Update on E71 Reception Issue

This is just a short post that is a follow-up on yesterday's post on the E71 cellular reception problems. I had a lot of running around to do today and spent very little time in the office. This gave me an opportunity to test the E71's reception in a number of different locations. It is clear that if the signal is weak to begin with, holding on to the E71 from the bottom and covering up the antenna, will cause signal degradation and possible loss of signal. However, if the signal is strong, this is not a factor. In a strong signal area I even held the E71 against my body and the signal did not degrade. Therefore, reception should not be a major issue. If you are in a strong signal area you will not notice any signal loss, no matter how you hold the phone and if you're in a weak signal area, you can reduce reception problems by being careful in how you hold the phone.

I continue to be impressed by the speed of the E71 and web browsing is great. The screen is a good size for viewing web pages and is very bright and clear. I also love the upgraded calendar and contact applications. VoIP is similar to what I observed on the E66. It works fine with Truphone and Sipgate but Vonage is giving me a few problems. However, as I said in my review of the E66, I really believe that this is a Vonage issue. On a final note, I had lunch today with one of my colleagues who is participating in the "collective seeding" real world test. His main device is a Blackberry but he had previously used an E62. He was very impressed with the improvements made in the native web browser, saying that it was "quite good". This is pretty high praise as he operates an Internet company and designs and maintains web sites.