Having used an E71 on loan from Nokia’s WOM World for about a week now, I can say without reservation that it’s got the best QWERTY keypad yet in this particular variant of Eseries handsets. But why just tell you when I can show you as well?
Note that I’m using my dummy white E71 as a model here, not the actual black unit that Nokia sent me, only because it photographed better on this rainy fall day…
You may remember that Nokia’s first BlackBerry killer, the E61, won my inaugural QWERTY Smartphone Smackdown last year, narrowly edging out the Danger hiptop/Sidekick because it could be used with one hand.
As you can see the keys were nice and big, but compared with what was to come were a little too squishy in practice — that is, they had lots of travel without much tactile feedback.
The E61i addressed this with stiffer keys that gave a satisfying click when pressed. Squaring them off and separating them a bit also helped, as did adding more application shortcuts around the D-pad (and putting the D-pad on there in first place) but I actually found typing on my E61i a bit tiring after thumbing out a long document or email — especially in comparison to the much bigger E90 and even Nokia’s N95 8GB.
The diminutive E71 looked like it was set for disaster, with impossibly small keys jammed up right next to each other. But I’m happy to report that this just isn’t the case. With both longer travel and tactile feedback — that’s “squishy and clickety” in English — this is definitely the best keypad of the bunch. And despite being so close together the keys are curved vertically so accuracy is barely an issue. I’ve hit ‘w’ instead of ‘e’ a couple of times but I can be a pretty sloppy typist when I get excited. And given that you can hold and use an E71 in one hand much more easily than its forebears I don’t think anyone will mind the smaller keys.
The E71 has reminded me how much I depend on text entry, and I honestly don’t I could go back to a T9 device. Or in other words, I’m buying one.
Andrew Currie 
7 responses to “Nokia E71: Evolution of a QWERTY Keypad”
You should compare the E71 with the Bold. It has a fantastic keyboard. Perfectly clicky and solid.
[…] Andrew Currie has posted on his blog about the development of the QWERTY keyboard on mobile devices, and thinks the E71 is the pinnacle of the evolutionary process. […]
I’m not familiar with the keyboards on the E61 or E61i, but I definitely agree with you that the keyboard on the e71 is very nice–definitely my favorite compared to all the other devices I’ve used (Blackberry mostly–7510, 7520, 7100i, 8700, and 8310).
[…] Andrew Currie – E71 and the evolution of Nokia’s Qwerty keyboards […]
Hi AC. You’re absolutely spot on about E71’s keyboard. I’ve also had the same experience 🙂 Enjoy your E71! I was also planning to get a E71, but I want a good camera too, so N95 8GB or N82 is also on my list. Lets see which one I end up getting 🙂 Thanks for the kind comment on my review.
I really like the feel–the snappy feel and responsiveness–of the Nokia E71. If I wasn’t such a brick communicator, I’d upgrade to an E71.
The one thing missing in your blog entry is the size of your finger tips 🙂 I’m a proud owner of an E61i but have hesitated from the upgrade because of the key size and the size of my fingers as a major reason.