Themer Eric has put together this striking SpringTime theme, complete with S60 Touch icons and a fancy glass effect in the highlight. Unfortunately, it’s clear that this is not made specifically for the E71, as you can see the homescreen icons are not perfect. Nevertheless, the background is vibrant, and the S60 Touch icons are well done, so it’s a winner in my book!
You can download SpringTime from Nokialino.it here.
One of the big questions with the AT&T branded firmware on the Nokia E71x is, what’d they change, and how tight did they lock it down? I had a chance to play with an E71 this morning, and took a few screenshots to show you some differences that I noticed. For me, most of these are dealbreakers, though there is some light at the end of the tunnel, as well.
Share Online is gone - there’s no app in any of the menus, and as you can see below, while the ’send’ link is still there, the option to upload is gone. This is really silly of AT&T, as it only discourages users from getting a bigger data plan, which typically costs more money. Absurd.
No Network Selection – while you can manually choose a network (usually this is removed with AT&T), you cannot specify whether the phone should connect to EDGE-only, 3G-only, or dual-mode. This can be a big battery drain if you know you have a weak 3G signal, or aren’t even in a 3G area. Bad move, AT&T.
Still No Native Geo-tagging - I believe this is officially Nokia’s only S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 device to not support native geotagging of photos. However, given that Share Online was removed, it’s not really a surprise, unfortunately.
Can’t change the shortcut keys - this is a HUGE one. I was unable to find, anywhere, the ability to change the Calendar, Contacts, and Email keys, to set them to whatever I want. It appears as though they’re hard-coded to the various tasks, which is a darn shame, really. I don’t know why AT&T would have removed this feature, other than cause they’re idiots.
Can Rearrange The Menu - including moving most of the various icons into folders or subfolders. For instance, in this screenshot, I had highlighted the MediaMall icon, pressed Options, and you can see I was able to move it to a different folder. As least I can hide most of the junk from sight.
That’s all I was able to check out for now. The phone was offline, so I was unable to check reception or any 3rd party applications, unfortunately. I hope to have a better chance to play soon.
We’ve waited and waited, and now we finally have the Nokia E71x readily available from AT&T. This is the branded variant of our favorite E71, and it comes with 2 main differences – the sexy black color scheme and S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (as opposed to Feature Pack 1 on the unbranded unit). I’ve checked a few contacts, and confirmed that there is no way to ‘upgrade’ your unbranded handset to Feature Pack 2- it has to be purchased with it from AT&T, unfortunately.
The E71x from AT&T is priced at $99 after a 2-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate, and I’m pretty sure that rebate requires you to add-on a data package. Due to AT&T’s stupid rules, the E71x, since it has a smartphone operating system AND a QWERTY keyboard, requires the $30 PDAconnect data package, which offers the same speed and access as the $15 MEdiaNet plan, but simply costs twice as much. If you’re using an unbranded E71, you should be fine with the cheaper data package.
You could also just buy the unbranded unit for $320 from Amazon. Let’s do some quick math, shall we? Assuming you’ll have the same voice package, and keep the phone for 2 years, let’s see the difference in cost:
E71x – $99 for the phone, plus $30 x 24 months = $819
E71 – $320 for the phone, plus $15 x 24 months = $680
You’ll save $139 over 2 years by snagging the unbranded unit, but you’ll have paid more upfront. Pick your poison, people. (Thanks, Josh, for the correction)
The mobile YouTube application for the Nokia E71 has been updated to v2.0.11, recently. While it, unfortunately, still doesn’t allow you to login to your YouTube account to view comments or your favorite videos, it’s quite a nice application, and offers quick access to Top Rated, Most Viewed, and Most Recent videos. There is also a nice search function, so that you can quickly find what you’re looking for.
You can get this updated version by navigating to YouTube.com from your phone’s web-browser. You should be automatically routed to the mobile version, and see a link to download the mobile player.
A few weeks ago, the Nokia Beta Labs launched a fun new product called Nokia Easy Meet. This service is entirely web-based, which means it’s compatible with nearly any device out there, including our Nokia E71. Basically, Nokia Easy Meet makes it…well….easy to meetup with your friends or coworkers to share files or information. You can setup a meet directly from your phone, and even shoot out an SMS to the folks that you want to show up.
