Nokia E71: Three Years in Review

Even surrounded by numerous 3.5+ inch touchscreen smartphones, the Nokia E71 still stands out as one of the best QWERTY keyboard equipped phones for me.

The Good
I'm still using it and nothing inside the E71 has failed on me.  This phone is like a tank and I'm fairly confident it could last me a few more years of use.  My usage pattern has likely changed in the 3 years I've had the phone, but at this point I mainly use the phone for company e-mail through Mail for Exchange (improved a lot since I had the E71), Smartconnect, Garmin XT (one of the best navigation software for a smartphone and still better than most available for Android), notes, texting, and making phone calls.  I no longer use it for browsing the web after I got a Nokia N900 and most web pages don't render properly in the old S60 browser.

In the 3 years, I've dropped my E71 a lot of times and the most I've got is chipped corners.  Definitely a tank.

Its design is timeless.  I still get compliments on the elegant, thin design of the E71.  It's unfortunate that most will not consider getting a Nokia and S60/Symbian is not easy to configure compared to an iPhone.

The Bad
In the 2 years since I wrote my first year of use review of the E71, a few things have changed from wear and tear:

1. After 1.5 years of use, dust was getting under the display through the 2.5mm audio jack:

I had to seal the 2.5mm audio jack with scotch tape.  It looks ghetto but I'd rather have the tape there than more dust.

2. A little after the 2 year mark, the included BL-4L battery couldn't hold more than a day's charge and started to bulge like most old lithium polymer batteries so I got another battery and it's back to normal again.

3. I get the random "out of memory" issue so it requires a battery removal.

Going Forward
After 3 long years of travelling the world with it, I've retired the E71.  The E71 reminds me of the time when Nokia was on top of the world with some great designs and some great devices.  I'll miss the comfortable keyboard and robust design.  So long E71, you'll be missed.

If you're still carrying around a Nokia E71, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the phone.

Nokia Nseries and Eseries vs. iPhone: CPU and Battery Life

* Updated 09/09/2009 - Added iPhone 3GS, Nokia E72, N86, Nokia N900. Merged the many tables into one table.

* Updated 10/22/2008, 10/1/2008

After almost a year since the iPhone was announced and more than half a year since it was launched, the iPhone to some other phone comparisons have started to die down. So just to add some wood to the dying fire, I'm here to state:

Current Nokia smartphones can't match the general computing performance of the iPhone

CPU

Nokia N82/N95	Texas Instruments OMAP2420	330 MHz ARM1136 + 220 MHz TI TMS320C55xDSP + PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator + IVA
Nokia E71, E66, N79, N85	32bit Freescale MXC300	369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N96	32bit STMicroelectronics Nomadik STn8815A12	264 MHz ARM926EJ-S
Apple iPhone	Samsung S5L8900	620MHz ARM1176JZF (downclocked to 412MHz)
Apple iPhone 3G	Samsung S5L8900	835MHz (downclocked to 412MHz)
Nokia N86, N97	32bit Freescale MXC300	434 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia E72	32bit Freescale MXC300	600 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N900	Texas Instruments OMAP3430	600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX graphics core + IVA 2+
Apple iPhone 3GS	Samsung S5PC100	600MHz ARM Cortex A8 + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU

Source: Semiconductor insights, Engadget, PDAdb.net
BoingBoing, iPhone 3G FCC filing

More after the jump.

From the configuration we can see that Nokia has placed a higher importance in call performance (probably from the inclusion of 3G video calling) with the use of a dedicated Digital Signal Processing (DSP) unit, namely the Texas Instruments 220 MHz TMS320C55xDSP).

Does the iPhone lag behind because it lacks a DSP?

No, not really.

In the following chart you will see the ARM1176 perform almost as good as the C55x:


Moreover you can see the ARM1136, found in the Nokia phones, perform almost as good as the ARM1176 with a similar clock speed. Too bad the iPhone packs a ARM1176 with almost double the clock speed.

Two is always better than one right? It could be if you're using both CPUs at the same time. With the flexibility of the Symbian S60 operating system on Nokia phones, you can initiate a video call while editing Microsoft Word/Excel documents in QuickOffice and seamlessly switch between them. The Apple iPhone hides the multitasking from the user and you don't have video calling so you will likely have the iPhone to your ear where you can't really do anything else simultanously. And that's when you realize 1 CPU on the iPhone is good enough if it could handle both DSP operations and general CPU usage as you rarely get to do both at the same time.

So when you're only using the general computing CPU, say for watching a video, the iPhone can process more frames and provide a snappier interface than the Nokia phones.

Battery

So here comes a drawback to the two processor set up on Nokia phones. They're power hungry compared to the iPhone since it has to power two CPUs. Even though each of them uses less power than the high clocked iPhone CPU, putting them together in a package creates a higher power usage situation since one is powering the UI while the other is handling cellular operations.

