Yes, it’s just a phone and “why should I read the following rant on Nokia”, you may be wondering. Here is why:

1. Flexibility

I mentioned it earlier that I had bought a 2G iPhone some month ago, with a broken screen and drained battery from eBay for 65,- EUR, which I managed to repair and have since been using. The iPhone may be a crippled piece of hardware and Nokia may have the best hardware on their phones (also in terms of durability), but there is just so much more I can do with this old iPhone from 2007 that I can’t do with any of my four Nokias (6230, 6230i, N95 & E72).

The iPhone (or an HTC Desire with Android OS) is my logical extension to the computer. Evernote, to name just one application, runs on the iPhone but doesn’t (natively) run on the E72. I am using Evernote to keep track of my notes, so I’ll need to have this run on a phone.

Flexibility is a matter of software support, not only hardware.

Consequently, the iPhone won. I am using it on a daily basis while the E72 slept in my drawers since February 2010. Time to sell it and sum up everything with this blog post.

iPhone 2G vs. Nokia E72

2. Good at basic stuff

If you’re just looking for a simple mobile phone with sms, Nokia phones are good. There’s a reason why the 1xxx range of Nokias has been so popular around the world – not only in emerging markets. It is also why Nokia keeps on reinventing this series with the recent announcement of their C1 & C2 (dual sim, eventually!) phones. Even the simple QWERTY phone with Bluetooth we’ve been asking for via Eriks post – Nokia’s C3 – is a good phone.

For simple stuff like voice calls or sms, Nokia phones are good. Even as a mobile Twitter device (Gravity) it rocks! …but for anything else than that, you’re probably better off buying a phone from one of their competitors.

3. SOFTWARE!

This is 2010 and thanks to the iPhone and the undeniable revolution it brought to the market, any smartphone without “cool” software and a usable app store just sucks.

It’s not just the missing Evernote on the E72, or other missing applications. You know many ppl have been asking Nokia and their devs to port successful applications from competitors to the different operating systems in use on Nokia phones. No, with software I mean everything:

• confusing, often changing user interfaces & menu structures
• different operating systems (plus too many different phones at the same time, but that’s another – hardware – issue)
• support of their developers (slowly evolving though)
• unstable firmwares on their phones, always takes at least 12 month on a new phone to become stable
• Nokia website – not optimised for use with mobile phones
• Ovi.com (see 5.)
• essential stuff like Sports Tracker. It took a spin-off from Nokia to get this cool software a bit closer to where it should be.
• Ovi Maps – not yet available for all phones (who are capable of displaying these maps)
• the successful Twitter client Gravity being one of the very few REALLY GOOD apps on a Nokia smartphone
• Global login on all Nokia sites and products. It still doesn’t work the way it should be (one ID & pwd).
• Ovi app wizard. Over at Apple, “apps” that provide nothing else but an RSS feed are meanwhile classified as “spam apps” – and removed from their app store. Are the “apps” built using this app wizard a way for Nokia to bloat their Ovi store stats?

Please, Nokia, software is SUCH an important issue. You’re so good at hardware – why can’t you apply the same diligence to your software products and all related processes?

Also, I’ve realized that I’ve spent considerably more time trying to fix various software issues on my Nokia phones than on the iPhone. I actually do not have the time for such things, and also don’t want to fix my phone all the time and pull information from all over the internet on why application x does not work with firmware y or mobile z. This is really annoying.

There may of course be historical and political reasons for all of this (I know Symbian from when it was still EPOC16 on a Palm Series 3), but then: does this really matter today? Make it work! And don’t make we waste time on it.

4. The mobile office.

Any smartphone that seriously tries to be good at providing some form of mobile office should have

1. a kick-ass e-mail client
2. a superb browser
3. Office suite and/or viewer for various attachments

My E72 came with such an office suite which did the job for me, but the e-mail client and – the E72 is a business phone – the browser just suck.

Nokia, seeing your customers and loyal fans complaining on Nokia Forums and on blogs about the performance of the e-mail client and browser is a NO NO. EI EI!

Cooperate with Yahoo!, install Gmail as default e-mail clients, ship your phones with the Opera Mini browser – do whatever it takes to fix this because a business phone with such an average e-mail client and browser just won’t be enough for us – your customers.

Or else team up with Android.

The e-mail client on my 1G iPod Touch (30,-€ @ eBay) actually made me buy the 2G iPhone in February this year. And this although I had just invested ~270,- € on the Nokia E72 in december 2009.

5. Ovi.com

Ovi – Finnish for “the door” – should be a door to combined Nokia services. But – yes, you guessed it right – it still isn’t.

The Ovi client on phones sucks, sometimes can’t be deinstalled and has a very particularly BAD user interface. It may work with Nokia’s touchscreen phones, but for all other phones it just sucks.

I can’t explain all faults on Ovi, there is just so much wrong with it. I also can’t see what changed from MOSH (which by itself already was a bad joke). This piece of software – as an app on the phone  – just makes me want to hit someone with a Nokia 2110. It’s very frustrating. Very.

The most annoying Ovi bug, imo: You’re on Ovi.com on your computer. Ok, found a nice app, have a link to it sent to you via sms. Check your mobile, the link on that sms opens the web browser – so far, so good. But THEN the Ovi client decides to chip in and re-open it inside the client. This is very annoying, especially for those who are paying a lot of money for data traffic. Can’t this hook be implemened in the OS? => “All http://store.ovi.mobi links to open in Ovi client by default”. (my N95 runs on FW v35.x which was only recently released).

See the App Store on the iPhone? It may not be perfect, but hey – I’VE SPENT MONEY ON THE APPLE APP STORE. Something I would probably never be doing on Ovi App Store. And I guess I am not the only one.

On the other hand, it has to be mentioned that I somehow like the web version of Ovi.com. There may still be a lot of details that do not make sense to me on their website, but truth be told that their app store may be opened by anyone AND that it doesn’t open any client software like iTunes or only shows a crippled version of the market like Android.

Also, the Nokia Ovi Suite has greatly improved since it was launched, succeeding their PC Suite. Nokia is slowly getting there + iTunes is worse, I think.

This whole experience around buying software and interacting with Nokia via Ovi.com and its offered services – that’s the FIRST thing I would try to improve on as Nokia.

6. Strategy

As a serious customer, I am not looking for a fun phone with lots of games, but instead a durable workhorse that will guarantee persistence.

Nokia is in a process of change, they’ve realized that revenue is made on emerging markets and that most of their top-level phones actually can’t really compete with competitors on all levels. A great camera, long battery standby time and smart design (“use with one thumb”) are very good – buy they won’t drive the masses to Nokia stores. The E72 was supposed to be a good successor to the very successful E71. Well, is it really?

Heck, they don’t even seem to have a strategy for emerging markets and still consider Africa and the Middle East as one market! Crazy.

