Just in: Nokia E71

Monday, June 16th, 2008

I was quite impressed by the handfeel* of the Toshiba Portégé G710 when I reviewed it last week, but it is as nothing to the E71. This drop-dead sexy beast is satisfyingly weighty, with the metal chassis perfectly fitting its boardroom looks.

So far, I also prefer the Nokia’s slightly larger keys. There’s no space between them, so theoretically you could accidentally nudge the wrong one, but this hasn’t yet been an issue.

Another big advantage is speed, with the Symbian OS here proving much, much more responsive than the Toshiba G710 running Windows Mobile 6.

One of Nokia’s biggest selling points, though, is ease-of-setup. Just enter your email address and password, the marketing chief claimed, and then worry no more – everything would just work. And with support for “thousands” of ISPs, it’s more likely than not that it will.

I tried it with my Gmail account, but initially hit a problem with the setup routine – it was using Vodafone Live! to connect rather than the usual Vodafone internet access point. Once I’d corrected this, though, it worked like a dream. Well, a slightly dull dream involving access to email via a phone.

I’ll keep on using the phone over the next few days, so look out for the full review soon.

*Handfeel. n. 1 Like mouthfeel, but in the hand.