apps like fring, gmaps, goosync and shozu on this baby and you won't regret it. Fantastic buy

Pros Wi-fi, US 3G, Bluetooth, GPS, bright screen, strong set of applications, VPN capabilities for intranet access, very solid build quality

Cons Cramped keypad, currently lacks support of third party software

Summary While the E71 measures about he same height and width of my Palm 700p it is 1/3 of the thickness, and while my Blackjack II is larger the E71 weighs more. It's a dense phone giving it a very sturdy feel.

Symbian S60 reduces the number of steps one has to go through in order to get where you want to go relative to Windows Mobile, it does lack some home screen customization. For instance, I'd like to replace the Nokia Maps with Google Maps, but it doesn't give me the option.

The Nokia Maps application is underwhelming. Google maps with GPS enabled is a much stronger application on this phone.
I'm also awaiting Skype and Google Talk support for the E71 so I can use WiFi to make video calls and chat with my Google contacts.

The keypads on the Blackjack II and Palm 700p are much more efficient to type emails and even fill in spreadsheets or edit documents. There isn't enough button definition to be able to determine by feel if you are pushing one or many at the same time.

The camera takes a decent 3.2 pic, and the flash does an adequate job of lighting the subject.

The call quality is by far the best of any phone I have used. The reception of 3G does not seem to be as strong as the Blackjack II, and it has little to do with how I hold the phone as you may see discussed elsewhere.

I can't wait to see how it does overseas even without the 3G support there.