Now to add the nail to the coffin, Nokia has equipped their phones will less powerful batteries:

N95 - 950mAh
N82 - 1100mAh
N95 8GB - 1200mAh
iPhone/iPhone 3G - 1400mAh

Conclusion

The Nokia phones are equipped with a dedicated DSP CPU and a general ARM CPU while the iPhone makes due with a higher clocked general ARM CPU. The iPhone user interface doesn't emphasize the multitasking capability by hiding it from the user so a single processor design works well enough for it. Nokia equips their phones with two CPUs with one focussed on heavy DSP tasks like 3G calling while the other handles all other CPU tasks. The preferred design is based on how you use your phone. But with a more powerful battery and a single chip design, the iPhone will win in the battery life competition.

Reference:
Use a Microprocessor, a DSP, or Both?, BDti, 2007/04/04
DSP Design Line

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Update 10/1/2008
Nokia's latest S60 phones (E-series and N-series) have switched from the Texas Instrument dual core N82/N95 to a Freescale single core in the E66/E71/N79/N85. Oddly enough, a single chip design was used in the N96 like the iPhone. However, the Nokia N96 phone use an older ARMv5 instruction set architecture as opposed to the ARMv6 of the iPhone and other Nokia phones. The iPhone continues to overshadow the Nokias with a higher frequency.

Nokia E71, E66, N79, N85	32bit Freescale MXC300	369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N96	32bit STMicroelectronics Nomadik STn8815A12	264 MHz ARM926EJ-S
Apple iPhone	Samsung S5L8900	620MHz ARM1176JZF (downclocked to 412MHz)
Apple iPhone 3G	Samsung S5L8900	835MHz (downclocked to 600MHz) ARM1176JZF + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU

Source: iPhone 3G FCC filing

My original article wrote about the benefits of having a CPU with DSP combination and Nokia continues this with most of their latest phones except the N96. The latest Nokia phones do not have the 3D graphics accelerator as the N82/N95. It's too bad Nokia didn't outfit all their N-series devices with 3D graphics accelerators so N-gage games can stand out from standard Java games. Nokia's switch from a dual core to a single core design and leaving out graphics acceleration will improve battery life.

Nokia continues to outfit their phones with smaller batteries:
E66 - 1000mAh
E71 - 1500mAh
N79 - 1200mAh
N85 - 1200mAh
N96 - 950mAh

It is surprising that Nokia's next flagship phone, the N96, has such a low frequency and uses a single chip design compared to other Nokia devices. Out of all the Nokia phones, only the E71 has a larger battery (1500mAh) compared to the iPhone. I think it was a bad decision for Nokia to include low powered phones (like the N73) as being N-gage compatible when they could've differentiated their N-gage games from other games if 3D hardware acceleration was part of the N-gage platform.

Source:
MXC300-30: 3G Single Core Modem Platform
ARM1136JF-S - ARM Processor
ARM926EJ-S - ARM Processor
ARM1176JZ(F)-S - ARM Processor

---

Update 10/22/2008 notes: Revised clock speed for iPhone 3G, mentioned downclocking for iPhone, revised to refer to 3D hardware acceleration

Additional note: The Nokia N96 does support DSP and hardware video acceleration for 2D/3D with its STn8815A12 chipset. Read more at STMicroelectronics. Oddly enough, the JBenchmark scores for the N96 in the 3D category do not come close to the N82/N95 which feature a separate chip for 3D acceleration. The benchmarks more closely resemble the N85 that does not have 3D hardware acceleration.

Source: Mobile88, Mobile Arsenal

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Update 09/09/2009
It's been almost a year since I updated this posting and things have only slightly changed with Nokia putting out Nseries and Eseries devices with a higher clock speed. Apple, not to let any competitor catch up, gave the iPhone 3GS a thorough updating with the new ARM Cortex A8.

Nokia N86, N97	32bit Freescale MXC300	434 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia E72	32bit Freescale MXC300	600 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N900	Texas Instruments OMAP3430	600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX graphics core + IVA 2+
Apple iPhone 3GS	Samsung S5PC100	600MHz ARM Cortex A8 + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU

Source: PDADB.net, Nokia N900

As I had suspected, the 32bit Freescale MXC300 used by Nokia in their Nseries and Eseries phones for the last year and a half had more capability than Nokia was using which explains the jump from 369MHz to 600MHz.

Since this post is about CPU to battery life I decided to look up the battery life of the Nokia E71 and E72 because they both use the same Freescale solution and same battery but the E72 uses a higher clock frequency.

Phone	E71	E72
Battery	BP-4L 1500 mAh	BP-4L 1500 mAh
Talk (GSM/WCDMA)	10h 30min/4h 30min	12h 30min/5h 42min
Standby (GSM/WCDMA)	17 days/20 days	20 days/24 days

Source: Nokia E71 Specifications, Nokia E72 Specifications

Very oddly, even though the E72 has a higher clock speed and same battery as the E71, the E72 has a much better life so there is much more to battery life than just CPU and battery capacity. Influences could be better firmware and hardware design.

