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I’ve been wanting and waiting to try out the new Nokia E71 smartphone and it certainly surprised me! The few weak points that I could think of are that the contacts view should be able to view both the name and number, there’s also this problem of having ‘fingerprints’ all around the phone. It’s cool and stylish outlook is great and with its many functionalities for all professionals, I would rate it 4.5 out of 5 stars and would definitely get one for myself!

From: Adeline Wu
“In love with it.” That was my experience with the Nokia E71. It’s one of those moments that I just know; that it’s the one I love, the moment I placed it in my hands. Though my time with it was short, it has given me great pleasure as it satisfies both my work and play experiences with it. Even though the QWERTY keypad is a bit small due to the sleek and sexy form factor, its raised keys enables one to quickly get used to it. The feel of the keys is great and in no time, be it with one hand or both hands, working and playing on the Nokia E71 soon became part and parcel of my everyday usage on this small, sleek machine.

From: Benjamin Chong
My trial experience with the Nokia E71 was a pleasant one. I’m very happy with the phone as it doesn’t really give me any problems at all.

From: Bibi_Lala
The Nokia E71 is a natural evolution of the Nokia E61/E61i. If you are a Nokia E61/E61i user, you will find the Nokia E71 superior in every aspect with the exception of one: screen size. Even there, the advantages of the Nokia E71 will allow you to easily overlook the smaller screen size (which is still comparable with its competitors at 2.36”) most of the time. The package comes with a leather pouch (which is a nice touch) and an earphone headset. As a device targeted at executives on the go, I am surprised a Bluetooth headset is not included.

From: Christopher Tan
My overall experience with the Nokia E71 redefined my understanding of what business phones are. Serious + fun = Nokia E71! Not only that, the battery life of the Nokia E71 is impressive since it lasted almost 3 days with my heavy usage on the internet, podcasting and listening to mp3s.

From: Efren
I took the Nokia E71 outside of city life for about a week and fell in love with it without ever missing my laptop. Not to exalt too much praise on the sleek phone, but the Nokia E71 was a real companion all the time that I was using it, whether for business or leisure. The phone is not without its faults, but they soon seemed forgivable or adaptable the more I got to know the phone.

From: Elliot Lee
The Nokia E71 multimedia computer offers a broad band range of supported mobile e-mail solutions which enable users to easily switch between work and personal usage. With HSDPA, it enables quick and seamless browsing which increases productivity during work usage. The sophisticated feel of the phone makes the user look sexy and stylish while using it.

From: Karen Lim
When I first saw the Nokia E71, I was immediately mesmerised by the form-factor of the device, especially the White Steel version. The launch of the E71 came in around a year or so after its predecessor, the E61/E61i, not forgetting the E51, which wasn’t exactly a good comparison as it doesn’t come with a QWERTY keyboard. From a quick search on the web, I could gather that the hype surrounding this device was very high and there were mostly positive comments from the general mobile community. True enough, the E71 didn’t disappoint me.

From: Kia How
‘Form with functionality’, the Nokia E71’s utilitarian design in a sleek and sexy stainless steel package, is the embodiment of functional rationality, industrial aesthetics and with a class leading functionality feature set. It is not exuberant, but is committed to the urbanites desiring a mobile personal and professional lifestyle solution. In 7 days of trial usage, I found 7 reasons to justify its desirability.

From: Kiwi Wang
The E71 has a widescreen perfect for viewing notes and messages, thanks to its large fonts, and is great for surfing web pages. The QWERTY keyboard is slightly cramped, but the buttons are soft and nice to type on. It also features two home screens which allows for nifty switching between my work applications and off-duty shortcuts. The battery life is excellent, having only charged it twice during the one week trial. Overall, the E71 is a snappy device with great performance - a must buy for mobile work warriors.

From: Peng Hui
Using the Nokia E71 was largely an enjoyable experience. The instructions in the manual for some functions could be more detailed. Out of the box, the trial unit struck me as a stylish and classy phone. It lived up to its description as a multimedia computer. Besides its decent camera and entertainment capabilities, it offers a full range of communication choices and has an impressive GPS capability, to boot.

From: Philip Ho
Having been a Sony Ericsson user for years, it was a refreshing feeling to have experienced the new Nokia E71, and it was the build quality that surprised me the most at first glance. When the time came for a new phone in the past, I have to admit that I did not really consider Nokia phones as I had found most of them to be rather unimaginative. The E71 however, with its assuring metal build and finishing, not only impressed me convincingly, but also washed away my previous perception that all business phones were boring looking.

After adjusting to the QWERTY keyboard layout (which might look cramped), texting for SMS and emails were done fairly quickly and comfortably, due largely to the tactile feedback of the keys. The big screen and the long battery life were major pluses to note as well. The battery life was sufficiently long for me to experience it in full swing for three days without recharging!

