I cloture this overview of the 3 handsets I had my hands on during the “Convergence of Mobility and Internet Nokia Strategy” press conference in Lebanon, with my initial impressions of the E71. As I said in Driving With the Guru, the E71 was my BIG astonishment of the day. It didn’t just surprise me, it actually made my jaw drop, literally, which made the Nokia rep laugh at me.
The astonishment is due to the tiny tiny tiny (copy and paste that over a 1000 times) form factor. I can’t emphasize enough on how small, thin and pocketable it is. Basically, when the devices were on the table, I was looking and thought all of them were E66s, then when they announced the E71, they held one of them and I noticed the Qwerty on the bottom part. I was speechless. Don’t look at the internet pictures of the E71, you will think it’s huge. Just wait for it to hit the market and go hold one with your own hand: I guarantee you will be surprised.
Here are some pictures of the E71, as well as comparison shots with the E66 and the N95, taken by me and by Antoine Naaman, T3 Middle East editor, who kindly shared his pictures from the event.
E71 held by Antoine.
E71 in my hand, see how small it is!
E71 sitting next to the E66. It’s only a little bit bigger!
From top to bottom: E71, E66, N95. See the astonishing 10mm thinness!
As you see, the E71 is little bit thinner than the E66 but is wider and taller. It is definitely a very good looking handset with its shiny metal look and nice black plastic, and no one will ever confuse it with a cheap handset. Compared to the E61i that I had for two weeks courtesy of WOMWorld, the E71 is way smaller and will definitely make you wonder about the advances in technology these days. The E71 packs an additional GPS chip, a 3.2MP camera with Autofocus, as well as A2DP in a device that is 1.75 times smaller than the E61i. Yes that is RIGHT, and here is the proof:
- E71 dimensions: 114 x 57 x 10 mm totaling a volume of 64.98 cube centimeters.
- E61i dimensions: 117 x 70 x 13.9 mm totaling a volume of 113.84 cube centimeters.
- The ratio of the E61i’s volume to the E71 is 1.75 !
Even the weight has dropped a good notch from 150g to 127g making the handset 1g lighter than the N95 8GB. Another couple of nice facts about the E71, that I have to thank Antoine for noticing, are:
- The software is blazing fast. Moving around the menu is pretty instantaneous, and even comparable to S40!
- The Now Playing screensaver that the N81 offers is available on the E71 making it easy to know the song you’re playing without unlocking the handset.
- The new built-in Dictionary application only offers English-English by default, but a great set of dictionaries can be downloaded, for FREE. It also offers translation.
The E71 isn’t all goods though, and here are 4 disadvantages that I noted, that aren’t by any means deal-breakers :
- Autofocus with the T key is pretty counterintuitive and a feature that no everyday consumer will find by himself, definitely.
- The metal also collects some fingerprints, but it’s nothing to be alarmed or repulsed by.
- The latin/arabic keypad (since I had the model that was going to be sold in Lebanon) had the latin characters in blue and the arabic ones in white, which made typing in English pretty impossible. The only solution might be to turn the backlight on all the time. This of course won’t be a problem in countries where only white-colored latin characters are used.
- Due to the small size of the handset, the qwerty is minuscule, but reviews are stating that text input is decent on it, so it shouldn’t be a problem once you start using it.
Some fingerprints on the back of the E71.
E71 keyboard: invisible blue latin characters and visible white arabic characters.
So who does the E71 target?
Obviously the E71 is for those people who do a lot of texting and emailing on their handset, which is pretty much all of us, right? It’s also for those who were looking into qwerty handsets but were driven away by the huge E61i or E90: the E71 will make it a blast to go Qwerty with its pocketable size. It’s also for those who want the advantages of a Qwerty without having to give up the basic multimedia features.
Will current owners of an E61i move to the E71?
Yes, Yes and Yes. If you’re an E61i owner and saying that you’ll pass on this one, wait till you get your hands on it. Oh how I guarantee you’ll buy one! Size and cuteness aren’t the only features that’ll make you jump ships, but the hardware add-ons, the better multimedia features, and the endless list of software improvements over the E61i will make it impossible to look over the E71.
In conclusion, as you must have noticed, I have a crush, a huge crush on the E71, and it’s an awesome thing that I won one during the event because I would have had to buy one myself if I didn’t. I can barely wait for it to be released to get my prize!