Unfortunately, 600Mhz is the upper limit to the Freescale solution so Nokia had better find a better solution to keep up with their high-end competitors. I suspect Nokia will continue to use the Freescale solutions in their mid-tier devices, for its good balance of speed and battery life, well into 2011.

This is where Nokia's latest smartphone, the N900, comes in. The N900 discards the pathetic Freescale solutions and returns to the more powerful Texas Instrument solutions to provide the necessary speed to run today's applications and rich multimedia. This extra power puts it inline to compete with Apple's iPhone 3GS. If you don't believe me about how pathetic the Freescale solution is, try comparing the playability of Vampent vBagX on a E71 to the older N95.

The Nokia N900 will be a very exciting product for Nokia. I'm hoping to see a performance comparison between the N900 and the iPhone 3GS to see which will take the crown as the most powerful consumer smart phone.

Nokia E71: A Year in Review

This was the phone I didn't think I'd love. Compared to its predecessor, it has a small screen and a small tight keyboard. But it went on to become one of Nokia's bestselling phones. After a year of use, I agree with everyone else and make the E71 one of my favorite phones.


Looking and functioning like new after one year of use


My E71 has travelled with me all over the world.Two main selling points of the E71 for me are its stylish design and highly demanded qwerty keyboard. The E71 is still one of the thinnest available QWERTY keyboard equipped phones. It's one of the first QWERTY phones to use metal accents which was quickly followed by the Blackberry Bold. More important than looks is the E71's great keyboard. The raised keys make it easy to distinguish keys and the narrow design makes it possible to use the phone in one hand. The keyboard is positioned well away from the sides of the phone so reaching for the keys at the edge of the keyboard, like the letter A, are not a chore. The weight of the phone lies just a bit below the center around the keyboard giving it good stability while typing. I actually use my E71 to write my reviews while I'm commuting because it's much more convenient than pulling out my laptop.

More after the jump!

It is not without its weakness. First thing i did when i got my phone was to replace the theme. The original theme had horribly bland icons. I would never use the original theme. The 3.2MP camera is the worst 3.2MP I've used. It doesn't even match the quality of 2MP photos from the 3 year old sony ericsson w810i. Unlike the thousands of photos I've taken with my N82, I've taken under a hundred photos with the E71. I just installed the latest firmware and it only slightly improves the magenta tint. Although the metal frame is nice, my E71 attracts fingerprints.

Handling Enterprise E-mail

E-mail looks very basic on the E71 through Mail for Exchange.It's no Blackberry. Carriers and companies have often set up Blackberries for their owners to fetch personal email or connect them to the company network. With the E71, you're on your own. Although Nokia has tried to make it a lot easier with their Nokia Mail offered on their E75 and wizards on the E71, users still need to know all the settings when trying to set up their E71 to their corporate mail server. At least Nokia offers a free Mail for Exchange client to sychronize your e-mail with a Microsoft Exchange mail server, which I actively use. Mail for Exchange leverages Nokia's basic included S60 mail client so doesn't look really good with no inline HTML support. I listed a number of limitations compared to the E71 competitors such as the Blackberry platform and the Windows Mobile in a previous blog post so I won't go into too much detail. Although it's functionality is limited, I do appreciate what it can do for me which is synchronize my e-mail, calendar (saved me on many occasions when I forgot I had a meeting to attend), and to-do. The screen will blink or even play an alert when a meeting is coming up within 15 minutes. Unlike the Blackberry, you have a lot more control of how you synchronize such as turning it off when you're travelling in another country to avoid roaming charges or only having the E71 check every hour on weekends to save battery. You can even set up the E71 to switch between Wifi and using your carrier's network using SmartConnect. I travel a lot so the flexibility is a strong selling point for me to keep using the E71 as my e-mail device.

S60 has saved my life
That might be an exaggeration but it has saved my work life on numerous occasions when I didn't have access to a laptop.
The ability to multi-task on a business phone is critical.
Here's a situation I frequently find myself in: I'm out on a business event and have to attend a project conference call. The call organizer only sent the powerpoint or spreadsheet file, which is the central discussion of the call, a few minutes before the call while i was out of the office. With my E71 on the call over speakerphone, i quickly sync my mail over 3G or wifi, open up the file, and follow along. A few times i've had to update a spreadsheet to send back too. The ability to multi-task on a business phone is critical. Doing all this without crashing is a testiment to the stability and maturity of Nokia's S60 platform.

Standing the test of time

Each of the E71s had a different problem.In a year of daily use, creaking has developed around the letter A of my keyboard. The firmware has been impressively stable since the phone came out. I did get the dreaded "Out of Memory" message before and had to remove the battery to restart the phone. The E71 had a number of initial manufacturing issues. I have gone thru 3 E71s and each had its own issues such as poor reception, photo capture delays, and weak GPS. But E71s manufactured after week 42 have seem to resolved these issues.

Battery life has been amazing and doesn't seem like it's lost any of its charge. I still never worry about running out of juice after using the GPS and WiFi.

The killer apps for me on this phone are Mail for Exchange, Garmin XT, Smartconnect, Fring, QuickOffice, Mobitubia, and the included Notes and web browser.