Or their Bicycle Charger Kit which will be released to the market later on this year. You can read my thoughts on this in the comments at Julianas AfriGadget post.

On the iPhone, I can port my apps from the 2G to the 3G, 3GS and probably also to the iPhone 4 (even though some apps, like the new iMovie seem to be limited to the iPhone 4 for hardware reasons). Will this also be possible with apps I’ve bought for the Symbian 9.3 S60 FP2 platform (e.g. the E72)? Will I also be able to use them on future Nokia phones?

The Nokia E72 may be great phone with good hardware, but it currently comes with only average software (except for Gravity) and looks like a dead end street to me. It also doesn’t help that Nokia is very innovative in their Beta Labs, ships new phones with free navigation (thx, Nokia) and a full range of accessories you’ll have to pay extra on competitors.

Nokia has missed to communicate a clear strategy to its customers. Maybe they should pitch us, tell us why their phones are better than the rest. And prove it with cool software that teams up with the already awesome hardware. Right now, I can’t see a reason for the purchase of their phones. There is no persistence in the software side of their products, and my patience with and passion for Nokia products is gone.

What will you do about it, Nokia?

The Nokia E72, QWERTZ keyboard (DE), 6 month old, mint condition, fully equipped, with Gravity licence, OtterBox Commuter Case. 250,- EUR and it’s yours.

UPDATE: SOLD!

Not so on Nokia’s side. I am using Nokia phones since 1998 and have recently swapped my N95 for an E72 – Nokia’s successor to the very popular E71 with a QWERTY keyboard instead of the T9 keypad on traditional phones. I can’t find the link right now, but remember having read these days that Nokia will from now on concentrate on QWERTY phones on one hand, and on the other hand push touchscreen phones. Some, like the new N900 which runs on MAEMO, feature both methods, so this range will be very interesting in the next few years.

The E72 is based on Symbian S60, an operating system that has been around for quite some time now. And although it’s been quite popular in terms of sales, there are almost no interesting apps available for this platform.

Remember, we’re in December 2009 now, and the iPhone has been out for at least 2.5 years, with the Apple App Store being online since July 2008. Since then, over 2 billion (!) apps have been downloaded from their store.

The iPhone may be a crippled piece of monoculture for MacBook users, with a fixed battery, a very restrictive policy, no out-of-the-box functionality you’ll find on many other phones and a list of other flaws – but it STILL wins over most other phones – just because it comes with those apps. And also because it comes with a very usable browser.

Apps, which are dearly missed on Nokia’s S60 platform.

I may not be the perfect reference when it comes to testing different applications, but I can tell you that I’ve only kept six (6) additional applications on my E72 that I think are useful. There may be more – there certainly have to be more – but these six are the only ones that make sense to me for the moment:

1. Gravity

There can’t be enough praise for this application. It’s the only – really GOOD – application for S60. A Twitter / Identi.ca / FaceBook / Google Reader client, a software that will allow me to feed my three active Twitter accounts directly from the phone, check some subscriptions on Google Reader or comment on my friend’s FaceBook status updates.

Nokia obviously knows this fact (they are busy promoting it on Ovi.com and other sites), but they had even failed to invite the developer (@janole, from Berlin/Germany) to their Nokia World 09 event which took place in Stuttgart this year. It’s not only a failure, but a disaster.

You can actually stop reading here because it won’t get better. In my not-so-humble-opinion on this, most – if not all – future applications for Nokia phones should be designed like Gravity. And remember that Gravity was designed & coded by one humble programmer only. Which goes to show what’s possible if you really want it. If interested, pls make sure not miss out this interesting interview with @janole. On this interview, Jan Ole also mentioned that any serious developer should get an iPhone or an iPod Touch to get some orientation on what a good user interface should look like. Hej Nokia, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel – just take the 100 best apps from Apple’s AppStore and port them to S60 (if possible). I know this approach has been discussed before on Nokia Forums, but I for one am still waiting for this …luxury.

A fully registred version of Gravity will cost you about 10 EUR – but it’s the best app you can buy for a Nokia S60 phone these days.

2. Fring

Fring is a chat & VoIP client for your phone. You can use it to connect via Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo Msg, ICQ, AIM, Facebok, Twitter, last.fm & Co with your friends. It’s free, it works, it wins.

Fring is a nice app that I’ve tested right from the start two (?) years ago, it’s been constantly updated and will even work on a brand new phone like the E72. I don’t know how these guys are earning money with the provision of such a well-developed tool, but they have been around for some time now, are serious about what they do, respond to user requests and also cover many different operating systems.

It’s not that you’ll be seeing me chatting via my phone that often, but it’s great to have a mobile Skype version.

3. QR-Code Scanner

Nokia BarCode / QR Code Scanner tool is a rather inconspicuous little tool, but of such great functionality to me that I’ve put a link to it on the stand-by screen of my phone.

While surfing the web, I sometimes see pages that I would like to instantly open via my phone. So I click on a barcode icon on the lower right corner of my Mozilla Memoryhog browser and – voilà – a QR-code window pops up with a link to that page, encoded via a nice little Mozilla FF plugin. I then only have to activate the scanner tool, scan the image and will instantly have the link or encoded text on my phone. Dead simple. And it works. I’d even pay for this app and the browser plugin if it wasn’t free.

4. YouTube client & Google Maps

I am not a YouTube kid, but since it enables me to stream videos to my phone, I’ve started appreciating this nifty application – provided free of charge by Google.

Something similar applies to Google Maps which I actually prefer over to Nokia Maps just because it’s faster. Nokia Maps 3.x may be better these days as it also comes with preloaded maps and an optimized application. However, Google Maps worked right from the start. There wasn’t any iteration of updated versions which would remove this or that bug like on Nokia Maps. Google Maps just worked right from the beginning.

I’ve also tested full-blown Navigator suites for Symbian S60, but why should I pay extra if I can have free navigation via Google Maps? I am on a 1 GB flat fee on the phone anyways… so I am back to using both Google Maps and Nokia Maps – whichever is more appropriate for each situation.

5. Spb TV

Speaking of multimedia content, I’ve been searching for an application that will stream live TV to my phone. Something like Zattoo for the European market, but with an S60 client (which they unfortunately don’t have and which could be their killer application).

And again, as much as I am not a YouTube kid, I even do not like TV that much. But sometimes I do, and those moments I want to watch it on my tiny phone screen. Sorry, David Lynch!

So the only option I can think of is Spb (IP-)TV, a rather strange application for USD 14,95 with a lot of unknown stations from around the world. The screenshot above shows it playing BBC Arabic with picture-in-picture mode.

Now, I probably won’t understand what they are saying as only learned how to order a cold beer in modern standard Arabic, but there are other channels on this (still locked on the screenshot, now unlocked) application. Some are in German, most in English, some in French, Russian, etc. Interesting. I understand German, English and French, so there’s some choice for me. It may not be the best TV app for a phone, but it works, has a unique and smart interface and made it to my Top6 list of Nokia Symbian S60 applications. And besides – is there any other S60 TV app?

