Nokia E71

It's been almost 2 weeks since I had my new device, although trying to get the device after I upgraded was almost an impossibility. After a week and a half of numerous calls to the upgrade centre I was advised by the call centre agent that if I did not like the "service" I was getting I should consider moving to Nashua Mobile! Fortunately Lizette at Altech Autopage came to my rescue and had it delivered within a day of my call to her. Thank you Lizette!

Putting that all aside I have to say that this is probably the best handset I have ever used! I have had everything from Nokia, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Imate, HTC and in those variants I have had the priveledge of having various models so the base I'm working from is quite solid.

What impressed me initially about the device, is the form factor. It is sleek and sexy, fits into your hand comfortably and just screams capable!

I thought it would take me some time to get used to the menu structure as I have been a loyal Sony Ericsson fan for many years now however to my surprise I had the device configured and working within a very short space of time - with no hiccups.

The software works - I have not experienced any hanging what-so-ever, and literally as you click on an icon the application opens. This for me is a big issue, as I am the most impatient person on this planet - so when something works as I expect it to it's a major thing.

WiFi - is also a really big thing for me. I'm not a techy and with my lack of patience sometimes find myself beating inanimate objects to death when they decide not to cooperate with my expectation. Having experience with WiFi on my PC and believe me it has not all been pleasant - ask Telkom help desk - I was blown away by the simplicity of connecting to my WiFi network. I honestly thought it could not be that easy - either that or my lengthy calls to Telkom have taught me something I may not have realised I knew.

The keys - some people may battle with them at first however coming from the Sony Ericsson M600i which has up to 4 functions per key - I'm finding it an absolute pleasure

The GPS is a bit of a misnomer for me - I use a Garmin Nuvi normally, so this feature is not of primary concern, however it does take a while to access the satellites and I have not quite tested it yet due to the response speed - but still, if you consider what you are getting in the sleek and slim package - it's incredible!

I enjoy the active note application where you can link notes to a call - very clever.

The camera is not great but that's ok because I don't want a camera as a phone.

As far as being able to personalise skins - there is not much to go with although I have not been online to establish whether there are downloads - suffice it to say the standard skins work ok - for now.

Everything works - Email was also a breeze to set up, I mean normally I would have called our IT technicians in to do the job. But in this instance it was as simple as 1,2 3.

In a nutshell this phone is functionally everything I could want for managing a mobile maketing business. It caters for a full multimedia experience, delivers the goods on all fronts and gets a BIG thumbs up from me.

Full specifications can be found here and additional in depth reviews can be found on Paul Jacobsons' site as well as Johnothan Greene's review.