Long live the E71
The E71 has been my main data device since I got it. I would have a hard time going back to a number pad for my web browsing and note taking. I totally rely on my E71 to keep me synchronized with my work through e-mail and calendar freeing me from the shackles of my laptop. With such a long lasting battery, I rarely worry about using the GPS and WiFi. It has been a good compliment to my photo-centric N82. I don't think i'll be replacing my E71 anytime soon... maybe with the E72.

Nokia E75 Review

The Windows Mobile community long had the bar with qwerty keyboard slider form factor with their HTC S710. Finally Nokia delivers a S60 device in this form factor to meet the demands of the continually growing text messaging crowd. This was the form factor that I had hoped for a long time that Nokia would make. The slider merges the convenience of a keypad for quick calls while offering a full qwerty for typing out long messages. Find out if the E75 delivers the goods in my review. The firmware on my E75-2 is V 100.48.78 25-03-09 (the initial production firmware). The box contains the phone, AC-8U charger, CA-101 USB data cable, HS-43 Stereo Music Headset, Nokia 4GB microSDHC class 4 memory card, Nokia E-series carrying case, and Nokia CD with utilities and programs.



I must admit, I didn't think I'd get the chance to review the E75-2 NAM so soon. Thanks to WOM World for supplying me the E75-2 in this review.

Full review after the jump.

Quick facts:
Name: Nokia E75-2 NAM (RM-413)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 850/1900
Weight: 139 g
Dimensions: 112 x 50 x 14.4 mm
Battery life (stand by): 270 hours (WCDMA), 280 hours (GSM)
Battery life (talk): 260 minutes (WCDMA), 320 minutes (GSM)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S
RAM: 128 MB

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) China.

The E75 closed:

A simple looking bar phone with the classic Nokia looks.

The E75 opened:

Inside hides the slide out QWERTY keyboard for increased typing speeds.

Top of the phone features simply the 3.5mm headset jack. Left of the phone have the microUSB and microSD slot which have a slight bump for your finger to nudge open. Right of the phone has the recorder, volume rocker, and dedicated camera button (great addition to the E-series devices). The volume rocker is not lighted but is sturdy like the E71.

Aesthetics
Nokia has been hitting the right design cues in their phones lately and the E75 is no exception with its nice metal accent and classy design. Its slide out keyboard has made many people compare the E75 to the very popular E71 and venerable E90.
The glossy top half of the phone mean you'll have lots of fingerprint smudges. The E75's top half has a little noticable wobble when closed and opened. Pushing on the top while the phone is open bends the top slightly. It didn't feel like it would break but makes you a little worried.

The E75 shares a number of design cues from the E71 (right).

The status LED lies right under the d-pad so the ring between the center key and navigation ring will blink when an e-mail arrives. Unfortunately the LED doesn't blink frequent enough and not bright enough to notice. I couldn't tell the difference between the normal blink and the email notification blink.

The keypad light is strong. As with most phones these days, lighting is controlled by a light sensor.

The E75 while closed


The E75 while opened

The number pad is disabled while the phone is opened so it's not lighted.

The SIM mechanism is similar to the E71 but even worst. I have a hard time sliding out the SIM card from its holder.

Although the E75 doesn't have a rubber padding on the back of the battery cover, the snug fit and finish of the E75 produces no creaking or rattling.

In terms of thickness, the E75 is just a tad thicker than the E71 if you factor in the E71's camera bulge:

The E75 is thin compared to Nokia's older bar phones like the N82:


Display
The E75 uses a 2.4 inch screen with the same pixel density (320x240) as many of Nokia's other non-touch S60 phones. The screen feels small on this phone because of the large amount of black at the top when closed. But the screen is not too off center when the phone is opened. The E75 perfomed well under direct sunlight with emails readable without having to tilt the screen.

The E75 display has a higher contrast compared to the E71. It looks more vivid than the N82

To help conserve battery power, the E75 has a power saver timeout that blanks the entire screen and blinks the LED under the D-pad. unlike the E71, turning off the Breathing Light will not disable the screen from turning all black.

Keypad

The combination of a number pad and slide out QWERTY keyboard in a compact phone is the E75's selling point. But were compromises made in Nokia's first slide out keyboard phone?

The number pad:

The numberpad keys are very loose and feel cheap feeling. You can push them in between the rows of keys.


The number keys have a lot of give when you push between them

The lowest set of keys are too low on the phone making some keys like * very hard to hit. The left soft key is very close to the home key so i frequently hit the Home key instead so i have to navigate back to where i was. The right soft key shares the same piece of plastic as the Delete key so it's not unusual to hit delete and see the e75 try to delete an application while navigating the menus.
The D pad is very creaky when i push up and also very stiff.
The Bluetooth toogle on the * key is a nice addition allowing quick enabling and disabling of Bluetooth.

