Nokia E71

A beautiful looking handset that has really been built to last, the Nokia E71 is a slim, wide phone with a full-QWERTY keypad. One look and its corporate orientation is obvious. The shiny chrome rimmed front facia and the dimpled steel battery cover all add a touch of suave sophistication. The screen could have been slightly larger but then the phone would become wider. The glossy finish feels better than the slightly matte finish on the E75. The keypad is small, and cramped; without the excellent bevelling on the keys, it would be unusable. But thanks to that and some great key feedback the keypad grows on you after a few hours of use. The menu buttons are very close to each other but well laid out and we never experienced false key hits. The call buttons are suitably larger and easy to use. The joypad is similar to the E75 but feels a little more usable mainly because the edges of the four-way scroll are not as sharp as the one on the E75. The display is crisp, with excellent colours, but we feel Nokia made the icons a little too drab. The Symbian interface has changed little for the E-Series devices but we found the menus a bit different - stuff had been moved around under different menus and there were a couple of extra options available. Corporate users will want to note that Nokia’s push mail service works as well as Blackberry’s and for those who feel that RIM devices are the only ones with flawless push mail service, think again.But it’s the small keypad with the excellent bevelling that is the main feature of this device and once you get the hang of it, typing out long emails is no problem. Unfortunately it’s not suited to quickly type out numbers to dial since the number keys are in the middle of the QWERTY keypad, and their lettering aside, not differentiated in any way.

The camera is decent, on par with the unit on the E75. The handsfree jack is a 2.5-mm unit and sadly Nokia missed a spot here as we feel all jacks should be 3.5-mm for maximum compatibility. Call quality is good but the loudspeaker is not very loud, that being said it’s louder than the unit on the E75. A couple of the X-Series phones have better call quality and therefore better in-built antennas. The handsfree unit is not as good as the one on the E75 or the N95 8 GB. Music quality is good and the screen is good enough to view videos.

Priced at Rs. 22,949 the Nokia E71 has a great keypad and is one of the best built Nokias around. We heartily recommend it for those looking for a great multipurpose phone with strong business accents.