So, my e71 has been delivered.

I’ve been playing with it for a couple of days now, and my first impressions so far are very, very positive. I’ve used S40, and S60 phones for a couple of years now on a fairly consistent basis, and this device, with S60 were one of the biggest reasons that I’ve resisted the iPhone 3G since it launched half way through last year. I’ve been using an e61 for my personal phone for the last few months, and the changes between it, and this are huge, and very welcome.

Hardware
The hardware feels great in my hand. It’s a nice solid feeling phone. It’s not like some of the other “Smart Phones” that I have played with recently. It’s got a good amount of heft to it, it definitely does not feel like a cheap, plastic phone at all. The stainless steel shell, is definitely something that the rest of the industry should take a look at. I’m looking at you, Samsung. The Jack, just feels cheap compared to this thing.

For starters, the phone is noticeable smaller than the e61. It’s a slight amount wider than my Blackberry Pearl 8120, but noticeably slimmer. It hides in your pocket pretty well. The e61 always felt excessively large when I was using it. the e71, just feels right. The screen is amazingly sharp, whether I am reading an email, scrolling through a play list, or watching a movie (I used a rip of “The Count of Monte Cristo” for testing purposes), the screen impresses. It’s bright, with excellent colour reproduction. There was very little blur during the fight scenes in The Count. Playback was buttery smooth, and the volume was nice and loud as well. With a decent set of A2DP headphones (I used my Motorola HT820’s) this could almost be a commuter’s dream come true.

The keyboard on the Nokia’s feel a wee bit off though, for a couple of reasons. The button presses are not as distinct as my Blackberry’s have been. I used a 8310 Curve for most of the last 18 months, and switched out to my Pearl about 3 months ago when I felt I needed a change, and the keyboards on the ‘berries just simple feel better. This is purely subjective, so take it with a grain of salt what ever size you choose. Another thing that I don’t like about the keyboard, is that the 3rd row of keys is off by one. I will explain this later.

Wi-Fi. I’ll never doubt reasons to have Wi-fi on a phone again, now that I have played with Joiku Spot. More on this later.

The ear piece speaker seems “tinny” when I talk to people. I’m going to play with another one tomorrow and see if this is just my unit, which I think it is.

Software
As for the software, well, it’s phenomenal. I have always loved how customizable S60 phones are. It usually takes me about 20 minutes to have my phone set up “just right”, and in the case of this one, it was even quicker. The “Phone Switch” application that is kept under tools, is just awesome. It paired with my 5310 using Bluetooth, and sucked all the contacts directly from one phone to another, all in less than a minute. It was an absolute joy. I was never able to test this feature using my e61, as it arrived with a Bluetooth radio that simply never worked, I could never get it to turn on, so this was a very pleasant surprise.

JoikuSpot Light. Awesome, awesome software. This piece of software completely justifies having Wi-Fi on your 3G cell phone. It was the first 3rd party app that I have installed on this phone, and it has been just a little bit so far, but it will definitely get more use in the future. In short, it turns your GPRS/EDGE/HSPA/UMTS phone into a Wi Fi router, and let’s me connect my laptop to the ‘net anywhere that I have cell service. to the doubters, who are telling me to just tether the phone with a USB cable, or even Bluetooth, and go that route instead, all I have to say is forget it. I play with way too many different software options on my laptop (currently triple booted with Vista Premium, Ubuntu Linux 8.04, as well as FreeBSD 7.1) to bother dicking around with different methods of tethering, give me Wi Fi any day.

S60’s dialing options have always perplexed me. With *every* other phone that I have, I can press the green “go” button, and I get to a list of calls that have been made, or received. Once I am at that list, I can scroll through them, or start to dial a new number. With my S60 phones, I can only dial a new number from the home screen, not from my call log. This perplexes me to no end. I also have no yet been able to figure out how I can dial alphanumeric phone numbers on this thing. Letters or Numbers, there is no option for both, which would be great if I knew what numbers are included in 1 (800) 9 TD VISA. I don’t use phones with T9 enough to know what numbers correspond to what letters off the top of my head, and calling my credit card company tonight to order a new card was a royal pain in the ass.

Being able to print a PDF that is emailed to me, from the phone, to my Samsung Laser Printer, that is connected to my Debian Linux file and print server, over Wi Fi, gave me some serious nerd wood.

The calendar app that comes with the phone, is far, far better than what is included with my ‘berries. It gives me way more options and let’s my organize my day easier.

Rogers Wireless though, as seems to be their way, have done their best to cripple a lot of the features of the phone. I am not able to use Nokia’s “Download!” service, as Rogers seems to have diverted the link to something on their internal WAP (I’ve unlocked the phone, with some help from The Cell Phone Doctor and am using a Fido line instead.), but I will get around this once I take the time to de-brand the phone, and remove Rogers middleware junk out of the default firmware. Rogers, please, allow me to have an easier way of rmoving your branding from the device, without having to potentially brick it. I would rather buy my hardware directly from you, rather than have to deal with grey market handsets of questionable origin, but you seem to make it harder for me to do every single day.