The E71x was released  some months ago as an exclusive version of the classic E71 by AT&T. The E71x has some improvements over the old E71:  Feature Pack 2 was added together with a slightly improved keyboard made out of a more rubbery material than in the E71. The E71x is an interesting device, and here at the E71 and E71x blog we are bringing you the review, only this time it was written by someone who doesn’t have previous experiences with S60, in fact, not even smartphones.

But before the reading the review by the first-time-user, I have some things to say. First: I opened the device and turned it ON for the first time. What I saw was just horrible, AT&T did everything on their power to customize the E71x as much as they could; the result is a hideous interface together with useless AT&T apps, all the ”Nokia beauty” was removed,  not to mention that it looks pretty confusing and generally frustrating. But luckly for the noob reviewer, I know a thing or two about Nokia phones; I installed a very good looking theme by tehkseven and organized the menus more logically and user friendly, if I wouldn’t have done that, the noob reviewer would have been totally lost in a chaotic and very useless interface, courtesy of AT&T.

Unlike the E71x, the latest device in this series is exclusive to T-Mobile, as you can read in the Nokia E73 Blog.

This issue is a big concern over the E71x for first time users, the AT&T customization really brakes the phone. But that is all I can say about the E71x as the testing was made by my friend, Elias. Here are his thoughts:

To start off I would just like to say that I am not a Nokia fan boy and I don’t know much about phones but, compared to other phones I’ve had the E71x is by far among the best. It has lots of small features that make it very customizable. With all that said this phone is still not perfect, this phone definitely has flaws and one of them is big.

The great thing about this phone is the depth that any Nokia fan will be able to enjoy. There are literally thousands if not hundreds of thousands of applications that you can used to customize and personalize the phone to perfectly fit your preferences. For the rest of us who only use the internet, texting and calling features in the phone this is still a great phone. While the depth and customization is there you don’t have to take advantage of it, you can just use the regular features without the having to get too in-depth or to learn how to work the more advanced features that the phone has. One of the in-depth features is a listen feature for text messages. With just the knowledge that this feature exist, you should be able estimate the amount of applications and features that have been created to make the phone as easy to use as possible. Esthetically this phone is very beautiful; it has a steel frame which gives you a feeling of actually holding something that isn’t going to fall apart in 5 minutes while also being one of the thinnest smart phones available.

The phone wasn’t all good though, the flaws, while few, make a big impact in my opinion about the phone. The biggest flaw this phone has is the keyboard. When I got the phone I immediately noticed that the keys were really close together and that they are very small. These two things combined made it extremely hard to type a text message quickly. I would accidently type the wrong letter or two letters at the same time. The only time that I had no problem with the keys was when I was standing perfectly still and even then I had to use the very tip of my fingers in order to not mess up. If I walked around while typing I started to make mistakes and for those reading this that text while driving you should know that it will be impossible to do so without making lots of mistakes. You should also stop doing that since it is dangerous for you and others (my mandated public service announcement of the day). Some people have told me that you grow to get use to the small keyboard and that after a couple of days they no longer had a problem. I’m the exception to this rule, I had it for about 2 weeks and I still had problems writing a message without making mistakes the last day I had it. This phone really didn’t have any other large flaws, the other things I call “flaws” are just things that I’m not used to. Any person that has had any of the newer Nokia phones should be used to the things I call “flaws” already.

This is a great phone despite of its flaw and if you’re not a big on-the-go texter you should completely disregard everything I’ve said and buy it. It’s a great smart phone if its primary user is a business person. After rebate this phone cost only $99 with a 2 year contract. If you’re a business person whose main mode of communication is calling other people and you have AT&T you should go right now and get this phone, but if you’re not all these things this phone is still extremely good. If your main form of communication is texting, however, you should consider finding a more texting friendly phone