New phone help... E63, E71, or ?

C

chris_w1lson2

New member
Okay, I'm trying to help a friend find a new phone. We just added unlimited messaging to our family plan, so now she wants a phone with a keyboard.

She's not a fan of T9, or touch screen keyboards, although she likes touch screens for other things. She currently has a PDA with a touch screen and physical keyboard and she'd like to find something similar in a phone (although the physical keyboard is more important than the touch screen).

Her primary use will be as a phone. 2nd priority will be texting. 3rd priority will be gaming, but just simple stuff like backgammon or bejeweled (nothing fancy, just basic time wasters).

She won't be doing much web surfing, but she may occasionally want to look something up or check her email. The camera is not important (she has a real camera, and any camera will be an improvement over the crap camera her current phone & PDA have).

She's looked at the AT&T Samsung Impression and likes it, but I wanted to offer her some unlocked, non-branded options. I showed her an E71 and she liked that as well, but was not too thrilled with the price.

Looking at the Nokia E63 & E71 they seem pretty similar. From what I can see in the specs, the difference seems to be the camera, and 3G vs 3.5G support. The E63 is significantly cheaper, so what makes the E71 worth the extra money (or is the E63 a better value for someone looking for the best bang for the buck)?

Thanks for any information or insight you can offer. And if anyone has suggestions for other phones we might want to look at, we'd appreciate that as well. Preferably something in the $200 range, although $300 is not out of the question (if she really likes it).
 
for basic tasks like texting and calling , why are you conidering smartphone ? isn't it waste of money ?

that said , E63 can be a good choice , i heard that it is available for around $150. its a very good phone for that price. its hard to find even good featurephone at that price.

E63/E71 have one of the keypad in market(along with E51)
 
E63 a better option for her IMO..cheaper but every bit as good as phone for calling, texts and photos (some say camera is better on E63). She can surf the web on either one using wifi or a data plan.
 
Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.60 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.14320/538; U; en) Presto/2.2.0)

E63, hands down, although the e71 is a show stopper, the only real differences are 3.5g (she says she does limited web browsing), a volume rocker (actually more important than one might think, but not 100 dollars more important), and no 2.5mm jack(haha this is actually a reason NOT to choose the 71)

Try amazon because their return policy is a lot more lax than say , newegg, and she could always exchange the device if she doesnt approve
 
I use the E71, and just ordered the E63 online for my wife. She will use it exactly the same way as the OP's friend, except she will be reading and sending email daily as well. Not tons of email - maybe 6 to 12 emails a day. Will the 3G vs 3.5G be a problem for her?

TIA.
 
I'd say or.....

I love my E71, it's a great device. But the screen size is just too small. It's actually quite annoying.
My next device (don't know what the hell that will be) will have at least a 2.8" size screen.
 
Yeah I would suggest the E63 also. My wife uses her E63 the same way (phone and text only).

@ Ambull: 3G is fast enough for email. I was stuck with EDGE only in the past (T-Mobile & S60v3/v5 phones) and had problem with emails or web browsing. However web browsing was slow except when I used Opera Mini.
 
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