E71 eliberation (long) — Nokia Eseries S60 3.1 Phones (2nd Generation: E51, E66, E71)

I have a love / hate relationship with my fifteen month old E71, which I acquired because I opted out of the BlackBerry 8100 or 8300 corporate scheme.

On the one hand, I like the E71�s form factor, build quality, web browser, keyboard, battery life, v300 firmware stability and the standard application suite (QuickOffice, Internet radio and the Podcast application). I�ve also taken to S60 Symbian very well (old PalmOS user).

On the other hand, the messaging functionality is poor. Mail for Exchange isn�t reliable. The standard email application doesn�t connect very well and doesn�t automatically download email bodies. Nokia Messaging doesn�t integrate well with the rest of the device nor support Mail for Exchange (attaching multiple images to a Nokia Messaging application, yeuch). Every so often my voice dial stops working and crashes the machine, which appears to be associated with Mail for Exchange and contacts synchronisation.

I use SmartConnect, but SmartConnect has never broken a connection via GPRS / UMTS in favour of an allowed WLAN when one is in range. This means that once I leave home, the E71 switches to the GPRS or UMTS network and when I get back, it doesn�t promote the connection to the home WLAN unless I manually disconnect and reconnect. I know how SmartConnect is supposed to work, but it hasn�t worked how I wanted it to.

Here�s a device that is otherwise perfect for messaging, crippled by poor messaging software, and it�s breaking my heart.

I have tried Profimail and I�m sorry to say that I just didn�t like it as much as I wanted to. It doesn�t integrate well with the device (this is a common theme), and whilst it works just fine, because of Mail for Exchange, SMS and MMS I still need to use the standard mail application. It felt just messy having two email applications.

In three months I�ll be due an upgrade. I was of a mind to stick with the E71 as I have seen an improvement over the last fifteen months, but then this week Mail for Exchange has bombed out three times on me, which I�ve found plain and simply aggravating. Then this morning my voice dial stopped working, so I have to revert to factory settings or factory reset to get that working again.

Am I simply expecting the world with a cherry on top? My E71 has been a superb device in most respects, but cannot do what should be the simplest of things. The E71 looks like an incremental upgrade with the same legacy issues, but otherwise some refinements. The BlackBerry 9700 Bold, although expensive, looks like the charm.

Like you I really like the E71 but have been frustrated with its poor handling of Email messaging, and I'm not at all impressed with the clunky nature of MfE's connections to our MSexchange server. I have also tried RoadSync, but it's not that much better, and it still means you have to have two or more messaging clients running on the E71.
I was really hoping that the E72 would be an improvement but from a recent AAS review, messaging appears to just as awkward as before, and not yet worth my money in terms of an upgrade.
If MSexchange compliant messaging is your number one concern, then the new Bold has got to be a better bet.
For now I'll stick with the E71, I like the open-source customisable nature of the Symbian OS, and most of the other things that it does -- but will keep hoping that eventually Nokia can produce a real 'Email' alternative to Blackberry