The Nokia E71 is a phone that was released at a time when there existed in Nokia a dichotomy between enterprise and multimedia smartphones. The Nokia E71 belonged in the category of the E-series devices with the E tag standing for enterprise. Thankfully, today that dichotomy no longer exists. In my opinion, the distinction between those two categories was pointless.

It’s been three years since the release of the E71, and I am amazed at how much relevant it still is in today’s smartphone space. While the E71 has limitations due to lack of certain hardware and perhaps software present in today’s smartphones, you still will not feel very much left out carrying one around today.

My reason for saying this is really simple: much of what can be done with today’s smartphones can also be done with the E71. Period.

I have been carrying one around for a week now, and eish! It is delivering very well.

1. This is still a very beautiful and very well built phone
2. It is still enjoying support from the manufacturer.
3. This guy takes care of all my social networking needs.
4. I am able to edit and view office files on it, be they Word, Excel or Powerpoint. As a matter of fact, I am writing this article with the E71.
5. With Joikuspot Premium installed, I am able to use it as wi-fi hotspot.
6. This baby lets me use keyboard shortcuts when typing and editing documents.
7. It’s got very impressive battery life.
8. When it’s time to get my groove on, I launch the music player and blast away. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the gist.
9. While I won’t get the Nokia N8 picture quality from it, the 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash manages to snap decent photos.
10. I know I won’t be able to have an erotic conversation with the delectable lady Siri on the E71, but I am still able to initiate a call by telling my phone to call someone from my contact list using the voice command feature.

There you have it! Three years running, and the E71 is still rocking. That’s impressive.

The guys at All About Symbian went all out to pitch the browsers on a number of competing mobile phone platforms represented by the following devices:

1. N86
2. N97
3. iPhone 3G
4. T-Mobile G1

AAS concludes:

In general the Nokia devices with version 7.1 of the S60 browser out-performed the iPhone 3G and T-Mobile G1. The iPhone and G1 had similar results (with the exception of guardian.co.uk), although the iPhone 3G just edges it.

Unbelievable? Certainly interesting. Nokia seems to have done a good job optimising the latest version of their browser. Shame the E75 missed it!

Head over to AAS for graphs, charts, and the whole report: Browser speed comparison – N86, N97, iPhone 3G, T-Mobile G1 and more.

Comments!

The Nokia E71 and E63 are both business-centric smartphones from the stables of Nokia. They are both candy-bar, QWERTY-keyboard devices. They are both powered by Symbian OS 3rd Edition. At the core, they are one and the same device. I had already laid a basic foundation in my article on my first impressions of the E63. Simply put, the E63 is a cut-down version of the E71.

Here is a concise comparative review of the two devices.

Areas where the E71 trumps the E63

1. Camera: the E71 is equipped with a 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera, while the E63 comes with a meagre 2.0 megapixel fixed-focus camera. Naturally, the E71 takes better photos than its younger cousin. As if to spoil things further for the E63, the highly intuitive N-series-like camera interface implemented on the E71 was dropped in the E63, and in its place Nokia decided to take us back to the days of the Nokia E61i.

2. Connectivity: the E71 has full connectivity options: Bluetooth, Infrared, USB, GPS, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS (3G), HSDPA (3.5G). On the E63, infrared, GPS and HSDPA are both missing.

3. Audio Quality: the E71 beats the E63 hands down in this department. While both devices have their speaker grill in the same position at the top, the E71′s speaker is physically bigger and produces louder and better sound than the E63.

Areas where the E63 trumps the E71

1. Price: this is a very important win for the E63 as the price difference between the two phones is between N15, 000 and N20, 000. Honestly, this difference is much considering that the E63 is an E71 with a few compromises.

2. Typing: both devices have full QWERTY keyboard, but the letter buttons of the E63 are slightly bigger than on the E71 and I find them more comfortable to use. Also, some characters like ( ) can now be typed directly from the keypad, while you will have to open a character menu to type them on the E71.

3. Flash Light: this is a first for Nokia smartphones and a very welcomed one at that, especially for those of us in this part of the world. The LED flash which works in camera mode only on the E71, works both as a camera flash and also as flash light (outside the camera mode) on the E63.

So is there a clear winner between the two devices? I think each device will win depending on what individuals are looking for.

If you’re not one of those who care about owning a good looking mobile phone, you don’t care much about taking stunning photos with your phone, and certainly don’t need top-end entertainment features on your mobile device, the E63 is your baby.

If what you’re looking for is a robust, stable, functional and inexpensive device that gets the job done, then the E63 fits that bill perfectly.

I recently remembered an event that took place last year and realized that sharing it will be of benefit to our readers on Mobility Nigeria. This post is about a unit of Nokia E71 that I purchased from a reputable store in Lagos. Prior to this purchase, I had used three different E71 units and they were all purchased from this same store.

You may be wondering how I could have used that number of the same phone in such a short time. What happened was that people would see the phone with me, fall in love with it, and then offer to buy it off of me. And so, I would sell, buy another unit – and then go through the cycle again.

Anyway, I picked up this particular E71 from my trusted phone store. It had the I-cell warranty seal and also had a “Made in Finland” stamp on it.

Cutting to the chase, I put my SIM in the device and powered it up. As is my custom, I changed the phone network setting option to UMTS, meaning the phone would connect to only a 3G network. When I did this, I noticed that network signal disappeared on the phone.

Thinking that this was a temporary network problem that would be resolved soon, I decided to leave the UMTS setting unchanged. By the evening of that day the phone was still not picking up a 3G signal.

I made a few calls and discovered that 3G network was very alive on the phones of my friends. I began to wonder about things. Restarting the phone several times made no difference.

Finally, I was forced to pick the manual and read. Imagine me reading a phone manual! Unthinkable! But given the circumstance, I didn’t have a choice because I needed an explanation for what was happening. Right on the first page of the manual was the answer to my question.

The manual stated that the 3G frequency of this particular unit was WCDMA 1900, which is only available on the American continent. This meant that here in Nigeria the phone in question could connect only to GSM/GPRS/EDGE but was unable to use any of our 3G networks. The 3G band deployed in Nigeria is WCDMA 2100, not WCDMA 1900.

I was completely stunned. Having got spoilt with 3G speeds, not to mention 3.5G, how could I go back to anything less? I just couldn’t believe this was happening to me. Also, I asked myself why I-cell would import phones that are incompatible with our 3G band here. Are they even remotely aware that these are the sort of things they should check before bringing any phone to the country?

Did I learn anything from that experience? Yes! If anything, I began to check the frequency band before taking any phone from any store.

If you don’t want any nasty surprises, you should too.