From: Qiaoyun
Being an E-Series user myself, I am happy that Nokia came up with a successor that, from what I feel, is your best digital companion. Never did I realize how difficult it is to draw the line between work and play. I am so used to lumping them both together and to put it apart is easier said than done! Having a phone that fits both my job and social life is amazing!

From: Rafidah
The best all rounder smartphone to have come from Nokia so far, the Nokia E71 is an extremely capable device with sleek business enterprise applications and multimedia features, elegant form factor with incredible build quality, and long lasting battery power. Together with its attractive price, the Nokia E71 is poised to seriously challenge its other enterprise rivals (Blackberry and Windows Mobile).

From: Victor Goh
I own an iPhone as well as a Nokia E51, so it’s only natural that I compare the Nokia E71 with those 2 phones. The Nokia E71 has many more features compared with the other 2 phones, which makes it a more attractive bundle. You can simply call it an “everything you need in a phone and more”, since you can always install more stuff when needed. I find the user interface less handy than a touch screen. The reason is that you need to scroll and scroll then click whatever u need. But overall, it’s not a bad phone. Especially if u need to multi-task as this is a phone designed for it. The buttons are a little bit smaller than the earlier version (E61?) in order to make it small, compact and have a QWERTY keypad, it’s never easy to reach a compromise. Those with bigger fingers or long nails might have a liitle bit of difficulty in typing, though. I also find that the stereo headset that comes along with it needs to be improved in terms of quality. (What ever happened to the better quality headsets from the past Nokia phone era?) Just shortly after using it, I realized that the rubber ring around the head set came off (QC failed?). The raw metal beneath it is quite sharp. Not noticing that the rubber ring came off resulted in a cut on my ear while trying to stuff it into my ear. The leather pouch and strap was a good try, but again, the quality issue. I believe I can get better stuff at night bazaar stalls. I would rather that they do without it in the first place than to package a flimsy synthetic feeling leather case which offers no protection and little aesthetic value with a strap so thin that you would worry that nothing might be hanging on to the other end (the phone) at the end of the day. Other than the accessories, I have no complaints about the phone.

From: Wai Kit
An all-in-one device with all the necessary features, such as Wi-Fi & GPS, that one needs. Also, the not so common SD-HC MicroSD support proves handy when you have a lot of stuff to lug around. The camera on it takes reasonable quality pictures. The Symbian OS, in its 3rd incarnation, is not much different to it predecessor. Simple to use, but lacking software at the moment. The processor is pretty fast in switching between programs with no obvious lag, which is good for a smart device. GPS usage is definitely expensive since it’s using GPRS as a medium for connection and therefore, will incur costs per data download. Lastly, the battery life is pretty good. It lasted about 2-3 days for my use, which is not so bad. Should I recommend this? Well, the launch price is fair for this device, but it’s not perfect to perform & use. I give it 7/10; a good device with features that I need but needs to be more user friendly like my Pocket PC.

From: Wilson Teo
The QWERTY keypad really makes typing a breeze. Even though the keys are small, I have no problem using my fingernails to type. I like the way they placed the commonly used keys like @ in places where it’s easily accessible.

From: xanthus_f
It is sleek & shiny and has more entertainment & work power then it seems. From music & videos on Youtube to working on Microsoft word documents and even connecting to the internet via Wi-Fi or using it as a mobile broadband modem, it seems to fulfill almost every need while you’re on the go. It really changed my opinion of early smartphones from Nokia. With a more user-friendly interface, you could say that I’m a potential convert to the Nokia Eseries as it was sheer joy to use during my trial.

From: Karen Koh
Sweaty palms, eager anticipation, a mixed look of wonder and thrill in getting my hands on the latest package from no less than Nokia. I was not disappointed in having my first chance to try out the Nokia E71. The initial briefing was becoming more of a background din, as focus shifted in getting the phone out of its box and taking it out for a spin. It is a sleek machine. Eliciting a “no way” reaction as it seemed too sleek for the thin profile to hold the list of features it claimed to have. I didn’t know that I was in for a sweet surprise. So, regarding looks, sex appeal and the basic cool factor, it is way up the scale. And I was all but ready to explore its features and functions further. First task was to synch my hundreds of contacts from my existing phone to the Nokia E71. My excitement was taken a notch down (a very small notch), as the accompanying CD installer for the PC Suite to synch contacts didn’t quite work. After a call to the Nokia helpline, a quick download from the web, it was all green. I still tried the old school way. (Don’t ask, as it tells something of my age) Curious to test what the phone would do; i.e. contacts in old phone to SIM, transfer SIM to the Nokia E71 then copy contacts from SIM to the Nokia E71. It is a roundabout way, but effective nonetheless. A good thing to note, in so doing, the phone combined duplicate contacts into 1 record showing different numbers within and removing duplicate numbers from being recorded separately. A bit of smart copying there – a small but cool feature, for those who would care to know.

