Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Nokia N71 Review and Details

Nokia N71 Review

Introduction

Nokia’s N71 is one of three N-Series phones Announced in November 2005 running on the latest Symbian OS v9.1 and much Improved 3rd edition of the S60 user interface. Although not as complete as its Wi-Fi enabled big brother, the N80, The N71 has enough in its specifications list to pack a punch.
With a 2-megapixel camera, a glorious 2.4 inch 262k color display, and a mini SD card slot that supports cards up to 2GB, the N71 looks set to be a winner. Like the N70 before it, the N71 is a dual mode phone, featuring WCDMA (2100MHz) and tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900MHz) this review is all about the capabilities of N71’s in GSM mode.

Physical Aspects

The N71 is a really good looking phone. With the sides tapering slightly to make the phone look thinner at the hinge and a curved bottom, the N71 looks very solid. In your hands, the N71 feels comfortable to hold, and the plastics used are top quality. Its textured gunmetal body resists scratches and provides good grip. It has an aluminum frame on the front surrounding the external display, and I am glad to report that this frame is also good at resisting scratches. but the top portion of the phone was quite loose. I could easily move it from side to side when the unit was closed. I suspect that this could pose a problem in future after countless times opening and closing the flip.
Below the external display, there is a button that can be used to reject or silence incoming calls. The 2-megapixel camera is surrounded by chrome, and beside it sits the LED flash. With the flip closed, the power button, which is round and looks exactly like the N70's, is located at the bottom. The power button is hard to press, and I had to use my nails to get it to register - this is very apparent when you try to change profiles with the flip closed. Pressing on the power button will bring you to the profile select menu (shown on the external display), and you will have to press multiple times on the power button to get to the profile that you want. The button below the external display can be used to select the desired profile. At the top of the phone, the Pop-Port connector is protected by a rubber flap, and is located alongside the charging port. The external memory card slot is protected by a plastic latch and is located just below the Pop-Port connector. On the left of the phone, you will find the Push-to-Talk button alongside the Infrared port. There is nothing on the right side or back of the phone.
Opening the N71, you will notice that the spring mechanism isn't really 'automatic' like many other folder style devices. This means the N71 is quite difficult to open with one hand. A click is heard when the phone is opened at about 120 degrees; I assume that this is useful for video calls with the N71 placed on a flat surface. A second click is heard when the phone is opened to its maximum. The internal VGA camera is located on the right corner of the screen portion of the flip with the light sensor, which automatically adjusts the screen brightness and keypad backlighting. The keypad is split into two parts; the Multimedia key is located above the d-pad, which is flanked by the left and right soft keys and calls and end keys. The row of edit, menu, and clear keys is located just below the d-pad. The numerical keys are located in the lower part of the keypad, though I just don't get why Nokia had to make the keys so tiny. With the amount of space available, the keypad could have been made much more comfortable. The tiny d-pad was a pain to use, especially when playing games, and I would frequently accidentally press the end key. This caused the game to exit out to the standby screen. The numerical keypad also required skill to type messages with, as I would sometimes press two keys at once. Fortunately, there are spaces in between each row of keys, so with practice I was getting better at it. Nokia could really have made better use of the space available to make a more comfortable keypad. Measuring 98.6mm x 51.2mm x 25.8mm (3.88" x 2.01" x 1.01") and weighing 139g (4.9oz), the N71 is no lightweight and definitely not as sleek or slim as the recently reviewed Motorola V3x. However, it is considerably smaller than the N90, and will definitely fit nicely in a pocket.

Multimedia

The external display is a 1.36" 96x68 pixel 65k color STN screen. The pixels are large and the display is grainy and washed out. Colors are also poorly reproduced. The main display is where the N71 really shines; with 262k colors at its disposal, the 1.4" QVGA (240x320 pixel) display is sharp and bright even under the harshest of sunlight.

2-megapixel at the Back

The camera on the N71 does not have an auto focus mechanism. The Nokia N71 can capture images at full 2-megapixel resolution (1600x1200), and there are also two lower resolutions available - "Email" (0.5-megapixel, 800x600) and "MMS" (0.3-megapixel, 640x480). The 20x digital zoom made full use of its 2-megapixel sensor - in order to maintain image quality when the digital zoom is in use, the N71 reduces the dimensions of the photos it creates, essentially zooming by way of cropping the larger 2-megapixel photo.
The menu system in the N71's camera function features the same icons as older S60 devices, but the layout has been changed. The display is split into two sections: the top is the viewfinder display, and a horizontal bar at the bottom lists out the options available? Shooting mode, flash, white balance, color tone, and also the option to view the last image taken. Accessing these options is done by pressing left or right on the d-pad - very intuitive. The white balance options cover most of the situations that you could expect to encounter? Automatic, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, and Fluorescent. The Automatic white balance option worked very well, delivering spot-on color all the time. The N71 also offers a few scene modes - automatic, user defined mode, portrait mode, landscape mode, night mode, and sports mode. Unlike the N90, the N71 does not have a macro mode; it is unable to take close-up shots at all. A real shame indeed considering even a low-end Panasonic VS2 can take macro shots.
Like the N70, the N71 offers three video quality settings - high, normal, and sharing. The first two modes allow video recording time to be limited only by the amount of free storage space. At high quality, the N71 records video clips in 352x288 pixel resolution in MP4 file format (MPEG-4 video codec). In the normal mode, movies are recorded in 176x144 pixel resolution at a bitrate of 171kbps and stored in 3GP files (H.263 codec). The sharing mode has the same resolution but records in a lower bitrate, 75kbps, and a maximum length of 35 seconds, thus producing smaller files. A mute function allows you to turn the microphone off when recording a clip. Users can also toy with various settings, including scene (normal or night), white balance (automatic, daylight, cloudy, tungsten, and fluorescent) and color tone (normal, sepia, black & white, and negative).
It is worth mentioning that you can choose to use the internal VGA camera when taking photos or videos. Quality suffers though, especially when snapping photos with it. The degree of noise is terrible when there is inadequate lighting, and pictures appear out of focus and grainy. Overall, the images taken by the N71 were of decent quality, though the lack of an auto focuses mechanism really made a negative impact on the image. However, pictures captured still looked decent and would be great for candid shots. If you are lucky, you might just get a decent enough picture for print.