The QWERTY keyboard:


Tactile feedback on the qwerty keyboard is at the center of the key so if you hit off center, the phone registers the keypress but you don't get a satisfying feedback. The keys are not very deep so feedback is limited. It takes me more energy to type on the E75's full keyboard than on the E71. The keys are fairly wide so one handed operation is close to impossible. with my index fingers along the sides of the phone when typing, i found it hard to reach the left most keys with my left hand and right most keys with my right hand. It's nice that nokia included the backspace key in both the top have of the phone and bottom. The phone is top heavy so it lies well in your hand with your thumbs behind but typing upside down is a challenge as it tends to fall forward. Pushing the D pad with the phone open will slightly bend the top half back and creak a bit. I was concerned it'd break on me.

The QWERTY keyboards compared between the E75 and the E71:

I still find the E71 more comfortable to type with because it has more closely packed domed keys

I've typed this review on the E75 using the included Notes and find it more difficult to type compared to the E71. I wasn't fond of the flat keys making it difficult to feel the separation.


Software

The E75 is a snappy phone with very fast response throughout the menu.

Impressively, the E75 switches between landscape (QWERTY keyboard opened) and portrait (QWERTY keyboard closed) very quickly. By default the keypad will lock when you close the slider but you can customize this in Ctrl. Panel > Settings > General > Slide Handling

As you may have heard, or not, the E75 runs S60 FP2 but with some modifications. It's very similar to the E71 modifications but include improved icons based on FP5.

Note that some software don't work with the E75 so be sure to test out all your applications. This is what I've observed:
- S60SpotOn doesn't work
- Screenshot doesn't work.
- Vampent vBag doesn't work

Although Nokia has once again rejuggled where everything is again. S60 still needs a lot more work to be intuitive for first time users. For example to handle Wifi connections you don't look under Control Panel > Connectivity (where WLAN wizard and Conn. Mgr reside) but you have to look in Ctrl Panel > Settings > Connection > Destination > Internet.

Mail
Nokia has finally added HTML support to their S60 mail but the HTML version of the email arrives as an attachment to the text email. The recently released Blackberry Bold and iPhone both support embedded HTML so the email appears formatted once you open it.
Email allows you to highlight the sender and recipients but you still can't copy or email them individually.
Unlike the Blackberry, the E71 will continue to display a wallpaper behind emails messages instead of a flat color as it does when scrolling down the contacts page. This can make reading emails difficult if the background has similar colors to the text. Thankfully the included themes use a white text and dark background.

Blackberry
Much to the bemoan of a few users, the Nokia E75 doesn't supports Blackberry Connect like the E61. The E75 supports Microsoft's Exchange Active Sync through their Mail for Exchange software. Unlike other E-series, you can't upgrade the Mail for Exchange software through the separate Mail for Exchange install file.

Stability
During my time with the E75, I only recall about 3 reboots in the three weeks I've had the phone.

Multimedia
Those who say S60 is designed mainly for creating and not geared as much to consume multimedia must not fully use their phone. Out of the box the E71 supports H.264 video, the same video format used by the iPhone. With some added third party software like Coreplayer and MobiTubia, the E75 can open DiVX movies and stream YouTube videos. With the included 3.5mm stereo headsets (or get yourself a pair of AD2P stereo Bluetooth headsets) and music player supporting album art, you can easily have your favorite MP3s blasting in your ears. If you're an audiophile then you can install OggPlayer. S60 gives you more flexibility than both the locked down iPhone and the "lacking in software" Blackberry.

Camera
The E75 includes a 3.2 MP camera with autofocus and macro mode. Sounds the same as the E71 but it's a lot better.

The E75 sports a LED for flash and a mirror for self portraits

The E75 uses the same camera software as the N-series line of devices.

Camera uses the dedicated camera button which is a big improvement over the E71.
You can silent the camera but the led will automatically flash.

Outdoor Auto (E75, E71, N82):


Indoor Macro (E75, E71, N82):


Outdoor Auto (E75, N82):


Outdoor Macro (E75, N82):


Dim Indoor with Nightmode (E75, E71, N82):


Dim Indoor with flash (E75, E71, N82):


The E75 produced very impressive photos under direct sunlight that rivalled Nokia's photo-centric N82. Colors reproduction was more accurate just siding a little to more vivid. The night photos with and without flash were very poor. The E71 photos were poor in any condition and not worth mentioning.

Video
The maximum video recording resolution supported by the E75 is 640 x 480 at 29fps which puts it on par with N-series devices. Unfortuately, the results weren't so great.

These are the available quality settings:
TV high quality: MP4 640 x 480 29fps 2.93Mbps
TV normal quality: MP4 640 x 480 15fps 1.46Mbps
E-mail high quality: MP4 320 x 240 29fps 873kbps
E-mail norm. quality: MP4 320 x 240 15fps 454.
Sharing quality: 3GPP 176 x 144 15fps 93kbps

*Sample video offline*

The image quality is very grainy in an indoor setting. The camera is also not set to be focussed on close up objects.


Reception
The E75 had about the same number of bars as the N82. Although bars isn't an accurate measurement of a phone's reception but a phone without bars can't make calls.

