I was excited when I received an E71 from the good guys of womworld last month. From several blogs and forums I frequent, almost every praise you will hear about this device usually revolves around it's excellent build quality. They say the body is rock solid. Zero creaks. Great keypad. And so on.. So I had high expectations.

After using the E71 for 2 weeks now, I must say that the build quality is, as they say, top of the line. Every good things people say about it is true, and they were not exaggerating. One will truly appreciate the overall feel of this device once he gets the chance to have it for everyday use. I'm loving it, and the experience just gets better as days pass by.

During the first week i had with the E66 and the N95 8gb, I noticed a few moving parts coupled with minimal creaks. Especially when you try to look for them. But this is not the case on the E71. After weeks of use, it's still as solid as when I took it out from the box.

The device is surprisingly thin, considering the powerhouse features packed inside it: GPS, WiFi and a 3.2MP cam. It's thinner than the iphone, and even than a pack of gum! I had no problems with the size of my N82, but boy, after using the E71, the N82 now feels a total brick and utterly bulky when held. It made me excited about the future of Nokia phones. Imagine a 5mp device as thin as this.

I was not a fan of qwerty layout for mobile phones. I thought I will find a hard time typing on the E71's keypad because the keys are small and it's, well, qwerty. I thought qwerty is for 10 fingers to be effective, so for mobile phones where we use only our thumbs, T9 is more suitable. But turns out I was wrong. It's really easy and VERY comfortable to type with. The dpad is well raised and feels great to use. The feedback that the keys give when you press them is wonderful. They seem to be compressed but my thumbs can distinguished the division of the keys without difficulty because of their raised design. At first, I had a hard time adjusting but after a day of use, I just loved it. I then always find myself looking forward to receive text messages and email so that I can use the keypad to type a reply, lol. I just love the buttons. Even the power button is a joy to push!

The keys are small, I never had problems with it, but for people with bigger thumbs, these keys might be troublesome.

Music experience with the E71 is not exceptional, but it's not bad either considering the massive storage space it can offer (8-16gb). The sound quality through wired headset is at par with the N82. The only bummer is the 2.5mm headset port, *sad*. On the other hand, the loudspeakers are placed on the top of the device and I was surprised that it actually sounds better than my N82's stereo speakers! Yes it does, the sound details are more crisp and clear and I appreciate listening more with it, despite it being mono only.

And the sweetest of them all, the 1500mah battery. With (my) normal usage, the longest time it lasted was almost three days! It's cool, you might think it's imba, but it's true. I can barely reach two days with my N82 or a day with heavy usage. With the E71, I never experienced trying to restrict myself from using the phone so much, worrying about the battery life nor do I had the need to apply battery-saving settings just to let it last for the day.

Regarding software, it has the same feature-rich contacts and calendar application as I have seen on the E66. Present as well is the remarkable standby screen having great shortcuts and customizations. Another nifty addition is the enhanced predictive text which suggests words as you type which you can select by simply pressing the space bar. It can also automatically correct misspelled inputs (works like MS Word's auto-correct feature).

With 3G, WLAN, and push email support, the E71 can effectively replace a netbook as an aid for your internet and messaging needs. I have to mention that despite the E71 having almost the same screen size as the N82, the internet experience is way better on the E71. Landscape orientation when surfing the net punches a big difference.

Overall, the device's firmware is very stable. So far, errors and hangs are nowhere to be seen.

If we are to talk about build quality among Nokia devices, I am quite sure that the E71 is IT, one of the frontrunners.. Multimedia capabilities is not excellent (because its not where the E71 is made for), but its not bad as well. I think it's more than enough for the device's target users, business professionals (who might even have separate devices for their multimedia needs). If camera, video, and music is not your main concern, you will never regret spending hard-earned cash for it.

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