More thoughts on the Nokia E71

I've been using the Nokia E71 for the past several weeks and I'm really excited about this phone.  After using the iPhone for over a year, I really missed having a real QWERTY keyboard for email, text messages, and data entry.  The Nokia keyboard seemed a bit cramped at first, but I quickly got the hang of the rounded key caps.  Then, it was smooth sailing.  

Email.  I don't use an Exchange server, so I can't vouch for the Mail for Exchange program offered by Nokia.  I use GMail to host my work domain.  There's a Gmail app that's pretty good, but I find it a bit slow to start and sluggish to operate.  Plus, it's not integrated into the notifications and UI of the phone, so I find that to be a disadvantage. The email application that came on the phone has been updated, and the new version is available as a free download from Nokia's website.  I found this new version to be outstanding.  It handles up to six different inboxes and it integrates with the buttons and notifications built-in to the UI. If you have this phone, you definitely want to download the upgraded Email application.

UI.  The iPhone is way more intuitive than the Nokia.  The Nokia is loaded with useful apps and utilities but it can be a chore to find them and figure out how to use them.  I actually had to read the manual to figure out some features.  Plus, there are features that only work in Europe, and that's annoying to have some icon mocking me with a cool feature that I can't use. 

Sync.  I had no problems syncing contacts and calendars to my phone from my Mac using free software available from Nokia.  Nokia also has media transfer software that will transfer photos from iPhoto and songs from iTunes.  It doesn't play protected DRM music from iTunes.  There's a handy feature to transfer a selected quantity of music to your phone that works well, except that it sometimes transfers music to the phone that won't play (protected DRM).  I find the Nokia utilities for Mac work much faster and better than trying to use a Windows Mobile device with a Mac.  I've tried.

Camera.  On paper, the Nokia has a much better camera than my original iPhone, but you wouldn't know that from looking at the photos.  Sure, the Nokia has focus and zoom and flash, none of which are on my iPhone.  However, the Nokia photos look grainy, particularly in low light. Maybe I'm just not using the camera right, but I don't think it's just me that is seeing this issue.  

Music.  The Nokia Music store is only available in Europe (boo!). Rhapsody says the Nokia isn't compatible with it's Rhapsody-to-Go service, though some have apparently used it.  The Skyfire browser says you can use it to listen to Rhapsody, but apparently that's changed because of the way Rhapsody saves log-in information.  There's no S60 Pandora app, and Pandora also won't work with Skyfire.  There is a Last.FM application that works on the E71.  My only complaint is that I keep getting pauses for buffering in the middle of songs, even when connected via wi-fi.  The Nokia has something no iPod or iPhone has -- an FM radio!  You need to have headphones plugged into it because the radio uses the headphones as an antenna, but there is an option to play the radio with the external speaker even though phones are attached.  It's kind of cool to have a radio on my phone.  There's also a neat Internet radio app and a separate Podcatcher app from Nokia. I can also use the Sirius online player through Skyfire.

Video. There's no compatible Slingbox player for my E71, even though there are a couple of Symbian players on Slingmedia's site.  Hulu works through the Skyfire browser, and Youtube works due to a lite version of Flash.  That's about all I've experimented with.

The Nokia E71 is coming to AT&T, so this is a phone that AT&T users might want to check out if they want something different from the iPhone or Windows Mobile.  I will post more thoughts as I have time to figure out more about this phone.