My New Toy - Nokia E71

I have had the Nokia E71 for a week. No payments, just sign a 24-mth contract. Which I am paying the same amount anyway, and is all reimbursed by my company. So its FREE !

The picture is not my phone - just downloaded it off the net somewhere.

Playing with it about a week, I have got almost everything I wanted and I think I can write some reviews about it.

I won't touch on the technical reviews of specs, as there are many sites that have that already. I will touch on my experiences, and it is all subjective. I will go in the following order - Calls ; SMS ; PDA ; Mails ; Web ; GPS ; Others ; Features that I didn't use ; Features I would like to have.

And since this will be a long article, parts of it are written using my E71.


(1) Calls

Using it as a normal phone is easy enough. As I have used Nokia before, it is no different from the Sony Ericsson that I have used as well.

Quality of the calls are good. No complaints about coverage issues at the moment.

I have also used the built-in SIP for Internet calls (using Pfingo). I have 2 Wi-Fi connection profiles programmed - Home and Office. So whenever it is in range of these 2, it automatically connects and registers with the SIP server and I get to receive and make VoIP calls easily.

I can just press the phone number in the main screen and choose Option -> Call -> Internet Calls.
Or I can find a contact, choose Voice Call or Internet Call or Send text msg. or Send e-mail.

Its that simple !

Answering VoIP calls is just like a normal phone call.

Now the only 'glitch' is the Wi-Fi Scanning selection - I have to leave it ON so that it connects automatically. If I turn it off, I have to manually connect whenever I reach home or the office. Now if I leave the scanning on, obviously it is going to use more battery, as Wi-Fi is more power hungry.

I might also try out Fring next time, though there is no pressing need to use it at the moment.

(2) SMS

SMS is ok. Simple to use as well. The built-in app allows easy switching between reading SMS, to reading your MMS, your email inboxes, Windows Live.

It comes complete with auto-complete, predictive text, etc.

One feature that is lacking here, is threaded view of SMSes. SMS is listed like all previous mobile phones that I have used. So this is not difficult for me, but I guess for those Treo or Blackberry users, this is something that disappointing.

Nokia provided a freeware called Conversation to address this. But this Conversation app only switches between SMS, Windows Live, and Address Book. Thus I can't use this to totally replace the built-in app when I am viewing emails.

So I am using the built-in app most of the time. If I need to show someone the entire SMS conversation between myself and someone else, I will activate the Conversations app.


(3) PDA

I have been using PDA for a long time. Mainly for appointments, contact information, notes, To-Dos, reminders and games.

In that area, the E71 is definitely not lacking in anything. I have been a Palm user all these while. Thus my basis of comparison is with MS Outlook on my PC and the Palm software on my PDA.

In terms of calendar, everything is there. Appointments, reminders, recurring events, day view, week view, month view, etc...

The look-and-feel is slightly different and one can easily navigate and adapt to it almost within a few minutes.

In terms of Contacts, everything is available too. The only complication I had was that I didn't use the Birthday field in my first ever Handspring Visor PDA, as there isn't any and couldn't sync with my old outlook's Birthday field. I had to use a user-defined field to map it and that practice carried over.

So now, my user-defined field goes into "Internet Phone" field of the Nokia. I probably have to covert all my birthdays back into the proper field in Outlook.

In terms of Notes, its there. It syched with my Outlook Notes. One feature it lacks, compared to my Palm Notes, is security. In Palm, I can password-protect some notes. This is not available in Outlook and not available in Notes here.

An additional application E71 has is Active Notes. It has the capabilities of a MS Word Document. Not just taking notes, it's able to add pictures, sound clips, files, objects, etc. It can even link the note to a contact so that when in a call with that particular contact, the note is shown on the screen.

To-Dos and Reminders are integrated into Calender application.

So yeah, I would say all the requirements of mine are fulfilled very well with the E71's full integration with my MS Outlook.