Within Nokia Easy Meet, you can share photos, documents, or other files, instantly, through your phone’s browser. You can also setup a chat room for live chat, or a voice conference, if necessary. There is also a handy widget available for the Nokia E71, to make things easier.
To get feedback from users, the Nokia Easy Meet team is looking to meet up with you, through their own service. They’ll be hosting three events, depending on your location, where you can chat with them and give feedback on things you’d like to see with the service.
Here’s the times:
The URL for the session is https://easymeet.nokia.com/jMU__2y1v/
It’s that easy!
One of the benefits of S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2 on the Nokia E71x for AT&T is that there is a clock shown on nearly every single screen of the phone. This is definitely handy, as you can always quickly see what time it is, and something that’s missing on our E71, with just S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1.
Never fear, our friends at E71Fanatics have found the solution with FreeTimeBox, a fully-signed application from the developer of Free-iSMS that adds this time to your menus, and lets you customize it, too! As you can see below, you can adjust the location of the clock, so that it doesn’t get in the way of other labels on your phone. You can also synchronize this clock with your device’s clock, or you can use Internet Time to get it just right, if you want.
FreeTimeBox can be set to automatically load when you turn your phone on, and can also conveniently be hid from the task manager, so that you don’t accidentally close it. You can change the font used, as well as the size and color, along with a host of other options.
The best thing, though, is that you can also specify whether or not this clock shows up in specific applications. If you want to disable it only in the Web Browser, you can easily do that, or you can set other 3rd party applications. This is easily one of the best freewares for the E71, currently.
Yet another awesome theme with those fancy S60 Touch icons, we’ve got Mocha from Larsson. If you’ve had other Eseries smartphones, you’ll likely recognize the Mocha background. It’s definitely pleasant, and should look awesome on the Nokia E71 white, for sure. There are 2 versions of this theme, one with those fugly default icons the E71 was cursed with, and one with those beautiful S60 Touch icons that came along later.
You can download Mocha by Larsson from S60art.com
One of my favorite internet radio stations ever is from SomaFM, and it’s called Secret Agent. If you haven’t listened to it, you totally should – it’s great for vegging out after a long day of blogging. Previously, it was possible to stream Secret Agent through the Nokia Internet Radio application, but you had to painstakingly enter the URL in manually, which sucked, majorly.
However, now, you can simply search the Nokia Internet Radio directory for Soma.FM and get quick access to all of their awesome stations, including Secret Agent, Groove Salad, and others. When you open Internet Radio, simply go to “Search”, then type in ’somafm’ to get the full listing. You can then press Options – Add to Favorites to allow quick access next time you want to listen to the station. I’ve added all of the SomaFM stations to my Favorites, so that they’re always right there.
If you enjoy SomaFM, you can also donate to them here.
It’s awesome to see a new mobile-oriented website launch, and especially one featuring my favorite smartphone, the Nokia E71! Vikki Chowney, who also writes at BitchBuzz, has joined James, Dan, and Ben over at The Really Mobile Project, to voice her thoughts and opinions, and it should be a wild ride. Vikki currently sports the grey steel Nokia E71, and she’s quite cute, as well!
From their About page, The Really Mobile Project is a mobile-focused online video show and website, brought to you by Ben Smith, Dan Lane, James Whatley, and Vikki Chowney. The site will feature a mixture of written and video-based features, including interviews with key industry figures and event coverage. They’ve got a killer mobile site, as well, so you can load it up right there on your phone.
Matthew Miller at Nokia Experts has been tipped with a handful of user guides for the Nokia E71x, one of which lists May 4th as the launch date. While our tipster is dead-set on May 7th, it seems clear, at least, that it will be the first week of May, which is OK with me.
The user guides available, all as PDFs, include the Datasheet, Getting Started Guide, User Guide, FAQs, Tips and Tricks, and the Job Aid, which is used to help AT&T employees not sound like idiots when talking about the phone. Pricing is still confirmed at $99 with a 2-year commitment and mail-in rebate, or you can just head over to Amazon to get it without contract or branding for $320.
