Nokia E71x now available from AT&T

by Chris Ziegler posted May 4th 2009 at 12:41AM

It's been an awful long time in coming, but AT&T's customized remix of Nokia's lovely E71 -- the E71x -- is now available for sale direct from the carrier's site. As was revealed a little over a month ago, pricing comes in at just $99.99 on contract after rebate, which seems like a steal for a device with this level of capability and sex appeal. Of course, you'll need to be okay with S60 3.2 -- but if you can get past that, you've got a gorgeous all-metal shell, full QWERTY, HSDPA, 3.2 megapixel cam, and WiFi waiting for you. What now, Bold?

[Thanks, Ivaylo]

Filed under: Handsets, Nokia, Symbian, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS

Tags: att, breaking news, BreakingNews, e71x, nokia, qwerty, s60, symbian

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

mak618 @ May 4th 2009 1:15AM

sweet !

Does anyone know what is being customized for E71 x. In other words the difference between 71x and the regular 71

Neutral

JonnyBruha @ May 4th 2009 1:34AM

The difference is that AT&T is charging people $30/month for unlimited data for this phone, whereas the regular E71 can use the same unlimited 3G for $15/month.

Lowest Ranked

James @ May 4th 2009 1:37AM

Comparing the E71 to the Bold? I think that's giving the Nokia too much credit. Neither the OS or display is anywhere near comparable.

Highest Ranked

Omagus @ May 4th 2009 1:54AM

Why is it too much credit? Yeah, the Bold has a better display but to say that the OS is much better than that of the E71 is something of an exaggeration (I personally prefer S60 to BlackBerry but to each his own). Not to mention that the E71 is much smaller and half the price.

Highest Ranked

ThisGuy @ May 4th 2009 2:00AM

@ James - I think its the other way around. The E71x has much more capable OS and specs than the bold. Symbian S60 is the most secured OS and has way versatility and functions than RIM's OS. The only thing the Bold has going for it is the display. The E71x is the slimmest smartphone in the market, it has a much better battery life, better build quality (what is that on the back of the Bold? fake leather? pleather?). Don't get me started on that trackball either.....1) it gets dirty and needs to be cleaned and 2) you have to constantly move your thumb when scrolling with the trackball. The directional pad is much easier to use. The bottom line....You get a much better phone with the E71x at $100 on contract, than the pile of plastic called the BB Bold for $299.

Low Ranked

James @ May 4th 2009 2:43AM

How dirty are your hands that the trackball gets so filthy? More capable specs? The Bold has a 70% faster processor, 9 times the storage and the same amount of RAM. Anyway, to me rolling a trackball is more comfortable. I'm glad you've had such a good run with Nokias holding together but the Bold feels better in my hand than any Nokia I've ever used. I guess my hand is larger than the average cell phone user because a device smaller than the bold is too small for me. As for the OS we'll leave that one alone. I don't know what versatility you're speaking of but I have yet to see a demonstration.

If you're wondering about the figures, gsmarena can assist you further.

Highly Ranked

Tor Slettnes @ May 4th 2009 4:04AM

@James,

If you want to not appear jaded (ie. justify your own phone), falling into the "processor trap" (i.e. looking simply at MHz numbers without real-world performance) is certainly not the way to go. Processor clock rating (and even amount of RAM) aren't suitable for apples-to-apples comparisons. (For instance, the BlackBerry OS is notoriously inefficient with RAM, and has well known/published memory leaks to go along with it).

The E71 is one of the snappiest phones out there, both in terms of interactive UI and DSP-intensive operations (such as watching movies etc).

When talking about capabilities, other things come to mind - such as what hardware/software the phone supports (e.g. GPS, WiFi, Camera, FM Radio/Transmitter, Infrared, etc. etc). Neither of these two phones has a particularly good camera (the MP rating is higher on the E71x, but the optics are probably not any better). The E71x has built-in FM radio and Internet radio. The Bold definitely has a better display. (Resolution, size, everything).

The main difference, as someone pointed out, is that you can get the unlocked E71 rather than either of the AT&T branded phones, and thus unlimited data for $10 or $15 per month (depending on whether you also have unlimited messaging) vs. $30 for the E71x and BBB.

As far as the OS, application support, etc. - that's much more a matter of taste. I'd personally take S60 over BBOS any day - mainly for the thousands and thousands of high quality 3rd party applications that exist. Even for corporate mail (Exchange) I'd rather use S60, as Nokia's "Mail for Exchange" application as well as "RoadSync" both offer direct push (Exchange server to device), rather than going via a third party (BlackBerry connect).

Neutral

James @ May 4th 2009 8:08AM

@Tor

It should have also been included that I'm running the .247 revision of the BB OS on my Bold. I believe that this addresses the issues that you brought up concerning BB RAM management. I have not seen any memory problems since moving away from AT&T's standard OS build. I'm know I'm biased but I just haven't seen anything compelling about this Nokia. All of the coverage that I've read has focused on the price difference and downplayed the S60 platform. That being said, I'll drop by an AT&T store to try out the E71 and give it a fair shake.