And Games. of course there are games to keep me occupied.


(4) Mails

I'd never used my mobile or PDA for emails before. Thus this is new to me. And maybe my expectations aren't realistic.

First of all, I used the built-in application - Messaging.

Reading and writing emails are quite easy. Nothing much to get used to except small qwerty keyboard. But its definitely better than pecking on-screen keyboard on touch screen PDAs.

The part that the built-in apps didn't fulfill is the push-mail portion. Now, my company doesn't have push mail server, but I guess lots of other companies have them and E71 can't be used to replace their Blackberry as Nokia has removed support for Blackberry Connect.

The built-in app is pull mail and the flexibility is actually, on hindsight, good enough for me. I have Nokia Mail-for-Exchange installed to ready my office mail. I can specify when the peak hours and work days are, and how often it checks for email during peak and off-peak hours - 15 Mins and 4 hours respectively.

It does the same for my private mails using GMail. Scheduled pulls from the server peak and off-peak.

Now, that's 'good enough' but not 'perfect'. Being the perfectionist, I wanted real PUSH, so that I can save on data charges and batteries.

So I tried SEVEN.

Now SEVEN can provide real-time PUSH for GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and such, using IMAP. But not my office mail, as it is accessed with POP and is polled by the SEVEN server periodically. So that is not real PUSH but I can live with that.

I can set when the PUSH service is on and when it is off. Once off, no alerts whatsoever.

Now the customization of the PUSH is not what I want. Email alerts are immediate. Now when I get an audible alert, I have the tendency to read the mail immeidately. Something that is just compelling to me and is difficult to curb.

I can't tell the PUSH servers to, say, give me alerts every half hour after office hours, so that I am not always 'on call'. I would like to be alerted, but not IMMEDIATELY. Yeah, I know, that defeats the purpose of a PUSH service...

But I want PUSH service during office hours, and automatically switches to be a pull service after that, giving me alerts at longer intervals such that it doesn't interrupt my life so frequently. And there just doesn't seem to have any software that can fit that... Am I asking for too much ?

Oh and one other glitch with SEVEN's PUSH service. If I get an email alert on my mobile and I used my PC to download the mail, the alert stays on my mobile for another 30-45 minutes or so. According to SEVEN's support forum, only 'new mail' alerts are high priority and are sent to SEVEN's servers. Alerts like mail deleted, or mail read, are not sent and only recognized when SEVEN server polls.

Not sure if that is the same for Blackberry, but I probably just have to live with that and see if its ok with me.

So now it is just deciding if I will continue with SEVEN's PUSH service or the built-in PULL application.


(5) Web

Web browsing on a small screen always takes getting used to. But the default web application is fast and easy to use. I can view normal web pages.

Some users have recommended Opera, but I haven't tried it yet. Maybe I will.

Mobile bookmarks can be sync'ed into my Firefox or IE.

And I haven't been using feeds or any such features regularly, so can't comment here.


(6) GPS

I haven't tried the Nokia Maps much, so I can't comment whether the maps are accurate, or whether it has enough POIs, or whether the routing is good.

The maps are free to download, install and use. But navigation guidance requires purchases of license, that's why. 7-days of free trial is not attractive to me. Looks nice on screen though.

I am used to Garmin, and I have license Garmin Maps already. So I have installed Garmin Mobile XT and have all the maps I need installed.
It works great ! And it is even more flexible to use than my Nuvi. But it doesn't have TTS.

And the screen is a little bit small.

This is where it would be good to have a touch screen rather than navigate by buttons.
And the zooming in and out is mapped to buttons "1" and "3", presumably for other mobile phones without qwerty keyboards. But that means I have to activate the number keypad before I can zoom.

But I might not need to do that when routing, cos it has auto-zoom feature for turn-by-turn instructions, so it might not be that difficult to use.

I didn't use the A-GPS feature and the lock-on time is quick. But then, I have always gotten fast TTFL in Australia - clear view of open skies is the main reason.


