It's hard to believe the Nokia E71 is nearly three years old now, such has been its enduring popularity as a business favourite. But with the Nokia E6 about to launch, is it time to trade in the old for the new? We think so – join us after the cut for why.
The Nokia E71 may be one of the older faces in the Nokia smartphone line-up, but it doesn't surprise us a bit to hear that it's still a favourite for many business users, and ranks as one of Nokia's best-selling E Series phones of all time.
Nokia E6 versus Nokia E71 Hands-on photo comparison
So what has made it so popular?
Well, the QWERTY keyboard is much loved for a start, and the slimline dimensions keep it light in the pocket, while for its time, non-business features like the 3.2-Megapixel camera and a wide range of multimedia capabilities made the Nokia E6 a corporate contender with plenty of fringe benefits.
If you are looking to upgrade, however, the Nokia E6 is the perfect way to go, as it takes all the Nokia E71's appeal, gives it a fresh lick of paint, updates its features across the board and even introduces a few all-new capabilities to really crank up the wow factor. And by that we specifically mean the 2.46-inch touchscreen.
For starters, the panel itself is larger than the Nokia E71's 2.36-inch display, and bumps up the resolution significantly from 240 x 320 pixels to 480 x 640. But the real big news is of course the addition of touch sensitivity. The touch interfaces combines with the QWERTY keyboard underneath seemlessly, making it far easier to interact with the Nokia E6, whether it's browsing the web, typing an email, taking a photo or even playing games. Whatever you're doing, the touch/keyboard combo gives you the ideal way of achieving it.
Nokia E6: Hands on first impressions
And speaking of that QWERTY keyboard, you'll be pleased to hear that one of the most loved features of the Nokia E71 has been faithfully reproduced on the Nokia E6. The keyboard is an essential part of any QWERTY business device, and Nokia certainly hasn't overlooked that fact here.
Other features worth a mention on the hardware side include the presence of an 8-Megapixel camera with 720p video shooting capabilities – Nokia continues to believe in those fringe benefits – and the addition of a full 8GB of internal storage, plus you can add up to 32GB more via microSD card. It's equally good news on the software side, as the dated Symbian S60 3rd Edition operating system has been traded in for the brand new Symbian Anna on the Nokia E6 – it's so new, in fact, that it'll be making its debut on this very handset. With a full three generations of upgrades between S60 3rd Edition and Symbian Anna, the only downside is it might take you a while to get up to speed with just how much has changed!
But it's a journey that'll be well worth taking, and in short the Nokia E6 really has no weaknesses when stacked up against the Nokia E71.
It takes the formula for what is a Nokia business phone classic and gives it fresh appeal without forgetting what made handsets like the Nokia E71 so popular in the first place.