The Groke
hot hail/Paging Dr. Beat
Received my spanky new E71 this morning.
As mentioned on the iPhone thread, I was on the verge of buying Apple's offering but after some serious consideration, I vetoed the Heart, went with my head, chose function over flash and so far I am very, very happy that I did.
I really needed a solid, reliable smart phone with MS Exchange email support, good battery life and a full QWERTY physical keyboard.
The time I spent with my HTC Touch Dual fulfilled only one of the above criteria and I made the decision to leap away from Windows Mobile again as, in retrospect, No.6 isn't really any better than the last one.
So, my Nokia.
It is skinny. Really skinny. Made from more metal than plastic, it is solid, slightly heavier than you would imagine from looking at it and really well put together. The finsh is modern and stylish and makes the two Treos I have sat in front of me look like Fisherprice by comparison.
The QWERTY keyboard is a good 'un - I am already two-thumbing new emails with speed and aplomb.
Screen is sharp, bright and clear, if a little smaller than I am used to. Still, this hasn't caused me any issues yet.
Phone functionality is as good as you would expect from a Nokia and miles ahead of my HTC Touch Dual.
The Symbian S60 OS is snappy and functional, if a little more complicated for n00bs than other, rival systems. It certainly doesn't have the sluggish behavior and slow response to key presses that the last few smart phones I have had displayed. Given that the CPU is reasonably light-weight, this is even more impressive.
Exchange email works very well out of the box and was a snap to setup. Annoyingly it still doesn't not offer sync support for inbox sub folders, which is a glaring omission, but I can live with that.
Handling of office documents and PDFs is very impressive - significantly better than my WM6 HTC, which has got to be pretty embarrassing for Microsoft.
Documents open quickly and in an instant are optimally re-sized for clear reading with no panning.
Initial reports suggest the battery life won't disappoint either.....certainly can't be any worse than my HTC or Treo 750.
Multi-media performance?
No idea at the moment as it isn't of much interest to me, but I will run some tests and see.
I am sure the iPhone will outperform the Nokia here in almost every way, but that is to be expected.
Initial impressions then?
Well pleased. More so than I have been by a phone purchase in a long while.
If it remains stable and the battery is as decent as I am hoping, then I reckon the E71 is a real contender in the full QWERTY Smartphone market right now, especially if you are looking for a daily work-horse more than a multi-media companion.
Be interesting to see it put up against the Blackberry Bold.
Highly recommended!
As mentioned on the iPhone thread, I was on the verge of buying Apple's offering but after some serious consideration, I vetoed the Heart, went with my head, chose function over flash and so far I am very, very happy that I did.
I really needed a solid, reliable smart phone with MS Exchange email support, good battery life and a full QWERTY physical keyboard.
The time I spent with my HTC Touch Dual fulfilled only one of the above criteria and I made the decision to leap away from Windows Mobile again as, in retrospect, No.6 isn't really any better than the last one.
So, my Nokia.
It is skinny. Really skinny. Made from more metal than plastic, it is solid, slightly heavier than you would imagine from looking at it and really well put together. The finsh is modern and stylish and makes the two Treos I have sat in front of me look like Fisherprice by comparison.
The QWERTY keyboard is a good 'un - I am already two-thumbing new emails with speed and aplomb.
Screen is sharp, bright and clear, if a little smaller than I am used to. Still, this hasn't caused me any issues yet.
Phone functionality is as good as you would expect from a Nokia and miles ahead of my HTC Touch Dual.
The Symbian S60 OS is snappy and functional, if a little more complicated for n00bs than other, rival systems. It certainly doesn't have the sluggish behavior and slow response to key presses that the last few smart phones I have had displayed. Given that the CPU is reasonably light-weight, this is even more impressive.
Exchange email works very well out of the box and was a snap to setup. Annoyingly it still doesn't not offer sync support for inbox sub folders, which is a glaring omission, but I can live with that.
Handling of office documents and PDFs is very impressive - significantly better than my WM6 HTC, which has got to be pretty embarrassing for Microsoft.
Documents open quickly and in an instant are optimally re-sized for clear reading with no panning.
Initial reports suggest the battery life won't disappoint either.....certainly can't be any worse than my HTC or Treo 750.
Multi-media performance?
No idea at the moment as it isn't of much interest to me, but I will run some tests and see.
I am sure the iPhone will outperform the Nokia here in almost every way, but that is to be expected.
Initial impressions then?
Well pleased. More so than I have been by a phone purchase in a long while.
If it remains stable and the battery is as decent as I am hoping, then I reckon the E71 is a real contender in the full QWERTY Smartphone market right now, especially if you are looking for a daily work-horse more than a multi-media companion.
Be interesting to see it put up against the Blackberry Bold.
Highly recommended!
)
