The Nokia E71 may not be the newest smartphone on the market, nor is it an android phone, but it is no slouch of a phone. It is a GSM phone, and customer service willingly provides you the unlock code. I bought the Straight Talk phone for slightly under $200 and it does require the $45 a month plan. That is correct, the total cost of operating this phone is $45 a month. Can anyone get an iPhone or Droid phone for a total cost of $45 a month?

Undocumented Features

There are two really cool features of the phone that are not well advertised:

1. There is a front facing camera that is not mentioned in the documentation. There are a few applications that use the front facing camera:
   
   1. While I downloaded Fring to my E71, the Ovi site now states that Fring is not available for the E71. It does, however, use the front camera for Fring video calls. You can download it to your phone via m.fring.com. Using a Fring test call, I verified that the front camera does indeed work.
   2. Nimbuzz use the front camera when making Nimbuzz to Nimbuzz mobile calls, at least this is the story. Until I have a mobile Nimbuzz friend, I have no way of verifying the truth of this assertion.
   3. HandHeld Mirror costs me $0.99 for the sole purpose of finding a quick way to verify that the front camera works. Now, if this app could just capture an image, it would be a prefect front facing snapshot camera.
2. While the front facing camera is not mentioned in the E71 documentation, the Wi-Fi capabilites are well known. The JoikuSpot application turns the Nokia E71 into a Wi-Fi hotspot. The free version make it public, while the paid version ($9.99) creates a secure hotspot. It works and it is fast. Battery on phone only last about 4 1/2 hours when being used as a Wi-Fi hotspot. You can still even use the phone, as a phone. What a radical thought, using a phone as a phone.

Learning to Use the Phone

It really does pay to read the documentation about this phone. There are two main source of information.

1. The tutorials at Straight Talk provide a good introduction to the Nokia E71. There are a lot of features to this phone, and it takes awhile to master them all. I am still learning new tricks.
2. At the bottom of the above page is a link to the official Nokia E71 User Guide.  You can also get the guide directly from Nokia. Except for the undcoumented features mentioned above, the User Guide covers everything about the phone.

I am not a Microsoft Windows user. Instead, I run Linux Mint, and a few other flavors of Linux, on laptops and netbooks. Consequently, I have never used the Nokia Ovi Suite to connect my laptop to the phone. Without any special configuration, I was able to instantly connect to the phone via a USB cable and bluetooth. I transfered all my photos and contacts form a LG Env 3 to the Nokia E71, without a problem. I do, however, recommend that you create an account on ovi.com to backup and edit your contacts. Nokia has a very flexibile contact file format, which requires some editing of the information transfered. To synchronize music with the Nokia, I use Rhythmbox.

The documentation does not make a clear distinctiion between exiting an application and hiding an application. When you exit an application, it closes the application. When you hide an application, it remains in memory and is still running. The grey circle on the upper right corner of the applications icon indicates that it is running. The easy way to see the all running applications is to press down and hold the home key for a few seconds. A window opens on the left side of the screen that shows the running applications, you can then switch to any open application from this window.

Suggested Applications

While I have not tested every application, I have tried a lot of them, and have some favorites:

• JoikuSpot is the only application that allows you to create a Wi-Fi hotspot. Unless you want a open Wi-Fi hotspot, I would suggest spending the $9,99 to get the version that allows you to create a secure Wi-Fi hotspot. What is great is that this application just plain works.
• While the Nokia browser does a great job, I recommend downloading Opera Mobile for a full featured browser. My one complaint is that the browser does not support the latest version of Adobe Flash.
• For Straight Talk, there is no charge of long distance calls within the US. However, if you are looking for a way to make International calls, Skype is a popular alternative. Skype to Skype calls are free. The one weakness is that the Nokia E71 version does not use the front camera. Skype is not available from the Ovi Store. You can down load it to your PC / MAC or directly to your phone.
• Nimbuzz is my favoritie social aggregation program. While I still haven't figured out how to use the front camera with Nimbuzz, it does have the neat feature of being able to take picture and integrate into the chat. I have test voice call on Google Talk and Nimbuzz, and both work. I am having a problem connecting to ICQ. Other than ICQ, I was able to link to all my accounts without a problem. Keeping the program active, does not seem to draw a tremendous amount of power.
• If you have a single Twitter account, then Nimbuzz is all you need. However, I have four Twitter accounts, and accounts on other networks. While I would like to see a Symbian version of HootSuite or Seesmic, I am not holding my breath. After a bit of searching, I found Gravity, which is good for Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, and FourSquare. While other social networks would be nice, I could solve the posting problem to multiple networks, if they had a link to Ping.fm. I am currently running the demo version, but will probably upgrade to the $9.99 version.
• For a super cool application, you should try Shazam. Have you ever wonder who sang a song, or the name of the song? If you ever have, you need to try Shazam. I tested on everything from Malt Shop to Spanish, and it correctly identitied every song. For an orchestral piece, it correctly identified the composition, but not the correct orchestra. Plus, it allows you to link to the YouTube video for the song. A fun app to test and to play with.
• ScreenSnap is the only application I could find that captures the screen. It works just fine.
• I actually prefer the native application for connecting to a Wi-Fi hotspot, but WiFiRadar provides a means to automatically connect to an open Wi-Fi hotspot. In areas with no publicly available Wi-Fi hotspots, it is a waste of battery power. It does cost $4.99, so you need to really think it is worth automatic connection to a network.
• With all the applications running, a smartphone requires anti-virus protection. There are a number of choices, but I finally settled on MobiShield. I really don't like application descriptions that fail to tell you that they are a demo, or what will be the final cost. It can be a great application, but I want to know what it will cost. I choose MobiShield, because I knew that this version was free, and what it would cost to upgrade to the professional version.

When selecting applications that aggregate multiple social services, you need to be aware that Yahoo and ICQ only allow a single login. I use Nimbuzz as my social network aggegation application and turn off those networks in Fring. One of the problems with Fring is that it readily displays the Yahoo disconnect message, but does not provide any manual method of signing into Yahoo.

Disappointing Applications

While future revisions may change my opinion, I rate the following applications as not worth the effort of downloading:

• While it aggregate a lot of social networks, eBuddy Mobile Messenger has terrible messaging capabilities. Micro-messaging can be fast paced. In the default mode, I had to type each message on a separate screen, and then send the message before seeing received messages. In the in-line mode, I could not capitalize the first letter on a line, the backspace key did not work, and the return key did not work. It also seemed a bit heavy on power consumption, expecially when it could not link to a network.
• The shortest lived application on my phone was video chat(imichat). In my opinion, it is a poorly designed application.

Conclusion

I have not even touched on all the capabilities of the Nokia E71. As I discover more, and find more interesting applications, I will post more information. For the price, this is a smartphone that is going to be hard to beat.