Speakerphone
The audio was not as loud as the N82 but good in a quiet setting.

Headset
I didn't have a chance to test this.

Connectivity
Unlike the Blackberry and iPhone, the E75 offers a wealth of Bluetooth profiles that allows you to share files with other devices, listen to music over a wireless stereo bluetooth headset, or sync data to your home computer.
Sadly, after a number of criticisms, Nokia has removed infrared from this E-series device. I still primarily use infrared to share small files between laptops that don't yet have Bluetooth.
Connecting the E71 to a computer using a USB cable will automatically keypad unlock the phone (but not phone unlock) allowing you to select the connection type (mass storage, nokia suite, etc.)

WiFi
The WiFi sensitivity is weaker, picking up less wireless routers, than the Nokia N82 but stronger than the E71. As usual, the sensitivity is weaker than the standard Centrino package from Intel for laptops.

In case you were wondering, you can find the E75's MAC address behind the battery or on the box. I wish it came up with the *#0000# command on the home screen.

Global Positioning (GPS)
The E75 has an integrated GPS chip to get an accurate position of the phone.

Here is a comparison of the E75 to the E71 GPS status screen:

Both phones had their GPS started at the same time from cold boot

The N82 was consistently faster at locking a position and much more sensitive. The E75 usually took 1 minute more to lock compared to the N82. The E75 locked on far faster than the E71 which never achieved a lock on within 10 minutes.

Time to lock is dependent on your location and weather conditions. Turning on assisted GPS in Tools > Settings > General > Positioning > Positioning Methods will reduce lock time but requires a data connection.

External Memory
Like most other S60 Nokia handsets, the E75-2 NAM includes a memory card with the retail package (4GB microSDHC class 4). However it easily supported the 2GB microSD and 8GB microSDHC cards I had on hand. The small slot and rubber cover make inserting the memory card very tricky. Make sure you don't insert the card upside down because it's really hard to take out. The memory card goes gold connector side facing up.

Battery
The E75 uses a thin BL4U Nokia battery with 1000mAH to keep the thickness down. The 1000mAH is adequate for light usage. Under medium usage with occasion wifi and GPS usage, the E75 lasted about 1.5 days compared to 3 days with my E71 under similar usage.

The E75 still has the smaller Nokia charger jack at the bottom. But, surprisingly, also supports USB charging through the microUSD jack! I wish all Nokia phones will keep both because I still have a lot of legacy Nokia chargers.

Conclusion
After 3 weeks of testing the E75, I grew to like it. I initially didn't like the cheap feeling numberpad and disliked the flat wide QWERTY keyboard but I slowly got used to the QWERTY keypad. The camera on the E75 is possibly the best on an E-series device. It gave my N82 a good challenge. Unfortunately photos in dim situations were not so good. The E75 supports Rogers and AT&T highspeed 3G HSDPA networks and 802.11b/g wifi giving users a variety of connection methods. Nokia's open nature with software ensures a wealth of third party software is available for the S60 platform. If you're a business user who doesn't need Blackberry support or a frequent text message sender looking for a phone with a QWERTY keyboard and multimedia capabilities, I highly recommend taking a look at the Nokia E75. It is the form factor that I had longed for but I like my E71 much more and the Xenon flash on my N82 always wins. If you can't carry two phones with you, then the E75 is a great mix of the two!

Ratings:
Performance...........9
Build quality...........8
Keypad...................7
Connectivity...............9
Features for $.........9
Software................8
Camera..................8
Battery life.............7

Overall.....................8

PROS:
*compact design
*lots of memory to run apps simultaneously
*WiFi
*very impressive camera under sunlight
*Great incoming sound
*lots of existing S60 games/apps
*landscape screen
*long lasting battery
*number pad or QWERTY keyboard when needed
*slim design

CONS:

*HTML in e-mails as attachments
*grainy camera in dark
*Paying for navigation in Nokia Maps
*small screen
*wide keyboard
*smudges easily
*organization of menu items still not intuitive

Nokia E72 Leaked

The E71 upgrade rumoured to come with a 5MP camera and in the form of a E71i has been leaked and it's currently being called the E72.

The following are rumoured changes from the E71:
- 5MP camera with autofocus
- QWERTY keyboard to resemble the E63 with a shortened space bar
- optical mouse rather than a Dpad (allows you to swipe to scroll down like the Blackberry's navigational ball)
- 3.5mm headset jack at the top
- speakers on rear by camera
- comes in black and 2 bland greys
- runs S60 3rd edition FP2
- integrated Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat

The E71 has almost been out for a year so it's just about the right time to refresh one of Nokia's best selling phones. The 5MP camera may just push me over to upgrade so I don't need to carry my N82, for its 5MP, with me.

More photos after the jump.

The 5MP camera:

I'm glad they kept the etched battery cover.

The side profile shows the volume keys, 3.5mm headset jack, and power button:


Now featuring an optical mouse:


Different "colors":


With the addition of a 5MP camera, Nokia is keeping an already great design fresh.