Exactly. There are no alternatives.

6. Internet Radio

Came shipped as a pre-installed app on my N95, had to add it manually on the E72 though (use the one from the Nokia 6120 Navigator). Works brilliantly well, perfect user interface, perfect out-of-the-box experience, no unnecessary information for the user which would probably only confuse. Choose your desired (internet) radio station by name, location/country, language or genre. Unfortunately, Radio Okapi from the DRC isn’t included anymore, but they do have triple r from Australia (which I obviously like :-).

It would be very interesting to know WHY Nokia hasn’t included this wonderful application with all their phones (why not on Nokia’s E-Series?), but I guess that it’s because they want to push us users into purchasing music files via their online music store. Ah, marketing. Horrible.

——

Marketing may be one of the reasons why most applications for Nokia’s Symbian S60 still suck in 2009. Probably a mixture of greed and mismanagement that have led to this problematic situation where we see Nokia still producing great phones (c’mon, they are well engineered), but totally fucking it up on the AppStore side. Ovi.com is a really bad joke at the moment – the website is even more informative than their S60-based tool to access the Ovi store. It’s a chaos with mostly shitty applications, I’ve spend quite some time on Ovi.com, trying to find useful applications, only to quickly realize that I am much faster googling for anything of interest instead. Ovi.com may experience a relaunch in the coming month, but to imagine that they can pull anything positive with it right now is a dream that will not come true with the current version. Nokia is supposed to be the leader in the smartphone market – and their app store is anything but smart.

Nokia’s Ovi.com app store or even individual stores on the interwebs – all of these initiatives are pretty much useless if we won’t see more applications like the few good ones above.

I don’t know which phone I’ll buy next, but I can tell you that I’ll put the availability of decent & cool applications as a top priority on my list of criterias for any upcoming phone. If Nokia can’t deliver, well then I’ll switch to Android or maybe even an iPhone and its OS (as much as I’d hate doing that).

…what kind of crippled, 7″ long USB cable is this you’ve shipped with the new E72?

Sure it makes sense to have a smaller cable for the pocket, but please, it is so useless at this length. Very annoying.

Else, the phone looks like a great new toy. A bit different from the E71 which was almost all metal. Coming from an N95 though, anything in monoblock shape will be better for me.

So.. yes, I’ve eventually settled on a new phone after 29 (!) month. I know it will not have the same smart browser I’ll find on an iPhone, a HTC Hero, a Motorola Droid / Milestone or even Maemo-based Nokia N900, but it will give me real keys to press with tactile feedback, provide we with a known operating system and I’ll be able to shot snapshots @ 5mpx and multitask some applications. Now let see if it lives up to all expectations – the build quality already is a bit different from the E71 which I remember being a bit slimmer and much more even on the edges. Like when you move your thumb between the screen and the menu keys, you’ll notice a sharper edge.

What I’ve come to appreciate on the N95 is a good grip on the rubberised back cover. The E72 having a metal plate, it still seems to provide a better grip than the E71. The lock on the back cover isn’t as strong as on the E71 though, and I even had to bend the metal cover a bit to fit it better into its position. Not so nice on a brand new phone.

Whatever. It is mine, I’ll have to use it for the next 24 month and it will hopefully do a good job. The moment I unpacked it, I realized how really small it is. Annette even mentioned that it would be too small for my fingers, but it’s surprinsingly easy to hit the right keys.

You know I’ve been waiting for this phone I had never actually held in my hands before I bought it (because it wasn’t yet on the market), so I had to rely on the user generated opinions you’ll find online only. But something similar actually also applies to the N95, and since I am no TED fellow or something like that, there’s no swag aka free E71 coming my way… so a purchase like this one has to be well planned. I got mine via a 24-month contract as a subsidized phone. Since I am normally using a prepaid card only (with a 1GB data flat), the new SIM will remain – unused – on the old phone. 10,- EUR / month for the next 24 month = cheaper than buying a new phone for ~ 360,- EUR.

Talking about money, the “Kikuyu” in Kikuyumoja probably isn’t such a good idea. I’ve recently spend most of my savings on a new kitchen from IKEA, or let’s say..

from this:

to this:

Not that big, but it’s MINE and I’ve built it with my own hands. Very rewarding. :-)

Considering that my kitchen corner in Embu looked like this:

… the real difficulty is to find the right partner who will understand that even average kitchen corners will be superb when compared to the alternative. And mine in Embu even was a brand new one! I am mentioning this because my sis has an awesome kitchen with all extras. It’s these two worlds we’re living in that sometimes still make me think: yes, Germany, nice & comfy. But do I/we really need all these extras? Maybe one of the reasons why we’ve only now – at this advanced age (yeah!) – agreed to give up the single room appartment and move into a bigger one (from 25 sqm to 76sqm, actually).

Anyways. I haven’t been offline or on a blogging hiatus – just working on the new kitchen and renovating my new home.

As for the E72, it’s a great phone and I will certainly come back for another, more detailed review, even though I’ve also said that I actually don’t want to do a review this time. I am too much of a geek not to waste some precious time on a new gadget.

One of the best ways for staying up-to-date on product launches is Twitter Search. I’m scanning Twitter for E72 related news for quite some time now and I can tell you that many ppl are desperately waiting for the E72 to hit the market. I heard it will be October 6th or 12th…

The Nokia E63 itself is a very nice phone – I actually prefer its keyboard over to the initial E71 and so I am really glad that the E72 will not only have such a similar keyboard, but also come with a camera that will be able to compete with the really decent 5mpx cam on my Nokia N95.

My N95 is 27 months old now and – compared to other phones I’ve owned in the past – a bit worn out. The other day I also dropped it on the floor and it fortunately still does the job, only a few scratches on the (exchangable) cover. Back then I urgently wanted to get my hands on the N95, only to quickly realize that it has a “prototype” design and comes with other flaws I’ve mentioned on this blog in the past. Another problem with buying brandnew phones is that a stable firmware (~ the operating system on the phone) will probably only be released after a year. This isn’t a Nokia-only problem though, others like Apple have experienced similar issues.

The interesting part on this next purchase will be the question if I should get it like my N95 – with a 24month contract and a subsidized phone – or directly buy it without a contract and paying the full price.

The pre-order price for the phone currently is around EUR 360 and I am expecting this to change over the next coming weeks. Also, I think the current trend is that less phones are being subsidized these days and that mobile network operators and their resellers started leasing out phones, so you end up paying a hefty monthly fee + ~ EUR 15 for the phone. You’ll still find many customers asking for “a free phone” from their operator every two years (the way it has been in the past), but it is actually cheaper to get a prepaid card & buy the phone (unless of course you’re on a flat fee contract and using the phone a lot). I don’t call that much, but often check my mail via the phone, so “cheap internet access” is my main issue. I also like the browser on the iPhone, but then: I guess I am too stupid for Apple’s Monoculture and Operating System. The iPhone may have a great browser (the greatest?), but a non-removable battery, a lousy camera and no taskmanager (or is there?) are a no-go for me. Plus it is still too expensive in Europe.

