Nokia E71 Review

This is, by leaps and bounds, the best smartphone I have owned to date. The display is bright and large, battery live is excellent and the full QWERTY keyboard is a double-whammy as it does away with the multiple button pushing of old and predictive text is a thing of the past!



Upon viewing the E71 appears larger than most other phones as a result of the 39 buttons required for writing texts/emails, but the added width is in fact minimal, and not noticeable when it's in your pocket. Also although the letters keys may not be as big as those on the E75, making mistakes is uncommon and it is easy to distinguish between keys. The only downside is the numbers are also combined with the QWERTY layout and as a result of the spacebar taking up would would be the star, hash and 0 keys, they are aligned vertically on the right, something which is rectified on the E75 due to the slide-out QWERTY keyboard.



The user interface is as simple and easy as any Nokia and the 10 customisable shortcut keys only add to its ease of use.



This phone features a GPS with is surprisingly accurate and not too sluggish to load, although if you choose to display things in satellite mode, expect a long wait for the images to appear, even if you're connected through a wireless router. In all the other viewing modes however loading is efficient.



The 3.2 megapixel camera is a bit second rate as far as pixel count and having an LED flash as opposed to a Xenon one is concerned, but does produce clear pictures and videos are very smooth upon playback.



The loudspeaker on the phone is clear enough for me to hear through my helmet when I'm off my motorbike, but disappointingly the headphone input is a primitive 2.5mm, whereas the E75 features a much more universal 3.5mm one.



All in all the Nokia E71 is a great phone, with sleek looks and features to boot. Certainly a phone to check out if you're looking to upgrade.