Does Nokia E71 looks like a Blackberry Killer? This 2.36-inch, 320 x 240 QVGA display is only slightly smaller than the iPod Classic’s.

After much survey, I finally decided to purchase a smartphone, the Nokia E71. The reviews for this phone have been good and I really wanted to try out a Nokia product. I had used a Panasonic, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and a Motorola mobile before this. The later started to fall apart not too long after I bought it and it was time to replace it.

I was initially thinking about a Blackberry product or the iphone. The iphone’s touchscreen and functions looked out of this world while the Blackberry series have always being solid performers. However, in the end, I chose E71 because it had a really solid feel and professional look. Despite its obvious lack of an oversized touchscreen interface, the E71 had a metallic feel with chrome accents and a glossy screen. It can also protect sensitive corporate information with integrated security features such as device and memory card encryption, mobile VPN and more. Plus, it is one of the slimmest Nokia phone to date, at 10mm thick, and claims it’s the thinnest QWERTY smartphone on the market.

At 10mm thick, it’s the slimmest Nokia phone to date.

It has two separate customizable home screens. One is designed to house all of your work applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint while the other is geared more towards entertainment with programs for audio, video and gaming. Setting up the Nokia’s Mail for Exchange program required no IT help. QuickOffice lets you create, edit and send Word, Excel or PowerPoint files on the fly.

Battery life is basically a non-issue, with 20 days of standby and 10.5 hours of GSM talk, though the 4.5 hours of 3G talk might pose an issue.

Rear view of the phone – a magnet for fingerprints and smudges.

However, the metallic cover is a magnet for fingerprints and smudges. The key was pretty cramped and it took me some time to get used to it. This phone is really a business phone; hence it does not have stunning photo or music capabilities. For me the 3.2 megapixel camera was enough and the music playback was fine. I managed to use the phone to connect to our wireless network and surf the net, visiting my websites, checking my email, using Twitters and etc.

The unpacking.

Popularity: 45% [?]

Find out what I am doing right now by following me on Twitter! If you like this post then please consider subscribing to my full feed RSS. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.