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However, the E71's real strength is that it manages to remain speedy and include HSDPA data support, while retaining decent battery life. And where most HSDPA capable phones I've used give up after around two days of light use, the E71 just keeps on going, and going, and going. You'll easily get three and, possibly, four days of light use out of a single charge from the phone's 1,530mAh lithium polymer battery - a truly impressive feat.

But enough about the hardware, what about the email support and document editing? Well, and by this point you're probably not going to be too surprised, the E71 isn't exactly shy and retiring on that front either. As well as POP3 and IMAP accounts, which are an absolute doddle to connect to (the E71 impressively defaulted to IMAP when I asked it to connect to my Gmail account), the E71 now includes Nokia's Mail for Exchange email client by default, so you can connect to Microsoft corporate email accounts and receive push email over the air, sync contacts, tasks and calendar info.

Opening attachments shouldn't be too much of a problem either, with viewing and editing support for office documents via a copy of QuickOffice (no support for Office 2007, though), PDF files and a ZIP utility as well.

There are some disappointments: there's no longer support for BlackBerry Connect, where this is available for the E61. I would not be at all surprised if this was not remedied before too long once the clamour for it rises to deafening levels. And you still can't charge Nokia handsets over USB - which is a pain.

Verdict

The Nokia E71's minor niggles are quite simply swamped by its positive attributes. It's a beautifully engineered phone, with great looks, slim build and fantastic ergonomics. It has wonderful battery life, a superb screen, effective GPS and fast mobile data.

Better than all that, it's reasonably priced. In fact the only major thing I can see wrong with this handset is that I'm going to have to hand it back to Nokia. All I can say is: please don't take it. Please!

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