I really can’t wait to get my hands on my own Nokia E72 because it will eventually enable me to return to the monoblock design. The 2-way sliders on the N95 are *interesting* but absolutely useless and it’s about time for me to upgrade from a T9 keypad to a full QWERTY (QWERTZ) keyboard.

The 2 best reviews so far are the one by Antoine of AllAboutSymbian AllAboutNokia (part 1,2,3,4,5 and his verdict) and Eldar’s piece on Mobile Review. These two reviews are also reason enough why I just want to own the phone and won’t do a review on it once it’s here.. :-)

OH, and it HAS A FLASHLIGHT!

Gravity

Gravity v1.00 is the first fully-featured and native Twitter client for the S60 platform. It supports multiple accounts, Twitter Search, Laconica, TwitPic and wraps everything into a gorgeous looking interface.

• Compatible with Twitter and Laconica
• All functions available on your S60 phone: tweet, reply, DM, follow & unfollow, create favourites, search, auto-update and many more …
• Tabbed view of your Timeline, Replies, Messages, Friends, …
• Setup and use as many accounts as you want at the same time
• Twitter-Search section with multiple search tabs and Twitter Trends
• Post pictures via TwitPic
• Open URLs from any Tweet
• Kinetic scrolling on S60v5 ( Nokia 5800 and Nokia N97 )
• Theme support on S60v3 ( fixed dark and bright theme )
  (source)

The only downside to this software is that it may create too much traffic whereas the alternative – Twibble (which I’d also used since its first day as a public release) – seems to generate less traffic.

I’m on a 1GB flat for my phone, which means I can generate 1GB in traffic via the phone and only pay 9,90 EUR / month. I actually don’t need 1GB at the moment because we also have DSL here, but it makes sense if you happen to download more than 41 MB / month (9,90€ / 0,24€/MB = 41,25 MB) + it isn’t limited to a proxy server, special online pages or other crazy limitations. And DSL sometimes fails, so it’s a good fall back option.

Creating a sceenshot of Gravity is a bit complicated as the Shift (Pencil) key on the phone (which is used in combination with the middle joystick button) also triggers the input form for new tweets on Gravity:

The beautiful part is that you can really SCROLL between tweets like you would do on an iPhone – bila the touchscreen on my N95 though..

And another good part is that it’s now much easier to insert images on your tweets (Twibble also has this but isn’t as comfy to use).

Gravity comes with a 10day demo version and I instantly (!) registered it after using it for only 2 minutes. Now, you’d have to know for yourself if you’re willing to cough up ~ 10,- € (in Germany – sijui why they are adding VAT on shareit.com for other countries) for an otherwise free and time consuming service such as Twitter, but then, again, there are other – much more useless – applications for the iPhone ppl are willing to spend money on and also: there are only a few really good applications for Symbian devices. Gravity is one of them.

You’ll also need to access the download page for the registered version via a normal computer as the phone’s internal S60 browser is having problems identifying the .sisx format. Jan, the developer behind Gravity, also mentioned that he’ll be working on some bugfixes now, so maybe there’s a way to include this as well (refers to the purchase of the software directly from a phone. Update routines are just flawless!).

Verdict: If you’ve been on Twibble before, you’ll LOVE Gravity. Highly recommended application.

—–

UPDATE: After some recent updates (currently 1.1x), Gravity also has the following additional features:

• Configurable Audio Alerts for Timeline/Replies/DM’s
• Group support for creating custom tabs with user-defined filters (S60v3)
• Post pictures to MobyPicture and TwitPic
• Preview pictures from MobyPicture or TwitPic
• Full-Screen mode on S60v3
• Built-in auto-update function and beta access for testing the latest features

And while I think that Gravity is the best application I’ve ever bought for a phone, I’d like to add two remarks:

• There should be a cheaper version of Gravity as not everyone out there is able to cough up 9,95 € on a mobile app – and sometimes it’s technical reasons as to why a prog like Gravity is only successful in developed countries: how would you pay for this app from e.g. Kenya (where there is money but no payment system such as Paypal?). And how about a sponsored (& localized) version with fixed banners? Would it make sense? And what would ppl be willing to spend on an app (in other countries than Germany)?
• There should be a mobile WordPress editor that’s just as easy to use as Gravity. After all these years of using WordPress for blogs and mobile phones, I’ve often called for better mobile blog editors and tested quite a few on this blog. Twitter indeed already is some sort of microblogging, BUT! it would be great if there also was an easy-to-use editor tool on the phone which could provide true mobile blogging.

[all screenshots are in German as my phone is set to German language]

Nokia Multiscanner is an application for S60V3 Nokia phones that provides Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for scanned texts. Currently, both business cards and document texts are supported – it even “reads” German texts and displays them on the screen for further usage.

available options: save image, adjust layout, binary image (?), language, image size

You can even zoom in and do the usual auto-focus to get your selected text in focus (doesn’t appear on these screenshots though as I had to simultaneously press two buttons at the same time to get the screenshot).

It will then display the scanned text and even ask you if you want to further save it as a note, a short message, mms or e-mail. Neat!

The beautiful part is that this application really works to an extend where it is somehow usable. Scanning business cards is even easier, as it will already group different parts of an address to different fields (the user may then still edit). See this forum contribution on Nokiaapps.org for more details on the procedure (also includes lots of interesting screenshots).

Nokia Multiscanner currently runs on my Nokia N95-1 and from what I’ve understood so far, Multiscanner was initially designed as a pocket translator tool – so the pure OCR functionality is a nice add-on.

As for scanning business cards, I will always recommend using Nokia’s Mobile BarCode Reader instead and sticking your very own personal barcode to the back of your phone.

Upon registering your mobile number on the Skype Mobile download page, an sms will arrive with a personalized download link. The application itself is about 360 kb, installs pretty quickly (I always use the phone’s internal memory – not the one provided on the microSD card) and it starts within seconds.

Here’s what it looks like:
(pls don’t be irritated by the German language selection)

So far, so good.

To edit a message, the S60 editor comes up (same as on SMS, OperaMini, etc.) and you can type your text.

It even shows you the current credit – nice!

Multitasking apparently does not work that well, as it suddenly displayed the following error message and closed itself.

Could be due to the running screenshot application that was trying to capture the screen as a background process.

