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Thread: REVIEW of my Nokia E71: impressions after 5 months

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    Default REVIEW of my Nokia E71: impressions after 5 months

    My loooooooong e71 review: impressions after 5 months


    I have seen alot of post and topics here on techjamaica asking about the e71/e63 and whether or not they are a good buy. That coupled with my fascination with the device encouraged me to write this review. So lets get on with it shall we. This review will all be written on the e71 itself using quickoffice. It will be divided into 4 parts consisting of: part1- introduction and software. Part2- battery and hardware. Part3- camera and gps. Part4- services and conclusion.

    Nokia e71 review

    1. Introduction
    2. Software
    3. Battery
    3. Hardware
    4. Camera
    5. Gps
    4. Services
    5. Conclusion

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Part1

    INTRODUCTION

    The nokia e71 is a symbian based full qwerty smartphone that was announced and made available in q1 and q2 2008 respectively. Since the time of its release over 10 million devices have been sold making it the single most popular qwerty based smartphone ever. Since then, the compact smartphone have garnered very positive reviews and as such have penetrated even non-nokia markets such as north america and central america. Its sleek stainless steel and chrome body is as much of an eye-catcher as it is a device that shouts business.

    Technical specs:

    1. symbian os 9.2
    2. s60v3.1 ui
    3. 120mb internal memory
    4. microsd and microsdhc compatible up to 32gb
    5. 369mhz freescale cpu with a dsp at 250mhz(dsp processes sound, images and wireless radio signals such as gprs, wifi etc)
    6. gps with a-gps functionality
    7. 128mb ram with 71mb free at startup
    8. 3.2 mpxl camera with auto focus and led flash
    9. micro usb 2.0 with mass storage support
    10. 2.5mm headphone jack
    11. full qwerty keyboard
    12. full email capabilities
    13. ambient light sensor for automatic control of display and keypad lighting

    viewing the above specs you will notice that phone is loaded- very loaded infact considering that its only 10.5mm thick 115mm long and 55mm wide. The e71 is actually often regarded as having more features per cc that any other phone. This is why this phone is often regarded as the best smartphone made by nokia so far.
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    SOFTWARE

    The e71 runs symbian os v9.2 with the s60v3 ui.
    The main menu is the traditional 4x3 application grid of s60v3 devices, the options menu mapped to the softkey will make the interface quite familiar to those used to s60 devices. When I first turned on the device the first thing that hit me was how UGLY the interface is... Quite frankly the icons are the ugliest I have ever come across since s60v1 days, even worst than the 3650 of 2002. The terrible dark grey rough looking icons mix with the ugly blue-blackish theme is a real eyesore to look at and doesnt complement the phone's sleek look, so i recommend a change of theme as the first thing to do.

    Below is some screenshots of the various default themes, most have a nice background which is spoiled by the unsightly icons.









    Theme aside, the menu is a real labor to get around even for me a seasoned s60 phone user. I have used the nokia 6620 then n80 then n73 and the e71 is the most mixed up and complicated of the whole lot. There are several useless applets that only take up space.
    I made a special folder for them in the screenshot below



    To make it worst, apps are in obscure locations; file manager is in office, messages in communication and a big useless help folder in the menu. For those coming from other platforms they will just learn the layout however people like me who have used several s60 phones will become instantly confused. The menu can be customized to your needs, you can create folders, move and rearrange apps as much as you like. The standby homescreen shows various information such as missed calls and new emails by the use of plugins which can be disabled in settings.

    Homescreen



    I got the phone with the innitial firmware of v110, quite fast throughout the menu but quite unstable. 4-6 reboots daily was the norm until I upgraded to the newest then which was v300. On firmware v300 I have managed to run the phone, with heavy usage for 9 days without a crash and reboot. On the 10th day it only turned off after I voluntary removed the battery to take out the sim.
    Last edited by kalel17; Feb 18, 2010 at 09:48 PM.
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    The phone comes with all the apps a businessman would need, from quickoffice with support for word 2003, powerpoint 2003 and excel 2003 to encryption for both memory card and phone and remote wipe.
    On board is a decent web browser with flashlite 3 support (flash 8), a decent music player, internet radio, podcasting app, realplayer with support for mp4 and realvideo files, pdf viewer, dictionary and zip manager.

    As far as app support goes u can sideload apps to be installed manually and you can download via the ovi store. There are well over 10,000 apps that can be sideloaded and is not available in the ovistore, from python apps to native symbian apps. Perhaps the most popular group of apps not available on the store is lonelycatgame(LCG) apps. They code the well known xplore file manager, slick IM and profimail email app.

    The ovi store consist of over 20,000 items with over half of those being themes, wallpapers, trailers etc and about 7000 being apps. The ovistore is currently the second largest store by sheer download volume, ranking 3rd in applications available. In the last 3 or 4 months the quality of apps available have improved and you can find anything from chat apps to period trackers and diet watchers .
    Upon opening the ovistore you will be prompt to update, just do that and either login or register for a ovistore username. The app is basically a widget with some native components thrown in so its just as slow as a medium webpage on the phone browser.

