We found that the operating system was the phone's biggest hindrance, as it made accomplishing simple tasks a challenge (and sometimes an impossibility). To give one example: setting up and cusomizing a mailbox took too many steps, and we only had the option of downloading headers automatically, not the entire messages.

That means we had to wait 30 seconds every time we clicked on a new e-mail, which was a pain. The e-mail app also doesn't synch your mailbox, so old messages stay there even after you delete them on your computer's mail application, an annoyance that the Sidekick also suffers from. Plus, automated e-mail checking stopped working halfway through our testing. We were forced to delete the mailbox and start again.

The phone also includes GPS, which works both by receiving info from GPS location data from satellites and by checking for nearby Wi-Fi networks. We found it especially slow to get our position. While you can rely on it for area maps, you'll need to pay extra if you want genuine turn-by-turn directions. That service sets you back $13.96 per month or $125.77 per year.

Phone service was always strong in our testing, although we found the data transfer rate to be unreliable. We liked that the text-to-speech service, which can read aloud messages and more, can also read aloud the names of callers as long as they're in the phone's address book. The voice is robotic, and it's fun and creepy to hear it announce callers.

If you're taken by the camera's boast of a 3.2 megapixel lens, think again. The megapixel race isn't doing consumers any good, as manufacturers often squeeze more pixels into the same space but reduce their effectiveness to grab light. Photos from the E71 were a little grainy and dim. There are plenty of 2 megapixel phone cameras out there than take better pictures.

You'll get a couple helpful extras in the box, including a USB cord for transferring items to and from a PC, a set of stereo earbuds with a compact microphone, and a handsome slip case (handsome, but not as useful as a belt clip).

The E71 doesn't deliver any knockout features for its price, but it's loaded with communications options and it's extremely comfortable to use. If you're a fan of the Symbian OS, this could be the model for you.