What I like about Skype Mobile:

• huge fonts, clear interface
• makes use of full screen
• shows Skype Credit

What I don’t like about Skype Mobile:

• application is still in beta state, albeit being released as version 0.9.26.0 which implies that it’s close to a final release
• only covers Skype
  (as opposed to Fring that just works like a charm and provides some more services, e.g. MSN, Twitter, GoogleTalk, etc.)
• text input is in an extra window (apparently due to the S60 standard setup) – Fring really solved this in a much better way
• upon starting the application, it tells you that it will charge you extra for incoming calls. Charge for incoming calls that are coming from another computer? Is this still VoIP? Not so on Fring!
• conversations are only accessible through the list of events, not as different tabs
• text from conversations (e.g. hyperlinks) isn’t accessible, not even for the copy & paste method (this btw also doesn’t work on Fring)

Let’s compare that with the Fring experience on the N95:

Fring really is that All-In-One solution that a) just works out of the box, even as a background task and b) provides much more information on useful information (e.g. network, battery, different tabs for open chats).

Verdict: Skype Mobile (Beta) (for Nokia N95/S60!) should go back to the labs – and maybe also remain there, as Fring already does the job.

I don’t know how far Skype is involved in Fring’s business (investors?), or how closed Skype’s API is for Fring (now and in future), but I just don’t see any sense in this Skype Mobile application if Fring is so much more advanced and accepted by users. The only reason I’ve left it on the phone is because it shows the Skype Credit which Fring does not. Other than that, Skype Mobile gives me the impression that it was created for the typical Windows Mobile user who normally uses a pen and a QWERTY keyboard for text entry and navigation. And who will definately appriciate it if his future phone comes pre-loaded with Skype Mobile (at least – that’s what they had in mind, right?).

Also, I just appreciate how Fring is integrated into S60, showing all relevant background information from the host system (network, battery, etc.) and still provides it’s own navigation. Skype Mobile, on the other hand, is one of those stand-alone versions that you as a user will not want to minimize and close down as a background process. The service itself takes up system resources, and if if does not provide the same flexibility as other services, there’s no reason to keep this battery drainer running in the background.

Way forward: what I’d like to see is a combined eBay/Skype solution, similar to what Yahoo! created with it’s Yahoo! Go application. Something that adds value to an otherwise plain service. Currently, not all phones are capable of multitasking, and if battery drainage is still an issue, I think it’s much wiser to offer an All-In-One solution that either provides maximum connectivity (e.g. Fring) or one that integrates different web services (e.g. eBay) and transforms them for the mobile platfrom.

It feels like there’s so much more to mention on this phone, especially if you regard it as your electronic workhose that not only has to deliver basic office functionality, but also manage your business and private life.

What I can tell so far is that it is a very valid candidate that could send my N95 into early retirement. IF only the camera was better on the E71, I’d immediately switch and try to find a cheap contract online that subsidizes the E71. But it isn’t. The camera module (& it’s Carl Zeiss lenses) is the No. 1 reason why I’ll keep my N95 for the time being and maybe switch to an N79 one day or, even better, wait for the upcoming E72 & E75 models.

If I was still stuck with my old Nokia 6230i though and wasn’t spoiled by the multimedia capabilities of the N95 (e.g. video editor on board), I’d probably take the E71 right on. Again, if you’re interested in taking photos in darker surroundings (~ in a restaurant for a business dinner), there are other, better camera phones than the E71. As for the Nokia range of phones, I’d recommend those with a Xenon flash anyways.

So what about the “business & private life” issue?

The Nokia E71 comes with two adjustable home screens so that you can switch from a home to a business mode. I call it “mode” as all Nokias also come with different profiles – so the work-around/solution to his has in the past been to simply switching profiles via a short touch of the power button on top. Profiles, however, only contain different sound settings.

[all screenshots have been resized from 320x240 to 250x187]

screenshots: work & leisure home screens – note the different short cuts on the stand-by menu

This new mode – Nokia also calls it the “work & leisure modes” – provide two completely different home screens with different wallpapers, themes and short cuts on the home screen. Also, if you prefer the older S40 view and/or can’t decide between the standby view with short cuts and that older S40 homescreen (empty screen), just configure both modes accordingly – so that you can switch screens at the touch of a button.

screenshots: switching profiles & configuring home screens

I haven’t actually used this as I am also one of those guys who don’t use a dockbar on the desktop (~ Apple OSX) or any Launchy tools for quick starts. To me, one home screen is enough. On the other hand, this simple switch provides the flexibility to turn your E71 from a pure business workhorse into a multimedia machine without remapping the short-cuts on the standby / home screen.

screenshots: switching modes & the (root) menu

Talking about those special business needs – what else does the E71 have to offer?:

Printing
Did you know you can actually send your documents from the phone to a printer? I do have a very nice HP OfficeJet 7210 printer with a network interface, but it currently isn’t connected to my home network so I can’t test this. So I can only assume it’s working.

screenshots: configuring the printer (note the various options!)

Text-2-Speech
I’ve already mentioned the Speech Synthesis on my previous post and also showed you a video of how that’s done. This is REALLY COOL! Of course I couldn’t resist and installed a Japanese version along the mandatory German & English output.

screenshots: configuring language packs for the Speech Synthesis

But still, this isn’t all! You can just as well activate a function called “voice aid” where this voice will also read out information on recent calls, contacts, provide a voiced dialler, clock and also let you put in voice commands. Voice commands! As mentioned, it used to be nice on the 6230i, but I just don’t know why Nokia changed that with S60. Voice commands are a bit confusing (to me) as they are first read out by a synthetic voice (which can be deactivated). My feedback to Nokia: add some vibrations to the dialler so that visually impaired users are also guided around by a vibrating device.

screenshots: Voice aid on the E71 and the dialler

Deactivating the synthetic voice….actually, this is what I like about the S60 platform and what many ppl forget about it: Symbian S60 is so flexible and dynamic, and you can just as well install a Mobile Python interpreter and write your own little programms. Now try that with an iPhone! And Google’s Android? Well…. those who jumped the train for Google’s Chrome browser may like it, but I still feel a bit uncomfy about giving all my data into the hands of one company. I am of course also eyeing to get my hands on a Google G1 Android phone (note the clock! lol), but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Nokia N95, then it’s to wait for at least one year after a phone has hit the market. Besides, who needs widgets on a phone screen? On an iPhone they do make sense, but other than that? Hmm…

See, the E71 is a business phone, and companies don’t want to invest too much money IT managers couldn’t persuade the purchasing dept. in buying unreliable products. I think the N95 was mainly bought by freaks like me who are willing to accept certain flaws or banana software and even its prototype-like design. Not so the E71, which just has to deliver.

screenshots: the phone’s internal tutorial: take the manual with you!

And it delivers. It gives you VPN access to your company’s network (aptly named “intranet” ), enables you to encrypt the phone as well as the microSD memory card and even provides a mobile dictionary – which of course may also be read out to you via the speech synthesis.

screenshots: Encryption & VPN-access

screenshots: activate some security measures

The sweetest feature though is the remote lock : simply send a pred-defined sms to the device and the phone will be locked. Great!