    The web browser was a pain in the @ss until firmware v400. Frequent crashes while typing coupled with slow almost useless javascript performance leaves you far from satisfied. What i like about it though is its flash 8 support which supports youtube and several other sites. Flash video plays at around 12fps which is quite useable. There are much better browsers available, check out opera mobile at m.opera.com/mobile .

    The music player is decent it plays just how you expect the average music players to. Music plays ok with little bass, its not a music phone is it? No.

    The quickoffice suite is the most complete office suite you can find. Everything from editing and creating support to printing via wifi, bluetooth and usb. With the latest firmware version (v400 as of writing) you will be able to edit and create office 2007 documents. There is a pdf viewer preinstalled however its use is quite debatable.. It is slow and books doesnt fit the screen properly because of the small screen size.
    A dictionary is available with downloadable language support as well, i downloaded a german dictionary package and it installed and worked quite fine.
    Syncing data etc can be done via pc suite or ovi suite using pc or OTA with 3rd party solutions available in the store.
    A converter, bluetooth keyboard driver, notes app and barcode reader rounds off the office document.

    There is a voice command app activated by using the right softkey that activates various apps by just calling their name. This functionality can be extended by downloading and installing vlingo from the ovistore.. U will the be able to do a google search by simply saying "search google".

    Multitasking

    multitasking is a must for me and many other persons. The phone has a single 128mb ram chip built in, with 71mb free so multitasking is a breeze. I was once able to run 32 apps simultaenously with 5mb of ram to spare. In most circumstances I have around 7 apps open so noone will have a problem here.

    This is the end of part1 of the review.
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    WoW! Well so far I'm - just that claro doesnt have it anymore

    Anyway nice article though

    Can't wait for part 2

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    u shoulda wait lol i wasnt finished. Part 2 will be available in 1-2 days depending on how much spare time i have.. I started yesterday. I was about to give a screenshot of ovistore only to start up the app and find



    Please note that the font use is not the default font, i changed it using an app.. It came with an ugly font as default lol
    Last edited by kalel17; Feb 18, 2010 at 10:10 PM.
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    zeen

    my only take abt the phone the keypad dont fit to my fingers and the camera sucks big time

    but still u have a good review so far phone works flawless
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    Quote Originally Posted by kalel17 View Post
    My loooooooong e71 review: impressions after 5 months

    Technical specs:

    1. symbian os 9.2
    2. s60v3.1 ui
    3. 120mb internal memory
    4. microsd and microsdhc compatible up to 32gb
    5. 369mhz freescale cpu with a dsp at 250mhz(dsp processes sound, images and wireless radio signals such as gprs, wifi etc)
    6. gps with a-gps functionality
    7. 128mb ram with 71mb free at startup
    8. 3.2 mpxl camera with auto focus and led flash
    9. micro usb 2.0 with mass storage support
    10. 2.5mm headphone jack
    11. full qwerty keyboard
    12. full email capabilities
    13. ambient light sensor for automatic control of display and keypad lighting

    viewing the above specs you will notice that phone is loaded- very loaded infact considering that its only 10.5mm thick 115mm long and 55mm wide. The e71 is actually often regarded as having more features per cc that any other phone. This is why this phone is often regarded as the best smartphone made by nokia so far.
    Up to 32gb? I have been running the updater for some time now and being told that I am up to date. I am running the initial version.

    How did you get it to update?
    Phone: Nexus 4 | [ALL STOCK] | Powered by Digicel
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRaptor View Post
    Up to 32gb? I have been running the updater for some time now and being told that I am up to date. I am running the initial version.

    How did you get it to update?
    Yes since its microsdhc compatible... It should be out for all versions so i dont know what you are doing wrong, however you can use a software called phoenix to flash it which i use and find safer than nsu. There is a guide here search for 's60 phone modding' open the thread and scroll down till you see it.. I am about to add part 2 of the review.
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    Default My Loooooooong E71 review part 2: battery and hardware

    contents:

    Battery
    Hardware


    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    BATTERY
    (In reality this section should be labelled 'power management' however i wont bother changing that now)

    The e71 comes equipt with a 1500 milliamp lithium ion battery. The battery itself is the highest capacity one currently being manufactured by nokia. The battery weighs around 60+ grams, about half of the total weight of the phone. Back in the days of symbian os 6.1 with the nokia 3650, symbian 7.0 with 6600/6620 and symbian 8 on 6630/6680/n70, symbian phones have always been known as the most power efficient smartphones available. Even today with all the new android, webos and iphone os, none is able to match symbian in the power management department.