Are you excited? :)

Update with live photos:

Image from budip

Corporate ActiveSync Exchange E-mail S60 Compared to Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iPhone

The Nokia E71 is designed for corporate communication with ActiveSync support and Office document viewing/editingA cornerstone of any phone is its ability to connect with people. A key part of that for business smart phones is the ability to synchronize with corporate e-mail, calendar, and contacts. Research in Motion (RIM) Blackberries have been accomplishing this for years with their proprietary Blackberry protocol. With the introduction of ActiveSync with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, all ActiveSync enabled phones are capable of receiving push messaging when your company is using Exchange. Since the introduction of the Eseries, Nokia has offered Mail for Exchange for free to Nokia S60 users to get ActiveSync on their phones.

ActiveSync isn't the only way to synchronize corporate e-mail. An older method is using IMAP but it loses out on many functions present in ActiveSync such as contact and calendar synchronization. Just to make it easier to see a comparison, here's a chart of the differences:

Feature		ActiveSync	IMAP
E-mail	Push	Yes	Yes^ (most clients only support pull)
	HTML Formatting	Yes*	Yes
	Attachment download	Yes	Yes
	Search	Yes*	No
Calendar	Sync (main calendar only)	Yes	No
	Accept/Decline meeting requests	Yes	No
Contacts	Sync (not subfolders)	Yes	No
	Global Address List Lookup	Yes	No
Tasks	Sync	Yes	No
Out of Office	Settings	Yes*	No
Security	Enforce policies on device	Yes	No

* Some features require Exchange 2007
^ Microsoft Exchange does not support push IMAP
Source: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/07/10/446015.aspx

I found an interesting article about how you can accomplish most things in ActiveSync in some other way. But security is one that IMAP can't enforce and most IT companies want to enforce as much as they can.

As most people, I'm usually dictated by what's a go by the IT team. From the few companies I've been to, ActiveSync has been the preferred (usually only) way of getting your e-mail to your device as it supports a number of security policies such as remote device wiping. End users get the benefit of ActiveSync's support for push e-mail.

I'm not one to trust storing my passwords with a third party so this article will not be reviewing any solutions that require storing your corporate login and password by a third party or using desktop software to synchronize your corporate e-mail like Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) or emoze.

I was wondering if other solutions offered better corporate e-mail synchronization compared to what a S60 user has to deal with. S60 offers two compelling software to synchronize with Exchange: Nokia's Mail for Exchange and DataViz's RoadSync so I've included both in my comparison chart as each support different features. To find out whether the grass is greener on the otherside I put together a comparison chart for reference after the jump.

Latest versions as of this writing: Mail for Exchange 2.7, RoadSync for S60 4.0, Blackberry (BES 4.1.5), Windows Mobile 6.1, and iPhone 2.0.2.

S60, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iPhone Corporate Exchange Support Comparison Chart:

Feature		Nokia Mail for Exchange	RoadSync for S60	Blackberry (BES)	Windows Mobile	iPhone
Price		Free	$49.99 USD	Included	Included	Included (firmware 2.0+)
E-mail	Push	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (reply/forward status not updated on server)
	HTML Formatting	Yes (as attachment)	Yes (version 4+)	Yes (only Bold and Storm)	Yes (version 6+)	Yes (supported on both Exchange 2003/2007)
	Attachment download	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Server Search	No	Yes (version 3+)	Yes	Yes	No
	Subfolder	No	Yes	Yes (only server side)	Yes	Yes (only server side)
	Flagging	Yes (version 2.5+)	Yes (version 4+)	No	Yes	No
Calendar	Sync (main calendar only)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (supports multiple)
	Accept/Decline meeting requests	Yes (cannot invite attendees, cannot provide reason, decline not sent)	Yes (cannot invite attendees, cannot provide reason)	Yes	Yes (version 6+ for inviting attendees)	Yes (cannot invite attendees, cannot provide reason for decline, cannot delete single occurance or reccuring)
Contacts	Sync (not subfolders)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (supports subfolders)
	Global Address List Lookup	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tasks	Sync	Yes	Yes (version 4+)	Yes	Yes	No
Notes	Sync	No	No	Yes	No	No
Out of Office	Settings	Yes (version 2.5+)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Security	Enforce policies on device	E-devices only	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Certificates	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes
Synchronization	Ability to turn off	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
	Scheduling by Peak/Non-Peak	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
	Multiple Accounts	No	No	No	No	No
Additional Notes		Creates its own folder in the native S60 Messaging application for synchronizing e-mail.	Creates its own folder in the native S60 Messaging application for synchronizing e-mail.	Requires the use of Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) by your company. Since the device's IMEI must be registered to BES, a user cannot easily switch between devices without notifying the BES system administrator. The Blackberry's "always on" nature with no way to turn off e-mail sync'ing will cause huge roaming costs when its roaming.	Support for memory card encryption and remote wipe via Exchange 2007	No PIN enforcement

It looks like Nokia Mail for Exchange users covers most of the features that other solutions offer in the market support. You can always opt to pay for RoadSync and get some much needed features like inline HTML e-mail, subfolder browsing, and server side search. For a screenshot comparison of Mail for Exchange to RoadSync visit Mobile Industry Review. The article is a bit old since both Mail for Exchange and RoadSync have received significant upgrades within the last few months but the screenshots are generally still accurate.