Need more software? Just search for it from the phone or open the “Download!” application (@Nokia: this application isn’t very user friendly..)

screenshots: Google search & Download!

The Wi-Fi is also very nice – I think it’s even much better than the one on my N95 (which may be due to a different antenna position and other hardware improvements). I’ve configured the E71 with my Sipgate (VoIP) account so I’m able to do Voice over IP / internet calls with a fixed number from either home or the office. Other than that, Fring also runs on the E71, so you can go on chatting via Skype, GoogleTalk, ICQ, MSN, Twitter and so on right from the phone. Fring is just great, and with a true QWERTY phone it makes much more fun to actually type in messages while being mobile. No wonder they preloaded the latest Nokia phone, the N96, with a fresh installation of Fring!

screenshots: Fring in use on the E71

Another nifty feature I’ve already come to appreciate with the N95 is the barcode reader (see the barcode on the bottom of the right sidebar here) . You can of course also download a reader to your phone if it doesn’t already have one, but in this case, it’s just right there on the menu and I will tell you why I like it so much:

screenshot: the QR-Code reader

There’s this Firefox plugin that creates on-the-fly 2D (“QR-”) barcodes of any page currently loaded and sits in the bottom right of your Firefox browser window. Let’s say you’re on a page that says “access this site with your mobile phone’s browser to download our application directly to the phone” (e.g. OperaMini, Twibble, etc.). Now, instead of retyping the URL into your phone, just move your mouse over the barcode plugin and scan the generated barcode with your phone. Et voil? , the URL is ready to be used on the phone!

GPS/Maps
Sure, there’s Nokia’s Maps 2.0 application that works right out-of-the-box with a fast GPS chip. Nokia Maps changed from the intial version that came shipped with the old firmware on the N95, and while you can download maps from Nokia’s website and load them onto the phone’s memory, others prefer other commercial solutions – and I prefer Google Maps. Google Maps just does the job for me! Besides, it’s free and much more intuitive for basic mapping needs.

screenshots: Google Maps on the E71, displaying Waruku & area

screenshots: greater Nairobi and an aerial view of the “jungle” (~kibra)

Needless to say I also downloaded the wonderful Nokia Internet Radio application that provides streaming radio stations from all over the world. Including Radio Okapi and all SomaFM streams for all my Soukous & Electronic/Indy needs.

screenshots: Nokia Internet Radio

Add Nokia’s Video centre, download various video podcasts and there you have it: almost enough reasons for sending my Nokia N95 into early retirement!

screenshot: Nokia’s Video centre

What’s missing? Right! ==> Twibble , the Twitter client for Symbian S60:

screenshots: Twibble on the E71

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That’s it! I could of course also mention how I tested the Psiloc Connect application, the CO2 emission tool or SkyeCaller Pro – three (commercial) applications available for download from Nokia’s S60 download website. But I’ll stop here and will instead tell you: if you’re interested in getting a decent QWERTY phone that just get’s the job done and provides much more tactile feedback than any touchscreen phone will currently give you, go to your nearest dealer and touch the phone with your own hands.

While testing the E71 for the first time (in a shop), I thought that my fingers are too big for this tiny keyboard. But don’t be fooled, typing is easier than assumed and I’ve been constantly comparing the QWERTY keyboard with the restricted T9 text input on my N95, just to see which method I prefer. I am used to T9 text input since ages now, and am thus a bit faster with the T9 method. Using two fingers on the E71 though, I am faster than using only my right thumb on the T9 keypad. And this after only a few days of using the E71! So if you want a QWERTY phone – go for it! – and don’t be afraid of these tiny keys.

Oh, and did I mention the awesome leather pouch the phone comes shipped with? That’s one accessory less to purchase extra, and a good one indeed: you can easily flip the phone out and see if there’re any new messages.

So, compared to cars, the E71 is just like an Audi A6 Avant (while my N95 is like a Toyota Prius now :-).

Hope you enjoyed this review!

The HS-45 headset with its AD-43 remote control unit failed to work after 4-5 months in use, so I went out and bought a few ofter solutions that never really performed the way I wanted it. Also, Nokia never really delivered a better solution, but instead kept on producing other unsatifying headsets.

While reviewing the Nokia E71 business phone that came shipped with the HS-47 headset as well as the state-of-the-art BH-903 Bluetooth Stereo Headset (for review), I quickly realized that I would want to have something similar to the HS-47.

What I needed to do was to merge my Sony MDR-818 earphones with the HS-43 headset I had bought via eBay some time ago. After all, what I need in a working wired headset are the following features:

1. shaped earphones (like on the MDR-818 or the BH-903)
2. an angled 3,5mm plug because the audio/video jack is on the side of the N95 (contrary to many other current Nokia phones who have it on top)
3. a microphone located at the mouth and not on the chest
4. some sort of volume control

So there I went, cutting the 10,- EUR Sony earphones into pieces and opening up the control unit on the HS-43…

some of the tools: a soldering iron (maybe not this Weller as it takes ages to heat up), old Sony MDR-818 earphones, Nokia HS-43 headset

HS-43 control unit opened up

unsolder L+ / L- and R+ / R- to remove the existing earphones + also remove the brass clip on the cable

trim the “new” earphones to the desired length and solder them onto the PCB, refix the brass clip to provide a strain relief on the cable (important!)

Et voilá – JKE’s own headset for the N95 that fulfills all the open issues I ever had with other headsets. Nice!

@ Nokia: PLEASE change your headset policy and – if you don’t want to equip your shipped handsets with decent headsets due to marketing reasons – at least provide us with better alternatives. Headsets are a commodity, and will as such always brake at one point.

Having said that, it is also suited for those users who actually have to cough up some savings and are looking for a decent mobile workhorse. As opposed to an iPhone (no tactile feedback) or another QWERTY-equipped Windows Mobile phone, the E71 comes with the perfect mixture of (a) usability, (b) design, (c) built quality and (d) connectivity.

However, it still has some flaws that need to be mentioned here and may partly be changed by upcoming firmware upgrades.

Coming from a Nokia N95, I am of course already spoiled in terms of multimedia functionality. And this although I am one of those users who prefer the business functions over to the multimedia capability. I primarily use my N95 for reading e-mails on the train, listening to some music and taking a few snapshots from time to time (even in macro mode, which is quite decent on the N95). Reasons enough to allow a direct comparison of the E71 with my N95. But mind you – the following observations aren’t meant to be a comparison alone!

Size/handling/design: The E71 is one sexy phone, comes with a perfect form factor (not too small, not too big), is VERY slim, has decent weight, a perfect build quality and a nice QWERTY keyboard. I’ve never had a sexier phone, actually.

The N95? Compared to the rest of Nokia phones, the N95 appears to be some prototype. Whoever invented that double slider mechanism and allowed the screen to be lower than the surrounding frame should go back to school.

