E71 to replace E51/iPod?

Breezer

I'm currently looking into a few options to replace my E51, which I love for the most part, but which has a couple of problems. The biggest of these are battery life and media capabilities.

The E71 seems to have the best battery life of any smartphone I've seen, so I reckon I'm sold on that one.

So the second thing I'm looking for is media. I know E series aren't strictly for media, and I'm not looking for something to replace a camera or anything. I basically want a music player and photo viewer that don't crash when I have over 8GB of stuff on the memory card. At the moment on my E51, I have just under 4GB of songs and pictures (mainly songs, I think I have less than 50MB of pictures actually). I had to use eAAC+ compression to achieve this, which isn't ideal for me since iTunes on my Mac can't cope with it. The Nokia music player can handle this (it couldn't handle my 8GB of AAC and MP3 though), but the Gallery application simply won't open with this amount of stuff on the card. For photo viewing, I got around this by installing a separate app, but doing lots of other things (changing ringtones etc.) is still extremely difficult.

I'd like to be able to use the E71 as my main music player, replacing my iPod, so having fully functional music and gallery apps that can cope with 8GB+ on a 16GB card is a deal breaker for me.

I'm also considering the iPhone and the N97, but they're very expensive and I prefer the E71 overall. Can anyone recommend the E71 based on the above requirements, or would I be better off looking at the others?

Thanks.

Davy

The E71 will only support upto a 8Gb card. For a 16gb you are looking at a 5800 which is Xpress music ofcourse, or the n97 as you mentioned. The 5800 is half the price of the 5800 though.

Breezer

Thanks Davy. I know it only officially supports up to 8GB, but I have heard reports of the 16GB working with it, and that 8GB was simply the largest card available when the phone came out. Which is why I'm asking here; I'm really looking for user experiences rather than official figures.

My E51 only officially supports 4GB, but I have the 16GB in it right now, and apart from Gallery it's working fine. I can access the files using File Manager without any hanging whatsoever.

EDIT: Yep, I'm pretty sure that's not the problem, since Nokia lists a 16GB card as being compatible with both the E51 and E71 on their accessories pages.

Ron DMC

Can't say for sure if the 16gb card is supported on e71, I've only gone as big as 4gb myself.
No major problems with the media player or gallery, my only major gripe is the lack of dedicated media hardware buttons.
I'd also recommend looking at alternative music players. LCG jukebox is quite nice I think.

Breezer

I may just wait for the E72. It officially supports 16GB, has a faster processor, more RAM, and seems to be pitched as more of a media phone than the E71 (well it has a 3.5mm jack anyway!). Pity it doesn't look as nice as the E71 but meh.

Thanks guys.

whiterebel

Davy wrote: »

The E71 will only support upto a 8Gb card. For a 16gb you are looking at a 5800 which is Xpress music ofcourse, or the n97 as you mentioned. The 5800 is half the price of the 5800 though.

Thats a good trick, Davy.....where can I get that deal?:pac:


OP, have a look at the 5800 as Davy says. Nice, easy to use Media card slot at teh side means you don't have to take the back off constantly to change cards. Great screen, really good sound as well. Harder on the battery being a touch though. Must admit my E51 wasn't that hard on the battery

Breezer

Thanks for the advice. I've had a good look at the 5800 before though, and I'm really not interested in it. I wasn't impressed by the build quality or the responsiveness of the screen. I'm really not a fan of touchscreens in general to be honest (I know I talked about the N97 and the iPhone, but it's not the touchscreens that are attracting me to those, believe me).

I'm gonna try a faster card in my E51, and if it works I think I'll pick up an E71 or E72 when it comes out.

Davy

Clearly i meant half the price of the n97 you smartass