The Nokia E71 cell phone stands out for its efficient design. The package is carried out in red and white, and the handset is displayed. It's easy to recognize the Nokia E71 by its full QWERTY keyboard, the metal/aluminum coating and the slim design. Standard included together with the Nokia E71 are a battery charger, a headset, a pouch, a software CD and the users guide. The sleek back of the cell phone looks somewhat scratch-prone, however, it doesn't seem too bad, although sticky fingerprints are left behind on it constantly. Other than that, the cell phone has an attractive appearance.

The E71 met most of these requirements. It's got a decent music player, a built-in podcasting client (so I can download podcasts directly instead of going through my desktop PC), and it's even got an FM radio. There's a third party software app called JoikuSpot which uses the 3G connection and the WiFi in the phone to turn your phone into a mobile hotspot so you can surf from your laptop. When I tried JoikuSpot, it kept dropping the connection, so I can't say that was the perfect experience, but I'll keep trying.

The metal body, QVGA screen, and keyboard combine to make a similar device design to the Treos, BlackJacks, and BlackBerry models we are familiar with, but this design has some flair to it. To quote a friend, "it doesn't look like any BlackBerry I've ever seen."

As a combination of hardware and software, Nokia's E71 is one of the best featured smartphones we've seen this year. Indeed, smartphone hardware advancement is reaching a plateau with most of the phones in this category featuring a very similar combination of HSDPA data speeds, Wi-Fi and A-GPS connectivity.

The USB connector is one of those still fairly rare micro b connectors, and sadly, it can't actually charge the device, which I find a huge missed opportunity. My previous phone did support charge-over-USB, which always came in handy when I was at a friend's place, without my dedicated charger, and an empty battery. It might be a limitation of the micro b port, I don't know. Going around the device, there's a headphone/headset port (non-standard), up/down buttons, charge plug, the USB port, and a micro-SD slot. On top you'll find the speaker and the on/off/profile button.

Where the E71 really impresses is the raft of included software tools. Like Windows Mobile, Nokia's Symbian Series 60 operating platform has enticed hundreds of developers to create a wide variety of interesting and useful third-party applications, but all too often this software is tucked away on the internet. Browsing the pre-installed software on the E71 is a very pleasant experience with discoveries like pre-programmed voice-commands, a business card scanner, a QR barcode reader, Windows Live and Yahoo Go messaging clients, a dictionary, measurement converter, plus several more.