It may be a bit exaggerated, but the E71 actually has this special aura I call the iPhone factor: you see it on your table and just enjoy looking at it.

The Navi key alone (D-pad, joypad, scroll key) – that silver, squared ring below the display- is actually reason enough to switch from an N95. As you can see from the picture below, the N95 seems to have a slightly larger Navi key – and still the one on the E71 is much better. And there’s much more to it than just four directions and a button in the middle: new e-mails/missed phone calls, etc are indicated by a illumination behind the key that flashes up in regular intervals. Neat!

E71 vs. N95-1

The keboard is small but so was the keypad on the N95 when I first used it. As Steve Litchfield already pointed out on his in-depth review of the E71: “you need to perform even more finger gymnastics in order to type on the (45mm from q to p) tiny thumb keyboard”. Right.

Being used to a German QWERTZ keyboard layout, I’d actually like to test it under different (localized) conditions though.

Also, some characters are hidden under the bottom right “Chr” (characters) key. Why? Only God and Nokia engineers know..

the keyboard on the E71

Keypress is actually quite nice. Plus you’ll be faster typing with both hands/more than one finger – but well, aren’t we used to that from the iPhone? ^^ Nokia’s philosophy of producing phones that can be operated with only one hand holds true for the E71 – it is doable (alas with some gymnastics).

Oh, and about those number keys: once you’re on the stand-by (home) screen, you can just press the number keys and they will appear as a telephone number to dial or save (as opposed to the assumption that you’d have to press that tiny grey arrow key on the bottom left first to activate number input).

Screen size: with 2,36″ (~2,4″) about 0,2″ smaller than the N95, but still big enough for pleasant working, same screen resolution of 320×240. While the one on the E71 is only horizontally orientated, the one on the N95 may be switched, either on the press of a button or – since the latest firmware upgrade – also automatically. There’s a motion control sensor inside that controls the screen display on the N95 and which also provides lots of interesting software gimmicks (e.g. software that automatically silences the N95 once you turn it around, or racing simulator that allows a steering by moving the display around). Both screen sizes provide a similar browsing experience.

Battery runtime: 1500mAh on the E71 vs. 950mAh on the N95-1. Actually, I’ve expected an even longer runtime on the E71. With an average usage between 6-8hrs/d, the phone needs to be recharged after 2-3 days. Still much better than the N95-1 for which I’d bought a desk cradle via eBay – you’ll have to recharge the N95-1 on a daily (!) basis. Now compare that with the old Nokia 6310i which came with an active standby time of about 8-12 days (LiPo accu).

BP-4L (E71) vs. BL-5F (N95-1) – the bigger, the better?

Camera:

E71: What a horrible camera sensor! Point the camera into a slightly darker corner and it a) won’t focus and b) also gives lot of image noise. Bah!

It also doesn’t have a decent flash. Why not? Why??

Default mode is fixed focus, auto focus may be added while pressing the “T” key. Why didn’t they put this in the middle of the Navi key? Because it doesnt provide enough sensitivity. Nokia could improve on that and remap the key to a dedicated camera button on the side. But they didn’t.

If the camera is THAT important to you, you may be interested in another phone.

Macro mode is quite nice though – see Steve Litchfield’s dedicated review on this. For an underperforming camera (sensor?) that comes shipped with the E71, it’s rather astonishing that the macro mode is so good.

Definitely lots of room for an improvement here, partly solvable by an upcoming firmware update (the current firmware version is 100.07.76 – go figure…100!).

N95: the queen. I’ve taken most of my photos on Flickr since August 2007 with the N95 ONLY. A camera phone will of course never be as good as a dedicated camera, but the N95 comes quite close to achieving that (and in my case, it just did that – substituting my digicam for some time).

Still, both cameras are good enough for snapshots (and to be honest, I’ve seen quite a few images on Flickr lately that have been taken with an expensive DSLR and were horribly out of focus. So it’s not about the equipment alone, but rather about how to take good pictures).

Multimedia: There are different players on both the E71 and the N95 for audio and video content, and while the N95 comes with a better audio player, both just do the job.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only difference, as the N95 has a 3,5mm headphones jack while the E71 only has the 2,5mm one. 3,5mm is what you’re probably used to from other equipment, meaning: you could also use the mic that comes with your daughter’s “My first Sony”-babyphone together with the N95, while the E71 only accepts the 2.5mm plugs. Why? Maybe because of design and marketing reasons.

The HS-47 headphone set that comes shipped with the E71 is almost as bad the one that came with the N95. Remember that issue I had experienced with the AD-43 control unit before? Well… a cheap battery inside killed the wired remote control unit after 4-5 months in use. Took me some time to figure that out, bought another control unit via eBay from China and am currently only using a 10,- EUR SONY headset with no additional functions.

The HS-47 apparently doesnt need a battery, as it only has a small switch and a microphone. So why is it only “almost” as bad? Because Nokia – EVENTUALLY! – did what I had anticipated for a long time: moving the microphone closer to the left headphone. If you’re a SonyErisson user, you’ll know what I mean: a microphone at the height of your mouth – where it’s supposed to be, and not somewhere on the chest.

the left headphone on the BH-903 Bluetooth headset (extra!)

Needless to say that Nokia wouldn’t know how to generate some extra income – which is why those kind folks from WomWorld/Nokia also provided a BH-903 Bluetooth headset (partly pictured above) which I’ll cover in a following post. The most important difference between the standard (HS-47) and the extra Bluetooth (BH-903) headset: the earphones on the BH-903 are conically shaped, much like those 10,- EUR SONY earphones. Round vs. conical is a big difference because the standard, round ones will at one point just fall out of your ears, especially while walking. Trust me, this is an issue.

Firmware/CPU: as mentioned, users are waiting for a firmware update. It took about a year for Nokia to supply it’s users with a decent firmware for the N95 (20.xx.xx & above), but the E71 still has some issues that could/should be solved by a firmware update.

Both the N95 and the E71 are based on Symbian S60 FP1. What does that mean? For me and you as users, this could mean anything, but then: the E71 is MUCH faster than the N95.

Well, is it really faster? What about the CPU inside? What about video mode, for instance? Doesn’t the video function on the E71 only provide 10-15 frames / second as opposed to the 30 fps @ 640×480 (“YouTube mode”)? The N95 comes with a dedicated 3D graphics chip for such special tasks while the E71 doesn’t. So how come it still feels faster? Is that due to the many applications that are running as default on my N95 and aren’t running on the E71? Could be a reason.

That is, my N95 sometimes hangs. You terminate a call and there it hangs, displaying the “Anruf beenden” (end call) message for at least some 5-10 seconds. Stupid! Sounds like a faulty “refresh routine” on the firmware to me, but hey, I am not a programmer… (and I’ve updated my N95 not only once, etc.).

