I’ve been using the Sprint Mogul for about a year. It’s a great phone and I had an awesome plan as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the touchscreen dail-pad, it was never sensitive to fast-dialing with my fingers. I gave up the plan as well as the phone and switched to AT&T. My first phone was the HP iPaq 910 Business phone. It was a huge disappointment. While looking for a phone, I stuck with the Samsung Blackjack II. Then I came across the Nokia E71. And I’ve found my phone.
I’ll talk about what I like about the phone. First, It’s an unlocked 3G HSDPA. It uses WCDMA 850/1900 mhz, which means it will work on the AT&T 3G network. T-Mobile uses the 1700/2100mhz and 3G is not available in all areas. I can’t tell a difference because I use my phone on a college campus and the AT&T 3G network is slow because of the number of iPhone users. That part is out of my control. The phone also has Wi-Fi built-in but I haven’t used it so far. The phone also has agps and it does work on Google maps. Turn by turn navigation is available for a low monthly fee from Nokia.
Second is the 3.2 mega-pixel camera. The HP iPaq had a 3 mega-pixel camera but there was an incredible shutter time between the button the activated and the photo taken, ~3 secs. Shutter speed is around an second, better than the HP. Images are a little blue and can be very terrible indoors unless the room is lit up like a Christmas tree.
The E71 features a full QWERTY keyboard. The buttons rise in the middle of the keys, almost like a mini-mountain which makes the key easier to feel to type.
Depending on how the phone is configured will depend on how long the phone will run on the battery. Officially from Nokia, the phone will run on the battery for 10 hours talk time and 17 days on standby. With my configuration, my Nokia was able to run for three days straight.
The E71 has a 320 by 240 pixel screen, which might be small for some people. Depending on what applications you use, the screen can be perfect or very small. No touchscreen as well. Without a touchscreen, you’ll have to use the navigation menu.
The phone uses Symbian OS. What does this mean? Not a lot of software applications are available for the phone. However, there are software that can edit word documents and Google maps does work on the E71. When Nokia announced that the company will buy the Symbian operating system and will put the software available for open source community to develop software for the phone.
But the main feature that will turn off many people to buy this phone, the price tag. Amazon.com has the phone available for $368.
Even with the high price tag, not a lot of third party applications and small screen size, it may be a turn off to some people. However; with a great battery life, very fast download speeds (where available) and a decent camera, it’s the perfect phone for me.