E71Blog.com

MobileBurn.com was recently able to get their hands on the Nokia E71, putting together a nice collection of live pics and first-hand thoughts on the new smartphone. According to Michael Oryl, of MobileBurn, the keyboard, though much more compact than similar QWERTY smartphones like the E61 and E61i models, is a pleasure to type on, and as with most others, they’re overly impressed with the overall size of the unit.

Apparently, Nokia chose the older S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 user interface over the more new Feature Pack 2 because they wanted to make sure that these Eseries were as stable as possible, which is an interesting statement. 
You can click through for more pictures of both the grey steel and white steel E71 over at MobileBurn.com.

While we obviously prefer the E71 here at E71blog.com, I’m sure you know that there are numerous competitors out there that offer a similar experience with a full smartphone operating system and comparable camera features. One such device is the recently announced HTC Touch Diamond, a slick black handset rocking Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional.

The E71’s lack of touchscreen may or may not be a winner for you, but it’s interesting to see it held up side by side with this sexy beast from the WinMo side of life.

Here’s the video:

Ben at SMStextnews.com has been playing with the Nokia E71 and lists out over a half dozen things that he really likes about the new handset, such as the size and battery life. Ben also claims that he’s been consistently seeing GPS locks in 15 seconds or less, though I’ll have to see that to believe it.

On the other hand, Ben has less than half dozen things that he dislikes about the stylish new candybar, such as the fingerprint loving housing and email client.

The best part, though, are the sample images that Ben has posted, showing that the handset performs great in daylight and over distances, but the night shots are terrible (as to be expected). What do you think? Can you cope with poor night shots, in light of the massive list of pros to this handset?

Check out Ben’s sample pictures

The Nokia E71 was recently fondled by Dotsisx, who writes over at Symbian-Guru.com. Dotsisx was incredibly impressed by the dimunitive size of our favorite handset, calling it tiny, thin, and tempting. In fact, Dotsisx reports that the E71 is so small, she thought it was the E66, until she noticed the QWERTY keyboard that graces the bottom half of the handset!

Thanks to Antoine at T3 Middle East, Dotsisx also shared this nice picture, showing off just how thin the handset really is, when stacked on the E66 and popular N95 handsets.

We’re hoping to have our hands on the Nokia E71 soon, so definitely check back here for some intense coverage!

One of the things, historically, that bothers me about the Eseries is that….well….it’s not Nseries. By that, I mean that while there *is* a decent 3.2 megapixel camera, with autofocus, there’s no dedicated camera button, and well, it’s just not really a good imaging tool. The same for music, and video.

So, then, how *does* the Nokia E71 handle the typical Nseries features such as music, imaging, and video? Well, though I don’t have one here with me, Steve Litchfield, over at AllAboutSymbian.com, has continued his excellent review of the new handset, covering the various multimedia features.

What do you think? Are you willing to accept the slightly inferior multimedia features of the Nokia E71, in exchange for the miniature size, convenient QWERTY, and sexy styling?

We’re just starting out here at E71blog.com, but the big guns over at AllAboutSymbian.com and My-Symbian.com have both been fondling this new little nuggets for a while, and have their full-on reviews ready to go.

Steve Litchfield at AllAboutSymbian has covered a full production unit, clad in classy white steel. Steve pits the Nokia E71 against its predecessor, the E61i, as well as the recently announced iPhone 3G, which the E71 shares the measurements of, give or take. You can read Steve’s review here.

Michal Jerz at My-Symbian has also laid hands on the device and praises the design and tech specifications of the QWERTY sexiness. Michal’s unit is pre-sales, which means there might be some inconsistencies while he waits for a full production version. Read on to see what he thinks of the overall device.