I would HIGHLY recommend the E71 model. Even though low finances play a role, I have been using my E71 for the longest of all my devices so far. It's portability, slim profile, fast qwerty, sufficient speaker and camera make it a goldmine.
After a few months, my E71 has adopted many uses for me: phone, PDA, music player, camera, internet, email, word processor, GPS tracker, 3G bluetooth modem, and alarm clock.
To this day I am impressed with the Nokia Sport Tracker app. I still use it along with my iPod Touch/Nike Sport Kit on my 5 mile runs and sync the E71 with my online Nokia Sport account.
I have absolutely no worries about keeping my E71 and MacBook in sync, for Missing Sync for Symbian does it automatically via bluetooth without fail.
When I go out to public hotspots that happen to fail, I have the advantage of using it as a modem for internet access. The speed is not always wi-fi fast, but is dependable and better than no access at all.
With a 16GB microSD card, this serves as a music player on the go for music transfers from my Mac or podcast episodes from the Nokia Podcasting app.
Honestly, I am so pleased with my E71 setup that I really haven't been impressed by even the N97 or the Palm Pre. My documented affinity for the E90 has been long forgotten, and I have not one regret. I would not be surprised if I end up staying with my E71 for the long haul.