E71Blog.com

There’s no better way to start the week than with a fresh new theme for your phone, and today is no exception. I’ve come across Lithium, from PiZero, who has recently started using Flahorn’s icon pack in his themes! Lithium is a blue-tinted theme that looks somewhat like the Matrix screens.

Unfortunately, Lithium doesn’t replace all of the system folders on the E71, such as the GPS, Communication, and Office folders, as well as the Download! app. Other than that, the theme looks great, and nearly completely rids us once again of those horrific default icons.

You can download Lithium for free from PiZero’s great looking new site here.

Most of you are probably rather disappointed with the gaming on your Nokia E71. Since it’s not supported by N-Gage, and the landscape screen orientation makes finding good java games slightly difficult, I thought you’d be rather excited to find out that Quake is now available for your Nokia E71!

That’s right, the age-old classic indeed runs on the Nokia E71, as you can see in this video below.

To install, you can follow the directions found here.

Mobbler

Mobbler has been updated, and now features the ability to both love and ban tracks, as well as the typical scrobbling and whatnot. The Symbian-Guru is a huge fan of Mobbler, and he’s converted me, as well. You will need a free Last.FM account, which you can get here.

Basically, Last.FM keeps track of what you listen to across various devices and places, and then uses that to recommend new music to you, and connect you with other people with similar music tastes. There’s also a great custom station option, which allows you to either type in an artist or a tag and get a streaming radio station customized around that artist/tag. Brilliant.

As you’re listening, you can mark a track as ‘loved’, in which Last.FM keeps it in a special station that you can access by paying a subscription (you get other benefits, too). You can also ‘ban’ a track, informing Last.FM that you dislike it, and not to play it ever again. If you simply aren’t into a track at that moment, you can just skip it, without having to mark it as banned.

The latest update to Mobbler allows you to use your phone’s volume keys to adjust the audio volume, and works great, even over EDGE.

You can download Mobbler here, and set yourself up with a Last.FM account here.

Also, if you’re into a specific station, the Nokia Internet Radio application has been updated with a special version for the E71, you can download that here.

Andrew Boxall, over at Dial-A-Phone, has reviewed the Nokia E71, looking at every feature and even how it fits in with Nokia’s lineup. Most of the review is also spent comparing the Nokia E71 to the recently launched Apple iPhone 3G, against which it actually fares rather well.

Despite the smaller screen and less intuitive web browsing, Andrew decides that the E71 bests the iPhone 3G in several areas, including the awesome QWERTY keyboard and GPS implementation. What do you think? Have you had a chance to compare directly with the iPhone 3G?

Yes, that’s right, Joel Spolsky is in love with his Nokia E71. Who’s Joel Spolsky? Well, he’s the author of ‘Joel on Software’, and he’s been playing with his Nokia E71 now for a while. Joel’s favorite features by far are the keyboard and overall build quality, which I would have to agree with.

To start out, Joel only had a shortlist of things he wanted in his next phone:

1. He wanted a phone with a decent MP3 player, so as not to have to carry two devices.
2. He wanted to be able to use the phone’s internet connection to get online with his laptop on the train out to the Hamptons (there’s tolerable 3G coverage on AT&T for the first two hours of the trip).
3. He needed great Exchange synchronization, not just an IMAP client. For the last few weeks he’s been desperately trying to get Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero concept working and you need a great Exchange client, not a 1.0 Exchange client.

It seems that the E71 was an excellent choice for Joel. Have you gotten your mitts on the Nokia E71 yet? What things do you love about it, and what drives you nuts? Don’t forget to click over to read Joel’s full thoughts, as he compares it directly to the iPhone 3G in a pretty honest little list.

So, we’ve shown you a handful of fun themes for your new E71, and highlighted a few applications here and there. However, alot of you are reporting issues with installation, so I figured it would be good to put together a walkthrough of sorts.

First, the basics - your Nokia E71 is using S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1. You may also see this written as S60v3 FP1 in some places. This means you can install and use any application written for S60 3rd Edition. These themes and applications usually end with ‘.sisx’ or just ‘.sis’, and can be found all over the internet. My favorite place to get applications, though, is the S60.com website, which has a great Applications directory.

