By Damian Koh
16/06/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39050603,62042738,00.htm

Nokia may have ended speculation on its QWERTY candybar E71 and slider E66 today, but ever wondered how the new Eseries devices look like compared with their predecessors? We happen to have both the E65 and E61i at the same time to give you this quick and dirty hands-on. The lighting conditions at the event weren't perfect for photo-taking, so just bear with the noise in the images until we get the proper units into our Labs for a thorough rubdown.

First up is the E61i on the left and the E71 on the right. As you can see, the E71 has a much smaller width compared with the E61i. If you are wondering whether the smaller-sized keyboard will affect typing, the answer is yes and no. It will take a little while to get up to speed with the new keyboard, but the good thing is it comes with built-in auto correction, so that should minimize typing errors until you get used to the QWERTY.

Here are two shots of the sides.

One from the top. Notice the width of the E71.

Unlike the E61i, the keys on the E71 don't have any space between them. Like we said earlier, it takes a little while to get up to speed on this QWERTY, but it's not going to affect its use by much.

Now we move on to the E66 on the left and the E65 on the right.

The side profiles.

From the back. The E66 has a steel back casing that may invite fingerprints, but that's something we can live with. At least for the time being.

Both devices open, showing the conventional numeric keypad.

Here's the group shot. Starting from left, the E66, followed by the E65, E51, E71 and E61i in order.

And we round off our visual hands-on with shots of the top and bottom edges of the phones.