I wanna buy me an E71

I still have my Nokia E61 but I have been stuck with the faulty LCD screen for almost a year now. My initial enthusiasm to use it primarily as a PDA has gone sour and now I simply treat the gadget as a calling device and for the usual SMS-basic functions I would otherwise be similarly served by a cheaper albeit outdated 3210. I accidentally dropped my E61 down the gutter somewhere along EDSA near Arnaiz Avenue last November '07 where it remained partially soaked in shitty rainwater for almost 2 hours before I hopelessly went back to salvage it and lucky was I cause there it was hanging by the edge clinging for dear life hoping not to fall down the shitty underground that is Metro Manila's sewage system. Since then the display has gone from BAD to WORSE. It doesn't help that the cold weather renders the display practically unreadable by producing streaks of white lines that scan from top to bottom. I know I should have just had it repaired but the time it got busted, repair would set me back by around 7k pesos. That was prohibitively expensive for me cause it was a shade above 1/3 of the phone price. I tried as much in my limited phone repair skills to come up with a fairly usable display without having to replace the LCD. I opened the case and blow dried the saturated components plus the LCD and while I was at it, I etched away some of the corroding elements which when left untouched would probably gobble up the PCB and the electronic components faster than I could say
" I'M CHEAP I WILL NOT SPEND 7k Php"

While it took some getting to use to, once I got the hang of tilting the phone in the correct angle, the scanning lines have become somewhat tolerable especially whenever I get to thinking about shelling out
7k of precious dough. I was able to learn how to adjust to the faulty display by doing some hand and eye gymnastics that in no time I was good using the phone and Im 7k Php richer-another way of looking at the glass half full

It's been a good 2 years since I bought the phone and now Nokia has released a third version-the Nokia E71. The improvements are mile high from my 2005 model but the ones that would perhaps earn immediate notice from the novice user are:

1.A faster processor: From 200Mhz to 369Mhz
2. Twice the RAM at 128Mb
3.An FM radio.
4. A camera with an LED flash, autofocus, and 3.2 Megapixels at that
5. Very slim form factor. One would think there is none inside especially when the
bettery is removed.
6. Kept the same old poweful 1500mAh battery.

some features which are not readily noticeable but which one will be happy to learn they have are:

1. GPS is built-in
2. No-Pop Port. Pop port interfaces are just seeking to get loose overtime.
3. micro SD card is readily accessible outside the phone(you have to open the battery lid in E61 but is hot swappable just the same)
4. Micro SD is maxed out to reach 8Gb(E61 can only accomodate 2Gb in expansion memry)

The trade offs are
1. Smaller screen.
2. Cramped up keyboard.

I went for the E61 because of the QWERTY keyboard. It didn't bother me so much that the display wasn't touchscreen and PDAs at that time were known for the stylus. But the advent of the intuitive Iphone interface has rendered the stylus passe. Iphone's capacitive touchscreen allows you to use your fingertips exclusively. With that in order, somehow I lost my envy over the intelligent looking stylus PDAs. And QWERTY is the dealbreaker/maker. So long as I have QWERTY im OK. I am especially fond of writing and keeping journals that QWERTY is not anymore a luxury but a must. Palm Treo offers both QWERTY and touchscreen but Palm OS is one sneeze away from becoming passe. There is Palm with windows mobile though, but it is very hard to find in Pinas and I stopped entertaining Palm treos when I soon realised I'll not be in good company owning one cause, just based on my biased account, there seems to be a relatively few following of PALM treo users in Pinas. The outdated OS, the lack of built in WI-FI card in majority of their units, and their not being a PHONE manufacturer(the phone function is compromised), that just got me veering away from PALM Treos.

If there is another choice which can muddle my affinity towards E71 it would have to be HTC and the gamut of PDA phones it has using the rather user friendly Windows Mobile OS.