Nokia's E71 smartphone offers more, then some | The Jakarta Post

Nokia's E71 smartphone offers more, then someMon, 10/13/2008 11:36 AM | Sci-Tech(JP/Zatni Arbi)(JP/Zatni Arbi)If you ask around for advice on purchasing a new smartphone, people will talk excitedly about the iPhone 3G, BlackBerry Bold, Samsung Omnia, LG KT 610 and perhaps a handful of others.Imagine a smartphone with a complete and fairly comfortable QWERTY keypad, a very slender body with a stylish design, a 320 by 240 screen that remains viewable even under a bright light, all sorts of connectivity options including quad band GSM, 3G, 3.5G HSDPA, 802.11g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, assisted GPS and even the old Infra-Red!Add to these features dozens of applications for both business and personal purposes. Best of all, this smartphone is very simple to use thanks to a feature that allows us to switch from "business" mode to "personal" mode by clicking a single screen icon.By now you might have guessed which smartphone this is; a model that is quite popular today. Yes, that is right. It's the Nokia E71, which has been around since the middle of the year.One of the E71's best features is its ability to retrieve email messages without having to subscribe to a push email service plan, as is required with a BlackBerry.To be able to retrieve and send email messages using this smartphone, all you have to do is enter your email address and password. The application will add a new item, such as "CBN", under the Messaging menu. (Configuring the smartphone for my CBN mail account took me less than two minutes.)In places where an HSDPA service is available, the mail box can be accessed and one only needs to pay for the data traffic; no additional monthly subscription is necessary.In places where there is a hotspot, Wi-Fi can be used. With the E71, push email from the Microsoft Exchange Server as well as from widely used free email services such as Yahoo and Gmail can be received.Another admirable feat is the long battery life. (During my test, I left the unit powered up with the WLAN connection active. The battery still lasted more than three days.)Establishing connection with a WLAN access point is very quick, too.Apart from these features, there are several more that other smartphone makers should copy. One of them is the inclusion of location information in the photo file, so that many years later you can still tell where the pictures were taken: Nokia intelligently linked the GPS with the camera's function, embedding the GPS data in each of the photo files.A map can be captured on the screen and sent via email or SMS to a friend. This can be very useful when you need to inform someone of your meeting point, for example.Impressive as it is, the Nokia E71 is not a perfect creation. It has a less-than-stunning camera capability, despite its 3.2 megapixel specification. Video capture, music playback and the radio receiver are best regarded as bonuses rather than key features.Despite these shortcomings, the E71 is a compelling choice. It is priced at almost half that of a BlackBerry Bold, which is regarded as its closest competitor. Yet it provides business people with everything they need and more.-- Zatni Arbi

Nokia's E71 smartphone offers more, then some | The Jakarta Post

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