Hurrah!
I was planning to get myself a iPhone, but after reading its features, and realising it does not work well with Linux (yes, I know about jailbreaking, but that does not satisfy my needs), I decided to give it a pass. Though, I do see many kids using the cool device, as it started selling in the area where I live.
To cut the story short, I need to get a phone that has at least:
- Has HSDPA and WiFi feature.
- Good mail/browser apps.
- GPS
- Able to emulate as a dial up modem for my laptop to surf net.
- Must work with Linux out of the box. No jailbreak or hacking of any kind.
- Can be used as an USB drive (you never know how handy this is, when I need to support my users). Easy for me to share files with other phone or PC.
- Has a wide range of add on applications.
I think, iPhone has 1, 2, 3 and 7, but it does not do well with 4, 5 and 6. After some shopping around, I notice Nokia E71 fit these requirement nicely. So, here I am, using this phone and really enjoying it. It is amazingly responsive (compare with my old SE P1i, which I used it to trade in for E71).
The only few annoyances are:
- I can’t encode a proper video file (using mencoder) and play it on the E71. I done some googling on this, so far, no luck.
- The multi-tasking feature of the phone may render some component not working until I restart it. For example, sometimes, it would complain the camera is being used by another application, but I just can’t find which application causing it. This can happen even when there is no task found in the task/opened application list.
For converting videos you can use Super Converter by http://www.erightsoft.com
I use Super Converter to convert the videos for my Nokia E61i, and then use DivX Mobile Video application to view the movies, or you can even use Core Player to view videos.
With ”Core Player” mobile video application you won’t need to convert the videos and you can even view .mpg videos directly from your phone.
Cool!
I will check them out. Thanks for the advice.
[...] Lenrek writes on his blog about his decision not to buy an iPhone, but to go for an E71 instead. [...]
I think there are “refresh handles” on the firmware that need to be reworked.
Very interesting article, i bookmarked your blog, thanks for share
How did you get the E71 to work as a dial-up modem? I have been trying to do that myself and just cannot seem to make the connection. I am trying to connect a ThinkPad running XP3.
Thanks,
Leo
For dial up modem, you can either use USB data cable (set the Phone to PC Suite, not storage). It should show up ttyACM0 as the serial port. From here, configure the system to use this serial port as the dial up modem port.
However, this is a HSDPA phone, so you need to make sure you have the proper subscription for your mobile plan.
Lenrek:
Thanks for the quick response. I am trying to use PC Suite, but I don’t get ttyACMO as a port, I get Nokia at Com 7.
I don’t have a mobile plan for the phone. What I want to do is occasionally use my phone to get to my dial-up ISP when I am not near a landline. Why wouldn’t that work? I can call my ISP number and hear the modem tones fine, I just need to get my laptop to hear them.
Thanks,
Leo
COM7? You are using Windows?
Since you are able to detect the serial/com port, and able to make simple call to verify the modem is working, what did the dialer complain when it attempt to dial to your ISP?
Yes, it showed up in my modem list as at com7. I’m using Win XP3.
I tried the dialer software for my ISP and directed it at the Nokia modem, but kept getting a “Connection Error” display on the phone. It wasn’t dialing out.
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Leo
I think, it may have been blocked by your mobile SP.
EDIT: I remember something. Can you check “Menu”->”Tool”->”Settings”->”Connection”->”APN Control”. Please make sure the restriction is not activated. If it is restricted, you need to get the PIN from mobile SP to unlock it (At least, that was how I got my phone PIN).