Music player

The Nokia N71 comes equipped with a music player, which is a revamped version of the one found on the N70. While you can use Nokia's included PC Suite software to manage your music, the N71 will also recognize files copied directly to the mini SD memory card via its USB connection or with a dedicated memory card reader. The N71's music player will automatically pick up M3U playlist files for playlists, as long as you save the playlist in the same directory as the music files themselves. You can also create and edit playlists on the phone itself. The N71 sales package included a 128MB mini SD card, but users would do better with a bigger capacity card if they want to fully utilize the N71's multimedia capabilities. The N71 also comes with an adaptor to enable owners to use their favorite headphones to listen to music. This is certainly great. After testing out the N71 with various kinds of music, the built-in equalizer proved useful. Songs had adequate bass and were generally crisp. Overall quality and clarity was good. The N71 also comes with the Nokia Visual Radio player, which takes advantage of a GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA data connection to pull down information from participating radio stations around the world, providing the N71 user with visual and textual information on the artist and song that is playing over the FM radio. Currently none of the stations in my area support this service, so I am not able to report on it.

User Interface

Just like the N80, the Nokia N71 runs on the latest 3rd Edition of the s60 user interface. The UI speed is markedly improved over the sluggishness of the S60 user interface, but with the 3rd Edition, they seemed to have brought the lag down to a minimum. It still takes 2 to 3 seconds to open up the Messaging menu, but overall it is much speedier.
Pressing the dedicated menu button beneath the d-pad, a 3x4 icon grid main menu will appear. The keypad is linked to the top nine icons in the main menu, and the keys even work when you have scrolled further down in the menu. Icons and folders can be arranged as you please, though you still cannot create a subfolder in a folder.
In standby mode the N71 features the Active Standby feature, including a line of application shortcuts, as well as a list of upcoming calendar appointments. This time, the 3rd Edition S60 adds an extra icon to the list so now you get to customize six application shortcuts to your liking instead of just five. You use the d-pad to navigate through the six application shortcuts and upcoming appointments. Clicking on the calendar appointment will bring you to the Calendar application, showing you the full details of your appointment. If you do not like this new Active Standby feature, you can always turn it off in the Settings menu. With it turned off, you can press the four directions of the d-pad to launch different applications. The directional shortcuts can be customized to your liking, as can the left and right selection keys.

 Phone functionality

The N71 delivered excellent voice quality during calls. I did not experience any dropped calls or poor reception. The volume of the earpiece was adequate- not deafening and not too soft. The Nokia N71 is capable of video calls (if you are subscribed to 3G services). I was not able to test this function as I had no access to 3G networks. I primarily use the GSM 1800 MHz band, but when tested, the N71 also performed well in the 900 MHz band. I have no complaints here. Like all previous S60 PHONES, the N71 has a nice profile system. There are a number of default profiles available, and you can create your own if you wish. Support for timed profiles is still missing. But otherwise this profile management is quite good. You can link each profile to one or more groups of contacts, so that the ringer is disabled if the caller is not a member of the appropriate group. The N71 has an offline profile. This enables you to use the N71 in areas where wireless phone use is prohibited, e.g. in an airplane. Another cool feature of this Offline profile is that you can even use the N71 without a SIM card. This will allow use of the N71’s multimedia functions anywhere and anytime. Battery life was fair. The phone lasted about three days before having to be recharged. This was with roughly 30 minutes of calls each day and quite a lot of SMS messaging, taking pictures, and GPRS usage. Using Bluetooth frequently brought that duration down to about one and a half days. This is still pretty good battery life for a Smartphone. The N71 supports speaker independent voice recognition technology, so there is no longer a need to pre-record voice tags. Just say the name of your contact and it will be recognized. The same applies to voice commands (choosing a profile, connecting to the voice mailbox, activating Bluetooth, opening Voice Recorder, or launching any other application). It worked well with English names; however the N71 had a lot of trouble getting the right names when I tried voice dialing Asian names.