The grass isn't so much greener on the other side of the fence. Corporate S60 users have all the reason to be happy with their phones knowing they're getting almost all the features offered by Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.

One, possibly significant for a small number of users, benefit for S60 users by having two different ActiveSync solutions that maintain their own e-mail folders is the ability to synchronize mail from two different Exchange accounts. Do not enable calendar, task, and contact synchronization on both accounts or you may wipe out all your calendar, tasks, and contacts.

I personally use Nokia Mail for Exchange on my E71 for my business e-mail and I haven't had any synchronization problems with it. Although most corporate users from North America use Blackberry, it doesn't offer much end user benefits as it once did when it was the only game in town.

Helpful resources:

• Apple iPhone Enterprise Deployment Guide
• iPhone to Windows Mobile comparison
• Installing SSL Certificates to Nokia S60 for Exchange Active Sync
• RoadSync Feature Matrix

S60 ActiveSync compared to Blackberry

Nokia Download! Review

It seems like every smartphone manufacturer has or is introducing an App Store of their own. When you mention App Store most people will think the first was Apple iPhone's App Store. There's little doubt that Apple was the first to successful make consumers aware of the concept but only diehard Nokia fans know that Nokia phones have been carrying the feature for the past few years in the form of Download!

Until recently, the games and applications available for your phone were either from your carrier's online WAP site (for some reason, most of them call it "mall") or something you found on the Internet and you manually loaded. Cellphone manufacturers have traditionally been locked out from creating their own App Stores as it would compete directly with the ones hosted by the carriers.

In 2007, Apple's iPhone totally changed the entire cellphone industry. I know it's been said again and again but I have to mention it again as Apple resisted all pressures to do things the way the carriers wanted. This meant no branding, no carrier control on the phone software, and the manufacturer could sell directly to the consumer (Apple with the iTunes store). The last fact opened up the door to Apple's App Store so consumers could download applications and games without them being heavily filtered by the cell carriers. This has allowed Google, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia to similarly push their own App Stores directly to consumers.

Being one of the oldest app stores of the bunch, does Nokia Download! really have what it takes to compete? Let's take a walk through Download! and if you have a S60 device on hand you should go take a visit. Make sure you have a SIM card in your phone as Download! uses that to determine your region and what applications you will see...

For this review and all screen shots, I am running Download! version 3.2.818 on the Nokia E71 with a AT&T SIM.

Nokia's Download! opens up to a grid view:

It looks just like the regular S60 interface of your phone but just without your custom icons

Clicking on any of the folders switches you to a list view:

This view takes more screen space yet doesn't give you any more information than the grid view. That little green phone with orange screen icon at the top right of Mail for Exchange shows that I have the application on my phone and clicking on it will run it on my phone instead of trying to download it. If you see a blue phone it means an update for the application is available.

Clicking Option > View Details gives you a description of the application:

I have a hard time making a downloading decision based on this description. Imagine making an actual purchase for paid software based on it

You can download and install applications directly from Download!

If your phone gets wiped out you'll have to re-purchase everything since you don't get the SIS install file with your purchase

Purchase history (Options > My items):

This list is stored on your phone unlike Apple's App Store. Purchasing software from Download! usually involves a credit card so make sure the connection to the software vendor is secure by clicking Options > Security Details when making a purchase

You can see from the screenshots that Nokia designed Download! to work seamlessly with the S60 UI. You can even run applications you already have on your phone from Dowload! Download! is a great way for Nokia to centralize all their software and list only software designed to work for the consumer's handset.

Without comparing Download! to any other App Store you can see there are numerous improvements that Nokia make to Download! There is no list of new software so you have to search each folder to see if anything has changed. No search function so, again, you have to search each folder to find the software you want. The UI needs to be reworked so it shows more information about the applications. It's tedious to have to click "show details" for each application just to see what each does. Moreover, there's just so little information that I can't make a download or purchase decision on it alone. Lately, Nokia has been updating their software catalog so software like Nokia Sports Tracker are finally showing up on Download! after being listed on Nokia's mobile download sites for a few months. But Download! is missing a lot of great well known software such as Mobitubia (YouTube client), Screenshot, fring, and CorePlayer. Overall the Download! experience is fairly inconsistent with the view switching from grid to list for no obvious reason, purchasing something can be secure but not guaranteed, and the little icons shown at the top right of application icons are not clearly described (I'm not sure if it's even consistent because I saw a blue icon so I was downloading the update, cancelled the install, and the icon turned black. It wasn't orange to show I had it and not blue to show there's an update available).

With Nokia making Download! required for downloading some of their latest software like viNe and free software like Birdstep Smartconnect, there's no real point to recommending or not recommending as it's already on your S60 phone and sometimes there's no way around it.