Nokia E71: How much do you sacrifice on the multimedia front?

Judging by the Eseries and Nseries segmentation, it almost seems as if Nokia wants you to have both an Nseries device for Multimedia and an Eseries for work related tasks. For most of us however it will come down to just having one device that will have the difficult task of juggling both business and multimedia duties. One of these devices is of course the new and popular E71, which obviously shines when it comes to productivity. Until that magical device comes along that harmoniously does both business and pleasure, going Eseries means giving up on some of the multimedia performance and features. Yes, I know the E71 is a business device, but people still use it for multimedia consumption and creation, despite of what Nokia wants you to think.

For those of you looking to get the E71 and want to use it for both business and pleasure, this post is just for you! Let’s try to answer the following question: When it comes to choosing the E71how much do you loose on the multimedia side of things?

To answer this question the E71 will be compared against the obvious multimedia kings: The N95 8GB and N82.

Imaging(N95 8GB images first)

More megapixels doesn’t always mean a better camera, but the N95 8GB’s 5 Megapixel with it’s extra pixels (compared to the E71’s 3.2megapixel camera) means extra room when it comes to cropping.

During the day the N95 8GB is way ahead of the E71 when it comes pictures, but surprisingly the E71 does fairly well despite its business roots. Why is the N95 8GB ahead? Due to better dynamic range handling, better color accuracy and detail. The N82 is way ahead of both. In other words, the N82 is a camera replacement device, the N95 8GB can double as an emergency camera while the E71 has a bonus camera.

In low-light conditions the gap widens even more due to the E71’s lesser flash and noisy pictures.

On top of that the E71 lacks the N95 8GB’s Sports Scene mode. And while the E71 does have both the Single and Burst shot options, it lacks the 10 sec, 30 sec, 1, 5 and 10 minute interval shot timer. Other things missing on the E71 is the ability to set the Sharpness and ISO.

Video

The E71’s 320x240 video resolution at 15 fps is a dramatic step down from the N95 8GB’s 640x480 at 30 fps.  The lower frames per second means video that won’t look as smooth as the one on the N95 8GB. Frames per second aside, the higher res video will look better and less pixilated on high resolution screens or monitors.

Music

The E71 lacks that handy 3.5mm audio jack, which basically means not being able to use your own earphones (fans of expensive In-Ear-Monitor should look elsewhere) or plugging your device to portable speakers or speakers systems with an auxiliary 3.5mm audio jack. The audio quality on the E71 isn’t on par with the N82 and N95 8GB and way behind the N81 and N91. You could always use the a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter but that beats the idea of having a built-in, no-adapter solution.

When it comes to the built-in speakers, the E71’s top-mounted single speaker is loud, but isn’t as loud as the N95 8GB’s potent stereo speakers you’ll definitely hear the lack of the stereo effect.

Taking a look at the Music Player and you’ll see that most things are left intact expect for the lack Visualization effects on the N95 8GB and the option to set the currently playing song as the ringing tone.

No TV-out

With it’s out of-the box office editing options, having the TV-out function would have ideal for quick notebook-like editing with a Bluetooth keyboard or Powerpoint presentations. But for Multimedia it means no sharing of video and pictures on the big screen or just about any mobile related task you can think of including web surfing, chatting and Youtube.

No UPnP/DNLA

No UPnP means not being able to wirelessly connect to the ever growing list of UPnP/DNLA devices like the Playstation 3, Digital Video recorders, Audio-Video systems, Network attached storage systems, PC’s/Notebooks,  DVD players, Blu-ray recorders/players, Digital cameras and printers to send and receive digital media.

No Accelerometer

No accelerometer on the E71 means not being able to use those cool Shake application like ShakeSMS or FlipSilent or even getting that automatic screen rotation like the one on the N82 or N95 8GB.

No N-Gage

The E71 is still blessed with S60 goodness being able to install many native or Java apps, when it comes to N-Gage you are pretty much out of luck.

No Hardware accelerated 3D graphics

With the lack of the OMAP 2 chipset found in devices like N95, N93 and N82, the E71 lacks hardware accelerated 3D graphics which. With rumors floating around that 3D accelerated  graphics coming to N-Gage, we might see a performance and Graphics qualiry and effects gap between devices with and those without 3D acceleration.

Conclusion

Answering our initial question, the E71 lacks a lot in the multimedia department in the case you plan to use it as your main device. But I guess this is expected, especially in the case of camera and video performance. But not having things  3.5mm audio jack, TV-out and accelerometer are in my opinions BIG omissions and should be in any high-end Nokia device, whether it’s an Nseries or Eseries.

But, in the E71’s defense there is no denying the exceptional built-quality and QWERTY keyboard that simply cannot be matched by the N82 or N95 8GB. Another trademark feature of the Eseries which the Nseries lacks is the out-of-the-box editing features provided by Quick Office. Or what about those one-touch shortcut keys? Other things worth mentioning are the Active notes, the new Mode switcher, Speech text reader, enhanced Contacts version, Enhanced Calendar, Dictionary, to name a few things. Last but certainly not least, the E71 menu speed is way ahead of anything I’ve seen on the Nseries.

Comments

[Vidhya]

Thanks a lot. This article really helped me choose my device!!

[Rafi]

Do you want to sacrifice uPnP function? as per http://www.thenokiaguide.com/my_weblog/2008/02/playstation-3-n.html

For me, I dont think so.

But, when seeing beautiful e71, anybody can falling in love.