(7) Others

Battery - Currently, as I am installing, testing, playing with GPS, bluetooth transfers, etc many times a day, one full charge can last me about 2 days+. Will update as time goes by.

Bluetooth - I am using bluetooth to hook onto my earpiece, sync with my PCs (Home PC - Contacts, Calendar, Notes ; Office PC - Calendar.) SEVEN and Mail-for-Exchange can sync contacts and calendar, but I don't wanna waste data charges for that.

Camera - The camera is a bit of a disappointment though. The colours look faded. I am hoping that a firmware can fix that. But then, luckily the camera is not an important feature. Just something for the 'just in case' kind of situation.

Windows Live - Used that to login to MSN Messenger when I need to be on the road. Not a real necessity, but nice nonetheless.

Active Home Screen - This is where you can turn it on to show today's appointments, email alerts, missed calls, Wireless connection status, etc. This is useful and the only few complaints I have is :
- allow more application shortcuts. Currently, only 6
- allow for more than 2 email notifications.

WorldMate - Provided Free. This is very useful for travelling, currency converter, etc. And this version has Weather and I have set it to announce audibly the weather for the day. At 8.30am and 12.30pm. Sounds kinda cool. And now, the currency rates are auotmatically updated. If Pro version is needed, you will have to purchase it.

Quick Office - I use it to store work documents like price lists, etc. Also some datasheet in PDF as it has a PDF reader. Useful, but the bundled version doesn't support Office 2007 documents. Need to purchase Version 5.0, which is A$46.

Total Recall - This is a phone conversation recorder with indexing feature. 3rd party software that costs about US$13.50. Trying the 14-day trial. And older version of this software cannot be installed on the E71 because the phone says it is 'not supported'. I am guessing that Symbian or Nokia has marked these apps as something undesirable.
* Update : It is because of expired certificate. My Mistake. See Comment *


(8) Features that I didn't use

Switch Mode - This is for switching between 2 "modes" of operations. I guess one for "Work" and the other for "Off Work". You can customize themes in each, the shortcuts and the alerts to different email accounts.

Honestly, its really useless to me. I still want to be notified of my work email after work. Just not so frequently (as I said above). Thus I leave it in one mode all the time.

Security - I have only used phone and SIM locks. I didn't turn on the encryption, as I believe it will slow down the phone a bit. But E71 packs great security mechanisms, including one for remotely locking the phone and memory card should you lose it.

Some other Sync services, Wireless Presenter, PTT, Podcast etc are not used. I guess they aren't commonly used for normal consumer and are only there to support corporate servers, etc..

Advanced Call Manager - This is a fantastic application that filters your call based on Whitelist and Blacklist. If you are in a meeting, you can reject all calls except those in your Whitelist. It will do so in the background and you will not even notice unless you see the quick blink of the screen as the software rejects the call before the phone even rings.

Might use it next time, but at the moment it is not needed.


(9) Features I would like to have

Chinese language support ! Damn, why don't they have it natively in the phone ? The Australia version only has English, Melayu and Philipino ! Now I have to it somewhere....

Touch screen - I know, it sounds stupid, but some applications are better with touch screen. Garmin MXT as I mentioned above, for example. Or even navigation on the main menu. It would be best to have both touch screen AND qwerty keyboard. But I am guessing I am the only few people who wants that.

More flexibility in Profile configs -
So that I can tell the phone to scan for Wi-Fi only from 5pm to midnight, to save battery
So that I can tell the phone to only alert me for emails after dinner and to stop alerts after I sleep.

Ability to use the camera flash LED as a temporary torchlight.

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I was originally thinking of getting the iPhone as there aren't any other interesting phone already, until I came across this. And I have to say, this beats the iPhone anytime - Not that I have used the iPhone to be fair.

Based on some interesting read here and here, I think I made the right choice.

And if you need more info on E71, this is where I frequently get tips and tricks for.