Nokia E71 first impressions

I've been playing with my loaner E71 for a couple of hours now and I am finding myself loving the experience. The E71 is the QWERTY version of the E66 which I've reviewed previously. Apart from some minor changes inside (lack of accelerometer, much larger battery) and the form factor, it is practically the same device. As with the E51 and E66, the built quality is excellent with its lovely and tough stainless steel body.

The keypad is stunningly usable, much more than those virtual keyboards I've tried on those touch screen-only devices. Almost immediately I found myself accustomed to the keypad, typing out messages with far less mistakes and far quicker than I did when playing around with the Blackberry Storm and Apple iPhone. The only QWERTY devices I've reasonable experience with were the XDA IIs (HTC Blue Angel), XDA mini S (HTC Wizard) and XDA Exec (HTC Universal). All were excellent devices with excellent keypads, but I personally am finding the E71's keypad to be offer better response, tactile feedback and accuracy.

Look out for my review once I have installed a couple of favourite applications and have more time with the device.