Connectivity

The Nokia N71 supports GPRS and EDGE networks where available. It has an infrared port and Bluetooth v1.2. The N71 also features Push to Talk (PTT), but I do not have access to PTT services so I was not able to test out this feature. Setting up for GPRS was easy, as you just have to choose from a list of service providers, and everything will be set up accordingly. The Bluetooth system in the N71 is version 1.2 and it works well. It supports PC Suite, Headset and Hands Free, OBEX access, and Dial-Up Networking. I encountered no problem at all during while testing the N71. The N71 also has support for USB 2.0 via the Pop-Port connector. This results in fast synchronization of data, and works well when using the N71 as a modem for your laptop or PC. As a USB mass storage device, you would be better off with a card reader, as it is still much slower to access the mini SD via the Pop-Port connector.


Messaging

There is not anything new here. The N71's email client supports both POP and IMAP protocols. Creating a new message is simple, as is attaching a file of just about any type. You can define multiple email accounts, and the N71 features automatic retrieval of messages. You can schedule it to retrieve email automatically on any day of the week, at any time. T9 can be used when typing out emails, SMS, and MMS. Text input was fast and there was no noticeable lag.
The SMS system works flawlessly. Instead of clicking on the recipient's name field to access your contact list, you can easily multitap the letters of the intended recipient's name. The N70 will then pop up a list of all the names beginning with those letters, and you can just select the right one. Confirmation receipts pop up briefly on the display before being stored in a separate folder. New words can be added to the dictionary, and the system was fast enough to keep up with my typing. If you type in a word that is not already in the dictionary, it will be saved automatically. The bad news is if you accidentally misspelled a word, you have no way of removing or correcting it.


Applications

The N71 comes with Nokia's new web browser, which was also featured in the N80. Websites are rendered the way they were meant to be, so what you usually see on your desktop will appear the same way on this fantastic new browser. A transparent window called the mini map helps you tell where you are on the page when moving the pointer around. When pressing back, you will be shown thumbnails of all the previous pages found in the cache. This helps you to visually select the page you want to go back to. I love this web browser and it really has set a new benchmark for other manufacturers to beat.
The fully featured calendar application is just like the one found in earlier S60 devices. New appointments of several different types can be created. Start and end times and dates can be set, where appropriate, and alarms can be configured to remind you before the appointment takes place. The calendar can be viewed in either month or week view, and when a particular date is highlighted by navigating with the d-pad, the appointments contained therein will be listed at the top of the screen in a small pop-up box.
Apart from that, you will find things such as a world clock with alarm, Nokia's Life Blog, Real Player, and Flash Player. The N71 also comes with Quick Office, a suite consisting of Quick word, Quick sheet, and Quick point. This is good news for the business user who needs to view Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations on the go. However, this is the View-only version of Quick Office. If you want to edit the files, you will have to purchase the full version of it. The 3D version of the classic Snake game, first developed for the N-Gage, can be found in the N71, and game play is now much more challenging. Another game found on the N71 is Sudoku, the highly addictive puzzle game.

Final Words

Its firmware is version 2.0613.1.12.1, 06-04-2006, RM-67There is much to like about the N71. Its handsome looks, great build quality, and most of the entire much-improved 3rd Edition S60 interface. You can't go wrong with its feature set either, as it has almost everything except Wi-Fi. The only complaint I have about the N71 is its cramped keypad.
The N71 earns a Highly Recommended rating from me, as it does what the N70 did, only better and much faster. However, if you are looking for more and prefer a slider, then the bigger brother N80 would be the phone for you.

General Specifications


General

2G Network
GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network
UMTS 2100
Announced
2005, 4Q
Status
Discontinued

Body

Dimensions
98.6 x 51.2 x 25.8 mm, 103 cc
Weight
139 g

Display

Type
TFT, 256K colors
Size
240 x 320 pixels, 2.4 inches, 36 x 49 mm (~167 ppi pixel density)

- Second external display 65K colors, (96x68 pixels)
- Downloadable themes

Sound

Alert types
Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, monophonic, MP3 ringtones
Loudspeaker
Yes
3.5mm jack
No

Memory

Card slot
Mini SD (up to 2GB), 128 MB card included, buy memory
Internal
10 MB

Data

GPRS
Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
EDGE
Class 10, 236.8 kbps
Speed
Yes, 384 kbps
WLAN
No
Bluetooth
Yes, v1.2
Infrared port
Yes
USB
Yes, Pop-Port

Camera

Primary
2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels, LED flash
Video
Yes, CIF
Secondary
VGA video call camera

Features

OS
Symbian OS, Series 60 UI
CPU
220 MHz Dual ARM 9
Messaging
SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
Browser
WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
Radio
FM radio; Visual radio
GPS
No
Java
Yes, MIDP 2.0
Colors


- SyncML
- Organizer
- Voice command
- Voice memo

Battery


Standard battery, Li-Ion 970 mAh (BL-5C)
Stand-by
Up to 220 h
Talk time
Up to 4 h

Misc

SAR US
0.42 W/kg (head)     0.36 W/kg (body)    
SAR EU
0.41 W/kg (head)    



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