Neutral

zephxiii @ May 4th 2009 9:08AM

Does the BOLD have native exchange support? NO (e71x does). Does the E71x require 30 dollar data plan to get email? NO (you can use wifi). Does BOLD's web browser have flash capability like being able to play youtube videos on youtube's desktop site? NO (e71x does).

Neutral

JonnyBruha @ May 4th 2009 4:17AM

As far as OS's are concerned, S60 is the clear winner, if you're going to draw straws between the two. As Tor said, the thousands of S60 applications cast a very large shadow over the handful of applications available for Blackberry.

They're both great phones though. No need to pitch one against the other. I just wish they had better cameras.

Neutral

Jeremy T @ May 4th 2009 9:17AM

This is a great device, but buying it from AT&T would be a huge mistake due to the more expensive contract required.

If they were giving this thing away for free, it might make sense - but since they're not, just get the unlocked E71 and save some bucks, K?

Neutral

Mike Sharpe @ May 4th 2009 11:15AM

Amazon actually has a price close to that: http://preview.tinyurl.com/czfgwz

Also, it's possible to get the E71x and the $15 plan through some roundabout methods: Get the subsidy unlock code to unlock the phone and then sign up for the $15 data plan online. Standard stuff if you use an unlocked phone with AT&T.

Neutral

meganeko @ May 4th 2009 11:11AM

I gave up waiting for the E71x and picked up an E63 off contract, with the added bonus of not having to shell out an extra $30/month for the next two years. Wi-fi gets me most of what of what I really need, anyway. I'm loving the increase in OS speed response over my Nokia 6682. The E63 syncs beautifully with my Macbook, and I have a couple of fun free applications already. And Mobireader is still a great asset. So, more on topic, I'm sure I would have been pleased with the E71x, but ATT, you're too much $$$, a little too late.

Neutral

Beau @ May 4th 2009 11:25AM

Does anyone know if this phone has the Navi Wheel? ya'know that thing where the the d-pad is capacitive for scrolling

Neutral

Douglas @ May 4th 2009 12:42PM

negative. That's something only found on a few select Nseries devices (N79, N85, N81, N78). This has the Navi Key. Well I can't find any confirmation in the documentation that it still does what the unlocked E71 does, which is fast scrolling when you hold down, up, left, or right. But it might still be there. Who knows... this is AT&T and they seem to not want consumers here to have what everybody else in the world has when they buy a phone from Nokia.

Neutral

C-Train @ May 4th 2009 1:15PM

I also gave up waiting on the E71x and picked up a Propel Pro. I still like the PP, but now I'm kinda wishing I waited b/c that is one sexy ass phone. Oh well.

Neutral

jcar302 @ May 5th 2009 8:29PM

Love my E71, but you'd have to be out of your mind to buy this phone for $99 and then lose $15 more a month on the mandatory data plan for 2 years.

Just buy a real e71 instead of the x, not only will you save money, you won't have to use ATT's restrictive software and you won't be held to any type of contract.

Neutral

ran @ May 7th 2009 2:20AM

This isn't the iPhone where you are forced to use the special data plan.

Just get the phone on contract; then buy a cheap $10 GoPhone; tell AT&T you want to change the IMEI on the account and then give them the IMEI of the GoPhone. Change your data plan and Voilá! $15/month data plan.

Neutral

Att_employee @ May 10th 2009 7:08PM

Yes Ran that would work, But I am assuming that if you already have att you have a 15 digit IMEI you could use, but guess what guys you call customer support tell them you bought a unlocked phone on ebay give them any 15 digit number that starts with a 3 and then again viola you have what we will see on our end of things phone model "unknown GSM" and we cant do anything about anything if you ask us to remove the $30 dollar PDA plan and put on the $15 dollar data unlimited or if you already have unlm messaging then its only $10 extra.

so everyone quit crying about the data plan rediculous get creative use your heads!

Neutral

$Biofractal$

Biofractal @ May 26th 2009 11:15PM

I would like to do the same but with the blackberry bold. My question is if I get the blackberry bold unlocked, then can I call customer service and change the BB $30 plan for the $15 one, or is this BB plan an special plan for blackberrys?
The thing is that Amazon has the cheapest Blackberry bolds that I have seen so far. I want to get mine with them, unlock the phone after that and change the data plan later... Apparently it works for the E71x, but i'm not sure about the BlackBerry.

I am also very undecisive about the E71x or the BB bold... any idea that can help me dedide? Don't forget about the initial question I asked...

Many thanks.

Neutral

skaki @ Jun 30th 2009 4:14PM

If you are buying this phone, you have to download the free mobile browser, Skyfire. It's simply the best browser.It's also the only mobile browser that supports Flash 10, Ajax and Silverlight. Yes, that includes the iphone's browser. You can download at get.skyfire.com