Ah yes, the E71 – truly a classic device. I don’t blame you for still using it. I still have fond memories of it and Straight-Six would still be using his today were it not for an unfortunate incident involving one two many vodkas martinis that resulted in his poor phone ending up at the bottom of a toilet.

But I digress…

Have you checked out our review of the E72, the E71′s successor? A die-hard E71 fan like yourself might want to consider that.

I still agree the Nokia e71 is the best phone ever built.
Having previously been a phone snob, upgrading at least once every 12 months, I have had this device since late 2008, have passed on several upgrades to keep it.

It’s taken some tweeking over the years, and it’s grown with me – it now has push HTML email (thanks to Nokia messaging) and home-screen social networking applications.
Its voice-guided Ovi maps is more accurate than my TomTom.
I can view and edit word and excel documents, update Twitter (using a Fabulous app called Gravity), upload pictures to Facebook, synchronise my messages with Windows 7 and my Macbook using a plugin, and still browse the web fairly eloquently using non-native browsers. I also use it to make and receive voip phonecalls when I’m in and out the office. It uses wifi when it finds it, and connects without fuss to 3g now I’ve told it to do so (through a little app called smartconnect). It’s small, light, fits discreetly in my pocket, and has never asked me for my credit card details.
Compared to the modern kids on the block, it is a little unrefined. The e71 camera quality is shocking, and the screen resolution is naff. I am blown away with the performance of the HTC desire. I marvel at the blackberry Bold, and I do also find the iphone 4 a nicely crafted little object of want.

But my little e71 has handled thousands of hours of phonecalls, millions (probably) of key presses, months of screen use. It has been switched on for most of its life, it’s been sat on several hundred times, spent time in a puddle, and dropped down a stone-cold Edinburgh tenement stairwell. A few scratches aside, it has refused to die. It’s still on the original battery.
Maybe next year I will replace it, but – for now – it’s still going strong.
Best phone ever made.