    Symbian is based on the EPOC kernel dating back to 1996-1998 which was built specifically for low powered, memory constraint smartphone systems. This whole design base is the main factor in the OS's power management skills and its stability and memory management superiority.Those who have ever read anything on symbian c++ will see how the majority of this is implemented through the use of cleanup stacks and destructors- if a destructor isnt implemented after every class usage, the compiler will return an error. This strict rule of coding for symbian provides the backbone of it's power management skills, preventing excessive memory leakage which put pressure on the battery.

    There is, however, another reason for symbian's excellent resource management; demand paging. Devices from 2007 onwards all have demand paging support, which is essential on demand loading of resource components when they are needed, which reduces pressure on vital ram and battery.

    After reading all the above gibrish you will get a clear idea of what to expect of the e71 and it's battery performance. With wifi on, highest light level and heavy continuous usage (i really mean heavy and continuous) i was able to get a clear 6hrs before the battery notice starts hooting. I am almost sure that 99% of users wont put the e71 under this stress and so it will excel. Without wifi and a continuous edge usage instead, I was able to get 12-14 hrs out of the battery, quite spectacular I must say. For battery maniacs I recommend nokia energy profiler which is a great app for monitoring battery life and for you to see which app is using precious resources. It's available for download at the ovistore on your device.

    Nokia energy profiler screenshot:



    Nokia energy profiler with music playing:

    the blue shows the continuous stream of energy the music player uses, the red dots shows the energy usage when buttons are pressed once and the green line shows the black space that shows up when the light is off.

    Power usage with only quickoffice, ucweb and screenshot open:



    power usage with 16 apps including googlemaps, nokia maps, web, coreplayer, symtorrent, slick IM, ttpod, ovistore and ucweb downloading a file.:


    those screenshots all prove the efficiency of the system. Two gps apps with gps enabled, various apps writing to disk and the phone can still go another 6hrs using the same resource sucking apps on a battery just 57% full! (check the screenshot below) with light usage (3 apps open) it can last for another 27hrs which is really some feat in itself.



    Thats all the evidence needed to prove the efficiency of the system in the area of power management.

    Verdict: NO ONE and i really mean NO ONE will ever have an issue when it comes to battery.
    Last edited by kalel17; Feb 19, 2010 at 02:41 PM.
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    HARDWARE

    The most striking thing about the E71 is it's looks. 75% of the device is covered in stainless steel and/or chrome with a sleek looking plastic like material covering the areas with the wireless antennas. The phone is compact and solid, more so than any phone I have ever used. Comparing it side by side with a blackberry bold will make it look narrow and far smaller- about 1/4 less than the bold. The lower portion of the phone, the chin-like section is made out of genuine chrome plated stainless steel, nothing gets better than that. The screen area is covered by a scratchless glass which is resistant to shatter and scratches (can still be scratched by coins) and complements the looks of the rest of the phone. The phone is glossy all over and can be effectively used as a mirror if you are in a rush . My biggest gripe is the etched stainless steel battery cover which attracts fingerprint like they were made for each other. Rubbing your fingers at the back will leave such a nasty look as if u were eating greasy fried chicken. Worst this area is almost impossible to clean.

    At the top of the phone is the speaker grill and the red (yes red) power button. The power button is a big mismatch, its like nokia ran out of components and decided to throw in a cheap plastic from some red toy car.

    On the right side is the 2.5mm jack (a standard 3.5 wouldnt fit), volume up and down button and a voice command button. One the left is the microsd card slot and the micro usb port. The micro usb and microsd slots are both protected by a single piece of rather nice looking rubber that looks like it will break at any moment.. However it never did for me. The bottom is bare except for the charging port while the back comprises of the 3.2mpxl cam, self portrait mirror and flash module that we will review later.

    The jewel is in the QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is small however tactile feedback is great and the domed-keys are easy to use. I find it quite easy to speed through typing at 30 words per minute which is quite good on a mini QWERTY.

    Visible hardware aside, what about what is inside the phone? The phone is powered by a 369 mhz freescale MXC500 processor with an integrated DSP processor at 250mhz. This processor have an integrated l2 cache however it is hampered by a single data pipeline which makes it half as fast as an A8 running at the same speed. The processor lacks a gpu and so dont expect any high quality games.

    The phone has 128mb of mobile ddr ram built in along with a 256mb internal memory module. Despite having 256mb, more than half of this is partitioned off as the rom drive leaving users with just 120mb to use.

    The phone ships with a 2gb micro sd card with support of up to 32gb using microsdhc.

    Verdict: The hardware, both internal and external matches the needs of the users and software alike. The phone is quite attractive and have alot of people going after it. The internal hardware, while shabby by today's standards (think 1ghz snapdragon and A9 dual core 1ghz) is totally sufficient for the light and quite stable os which is symbian.

    End of part 2
    Last edited by kalel17; Feb 19, 2010 at 02:50 PM.
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