From: Arnold Apostol
Prior to using the Nokia E71, I’m holding on to the Nokia E51. The Nokia E71, being a business phone, I expected it to be fast and nifty. The 369Mhz CPU and 128MB of RAM made the Nokia E71 a rather pleasant phone to use. The tiny QWERTY keypad certainly would take time to get used to, especially if you have big hands like mine.

From: shadowandy
I’m a PDA phone user, so I was curious to see how this QWERTY phone compares against my stylus-driven HTC Touch PDA. The Nokia E71 scores high in messaging, navigation, ergonomics & design, but the Symbian office suite was somewhat limited. I found myself playing around with Nokia Maps & the GPS most of the time, especially on the bus. Which is how I came to rate this feature among the most useful to me. As an Eseries business phone, I feel Nokia was justified in skimping on the entertainment features, thus my lower than average rating on such features. All in all, I would recommend the Nokia E71 to anyone looking for smart phone with a keypad.

From: Aeshan Wijetunge
From the QWERTY keypad to fast internet browsing, the Nokia E71 delivers it all. Yet, the nagging problems that I faced with most or all of my Nokia phones are that it momentarily hangs while having a few applications running and loading stuff and also its persistent ‘auto’ shutdown issues. I was surprised to see that these issues are still present, and what’s worse is that it’s in a brand new phone! Nokia really has to fix the problem of insufficient RAM in the Nokia E71, as this can ruin a lot of the good experiences I had with the phone. Its ‘auto’ shutdown issues come in 2 parts: Part 1 – ‘Auto’ shutdown and ‘auto’ power up; and Part 2 – ‘auto’ shutdown and staying turned off. As with every phone, the ups and downs are common, but overall this can be considered the best phone till date from Nokia!

From: Ian Koh
I’ve tried a few business phones that combine the power of both a typical phone and a PDA, with most of them having the issue of speed and stability. I was actually quite surprised at how well the Nokia E71 runs, as I was expecting it to be somewhat like the rest I’ve seen so far. The speed is consistent and the crashes are minimal, the overall experience is smooth and almost seamless.

From: Alan Chan
This is my first time using a smartphone and I must say that I’m sold on it. As a newbie to smart phones, I find the Nokia E71’s user interface very straight-forward and easy to comprehend, especially since all you need to do is scroll and click. As I’m in sales, it is a necessity to travel around Singapore a lot, and with the Nokia E71’s GPS and Nokia Maps, it made arriving at appointments less hectic. The QWERTY keypad is another favourite of mine, quick and efficient, because it’s just like typing on your computer and made typing and sending SMS’s a breeze. Plus, like a computer, I was able to run a few applications at once without experiencing any lagging. In addition, its large screen also made an easy read of e-mails and websites. I almost lamented having to return it when my trial period ended. I enjoyed my experience with the Nokia E71 so much, I’m saving up to get one!

From: Darryl Ng
I love it! It’s not my first experience with a Nokia phone, but the last experience I had with the Nokia N73 wasn’t very pleasant. Nokia is known by many for its user-friendly functions, and the Nokia E71 is no different. However, as opposed to the previous range of the Nokia Eseries, the Nokia E71 does not hang on me, at least for the one week that I’ve used it. In short, this is a great phone that has changed my opinion of Nokia phones and this is going to be the next phone for me!

From: Irene Tan
This is one of those phones that caught my eye when I first saw it. This phone is so “mutli-taskable” that I can’t help trying out all the functions once I’ve got it. I couldn’t type well at the beginning due to the habit of using a number pad phone for years, but as I picked up speed, this phone removed my frustration from typing long SMS’s and keying in text while surfing the net. The battery life is fabulous as it lasted me up to 5 days in a row.

Some cons about this phone here. One, it has a long start-up time. For someone like me who always turns off her handphone at night to conserve electricity, it is quite irritating to wait for it to start-up when there are some urgent calls to be made early in the morning. Two, I personally dislike the “Read Message” function. It literally reads out loud to me when I’m in the public, not realising it as I was listening to my mp3. I mistook the “Read Message” as View Message. Note that it is also quite hard to understand what the phone is “speaking” too, which is why I find that function quite pointless, but it seems to appear everywhere.

From: Joy Teo
The Nokia E71 is the perfect all-rounder for the working professional. Users are able to check e-mails, surf the web and access the integrated GPS on the go. The Symbian S60 UI is user-friendly and allows the user to alternate between work and play modes. It doesn’t hurt that all these features are packed into a classy, sleek body that will turn heads.

From: Shawn Png
The sleek design gave the phone a versatile look, which was great for both my work and personal use. I personally dig the keyboard for its small yet effective buttons – they put other plastic and clicky QWERTY keypads to shame. Overall, this phone is definitely a great communication tool to have, be it for looks or functionality.

From: euniqueflair