So, yes, the E71 feels faster than the N95 while browsing the menu. Somehow nice, an improvement over to my N95. Could be a faulty N95 btw, as other E71 users out there aren’t that happy with the current speed and/or performance of the firmware. I’ve also noted a few “hick-ups” of the firmware on the E71which urgently need to be fixed by Nokia.

Yeah, ok…so what else isn’t that great on the E71?

1. Rubber covers on the side that conceal the USB and microSD port.

Something tells me these will come off sometime in future. Hmmm…

2. USB port: the port itself is located at the side of the phone (see picture above) and thus can not be used in an e.g. double-cradle station (USB + DC power supply). Also, it would be nice to recharge the phone via USB (like on Motorola phones), but that still isn’t possible with the E71 (upcoming/other Nokia phones may feature this though).
The port itself is a special USB variation, smaller than the Mini-5 plug on the N95. I prefer the latter version as it’s the same that comes with many external 2,5″ hdd enclosures – so if you’re at the office and forgotten your data cable, you may just as well use the one from your 2,5″ hdd. Not so with the E71… (again, marketing reasons from Nokia, I guess..).

3. OperaMini: the often needed Backspace key doesn’t work with all installations of OperaMini because Nokia is said to use a strange mapping of keys inside their firmware (~ different languages may work but still haven’t tested this). Waiting for an OperaMini update on this (OperaMini!) bug.

4. Browser: As mentioned in my previous post on mobile blogging, the phone’s internal S60 browser is ….how do I say this delicately?….”just ok”. It works, right now the only option as OperaMini has this Backspace-issue, but I’d prefer to have a better browser.

5. motion sensor: The N95 has one, the E71 doesn’t. As the screen may only be used in a horizontal mode on the E71, there’s no real need for such a sensor, but it would be nice to have it anyways for the aforementioned additional software gimmicks.

6. Icons: the default themes on the E71 suck. I am using this lovely black & simple theme on both phones, although it doesn’t come with its own icon set. So there’s a way to change the icons if you dislike them.

mono speaker (left), power button (right)

7. External speaker: the N95 has two speakers, one on each side, providing a phat stereo sound that can easily substitute your stereo system if you feel like entertaining those around you (like the kids downtown). The E71, being a business phone, only has one speaker on the top side.

Read in another review that ppl weren’t happy with the sound, but in all honesty: it just works fine for me. Hands-free speaking is sawasawa…

8. E-Mail: Now, for those of you who complained about the missing PUSH e-mail client (also known as BlackBerry Connect), Nokia – of course – tried to come up with their own solution: Nokia Email.

Still have to test that one as well as other external services such as Seven and Emoze, but I am also only using the PULL client, as I am an old-fashioned & rather conservative user who likes to be in control of such things as e-mail. I’ve set up one single e-mail box for all my addresses on the net and pull the subject lines via IMAP.

The E71 also comes with an e-mail setup client that will help you set it up for you, but in my case, with my provider they automatically set it to POP3 instead of IMAP which is why I had to cheat the software in order to manually enter all desired settings (for some reasons, it only offered the automatic setup. stupid?).

9. Speech synthesis: press the top left soft key on the E71 and all your unread e-mails will be read to you by the speech synthesis processor inside the phone. Haiaaa! Reminds me of that lovely speech.tos proggy I used to have on my Atari STF 1040 back in the days. Works just fine!
Problems? Well…could be a bit better and I still need to figure out how to properly use all these speech things on the E71. Speech recognition / speech commands used to be great on other phones (like my old Nokia 6230i), but since Nokia messed it up on the N95, i am still frightened to even try it on the E71!

Also, there are different language packs available from Nokia via the Download! application on the phone. I’ve installed both Englisch versions (UK & USA), Indian English :-), German and have currently activated the Japanese version (“muschi muschiiii..”). Funilly enough, the German male voice is called “Jürgen” – like me!

10. The clock screensaver. It just rocks! (this isn’t a problem actually, but I like numbered lists :-)

11. wrong screenshots: both manuals (short and long version) and even the Nokia maps brochure come with vertically aligned screenshots that clearly come from another S60 device. No problem to me, but maybe irritating to new S60 customers.

12. high SAR value & antenna position: the (maximum) specific absorption rate on the E71-1 is 1,33 W/kg – much more than the 0,58 W/kg on the N95-1. Well, what do you expect from a device that’s almost completely covered with metal?
The GSM antenna is located at the bottom of the device, just below the keyboard, next to the microphone. To improve Rx/Tx in rural areas (= less base stations), you may want to perfom some acrobatics with the phone. If in doubt, use a headset and keep the phone away from your body and other sensitive parts and hold it upside down :-) Maximum allowed SAR is 2,0 W/kg.

13. Firmware: as mentioned, the current firmware needs to be improved. Details like the purple haze issue on the camera may be irritating, but I think what this phone really needs is an improved overall stability. It shouldn’t restart while having some “hick-ups” and should never “swallow” sounds which it sometimes does. It seems as if there are still some open issues on the communication data bus (?) & dependancies between running applications and the firmware itself. Going by the current firmware version 100.xx.xx, it apparently took them quite some time to release a final deployable version. Add the fact that the phone is FP1 only (instead of other current Nokias that are FP2), it must have been in the developement pipeline for quite some time. I’d say since the end of 2006 or maybe even earlier.

Also, there’s no firmware version available online. So if you feel like reflashing your phone with a brand new firmware, you’re probably forced to return it to a Nokia Service Center where this is normally done free of charge within the first year if you have a plausible reason. Other than that, you could try to find an unauthorized dealer who has the necessary flash files. Customers won’t need to know this though – most just want it to perform and not to fail.

14. weight: the E71 is a bit too heavy and sometimes it just glides away. However, you only realize this while comparing it to other phones. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be lighter!

15. calculator: the calculator that currently comes shipped with S60 FP1 is pure horror. It’s the same as found on the N95, so if you’re in need of a decent calculator, try Calcium or other freeware versions.

16. LED: as mentioned, the camera is only equipped with an LED light but no real flash light. For the camera itself, the LED may just be enough, but a better camera and some flash light would be better.

—

Despite of all these details, the E71 is a very nice phone and I am really tempted not to keep it after the 2 weeks trial. I’ve used it together with my N95 and haven’t really missed anything from the N95 so far. Sure, the camera on the N95 is much better, but then again, taking a fast & inconspicuous snapshot (something I loved on my Nokia 6230i) is by far easier and faster on the E71.

If I had to decide for a current Nokia phone, I’d either take the E71, the N82 or the Nokia 6220 Classic. But I am stuck with the N95 which – after 14 months of daily use – is slowly wearing off. The N95 also reminds me of my precious 7110 I’d bought in 1999: “I will never get a slider phone again!”, I’d told myself back then. Well…

—

Ok – that’s it for today. I will continue testing the E71 and will also talk about the BH-903 Bluetooth headset as well as the “special trial software” that came pre-installed on the E71 during my next posts as part of this review. So stay tuned! :-)