To install these applications and themes, you can simply Bluetooth the file to yourself, or store it on your phone’s memory card, and use the File Explorer application to navigate to the file, and simply click on it to open. Installation will start immediately, and you’re all set!

But wait, what if you get an error? There are 2 reasons you may get an error, with 2 very simple solutions. The first is if your phone is set to restrict the types of applications that can be installed, and the other has to do with the certificate used to sign the application or, more frequently, the theme.

The first thing you should check is to make sure that your phone is set to allow any application to be installed. To do this, you can go into your Installations folder, and open the ‘App Manager’. Now press your left softkey to open the Options menu, and arrow down to ‘Settings’. It’s completely safe for you to change the first option (Software Installation) to ‘All’, instead of ‘Signed Only’. Once you have done this, try to install the application or theme again.

If you are still having issues, it could be due to the expiration date of the certificate used to sign the theme or application. To resolve this, simply go into your Settings and change the date of your phone to 2007. Now, proceed with the installation again, and don’t forget to change your clock back when you’re done!

You should now be able to install nearly any application or theme on your phone without any issues, as long as it is a signed application. Unsigned applications are a bit different, and I’ll cover a workaround for those soon.

One of the biggest ‘wow’ factors of the E71 is the new predictive text feature, the first of its kind on a QWERTY Nokia. I’ve been trying it out on my Nokia E71, and while I was first tempted to disable it, I’ve definitely gotten used to it, and now see it as a very valuable feature. Vaibhav over at The Symbian Blog has put together a great little walkthrough - with screenshots - showing the various aspects of this new feature, to give you an idea.

Also, he’s pitted the E71, with its predictive text, against the Nokia E90, former QWERTY Nokia champion, and the Nokia N78, with its standard numeric keypad and T9 predictive text. He’s done well in documenting the findings scientifically, and I was surprised to see the end results, that’s for sure.

Personally, I think that I’m able to type much faster on the E71 with its predictive text entry, what about you?

The MobileMinistryMagazine.com has gotten ahold of the E71 now, though unfortunately for them, it’s the Euro version, so no 3G goodness. The initial reactions post covers how small the device really is, while noting that the battery is a monstrous 1500mAh powerhouse.

Antoine handed his E71 over to a friend who’s used to the BlackBerry Curve, and the gut reaction from her was ’small yet powerful.’

Following up is his 2nd post, where he looks at the design, usage, and initial conclusions, after several days of usage. I couldn’t help but notice that Antoine used the term ‘impressive’ repeatedly, showing that Nokia has come from left field to hit the enterprise market head-on with the Nokia E71.

What do you think? Is the E71 just another Nokia, or could it do some real damage to the BlackBerry market share in the U.S. specifically?

The gang over at BoyGeniusReport.com have been reviewing the E71 since before most of us knew we loved it, and the latest installment offers quite a telling comparison. The Nokia E71 is quite possibly one of the hottest QWERTY smartphones to hit the market this year, right there next to the upcoming BlackBerry Bold. Of course, then, it only makes sense to pitch them against each other, to see who the best QWERTY smartphone really is.

Covering every aspect from the screen to the battery life to the keyboard to email, this is definitely one thorough head-to-head comparison. I won’t ruin the results for you, but I will say that the E71 is always the winner in my heart. You can find out the end result for yourself here.

Wow, this is truly some awesome news! Fring is now fully supported on the Nokia E71, bringing you not only great VOIP, but also multi-client IM/voice chat and file transfer! Another recent update to Fring introduced Fring Add-Ons. These are extra services that can provide quite a bit of functionality. Examples include a Gmail notifier, Facebook notifier, and even vTap video content!

Fring currently works with Skype (for chat and Skype-Out calls), MSN Messenger, ICQ, GoogleTalk, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and even Twitter! It’s tough to find fault with Fring, to be honest. You can get more info on Fring here, and get an installation link sent straight to your phone.