After a fortnight with my new Nokia E71, I realized that there is a lot of feature addition possible with basic features. Despite of the E71 being feature rich, it has a great number of issues with basic functionality. If you know Pareto’s Law, these issues are in the 20% of all applications, which are used 80% of the time. I have listed down these issues in my ‘After a week with my new Nokia E71’ post, have a look. Here are a few suggested/missing features…

1. Ovi Maps should also show Bus Stations, Toll Plazas. Setting up maps should be simplified and wild-card search should work.
2. In Messaging, there is no prompt when the SMS length exceeds 1 page (160 chars). This can be a configurable option.
3. Default option like ‘Close’ should be available when working with drafts in Messaging. Right now you need an extra click to select whether you want to Save or Discard the draft. 6600 has the close option that would auto-save.
4. There are several letters on the QWERTY keyboard which can be loaded with shortcuts to characters; at least brackets to complete smileys in messages. The Treo keypad has brackets.
5. The phone is configured with long-key shortcuts like New Contact, New Calendar Entry, etc. However, once these are customized, they cannot be reverted because these are not available in the list of programs.
6. The Profile timing feature available in several low-end phones has been missed out.
7. The hands-free provided is extremely cumbersome. Every time one has to use it, great amount of time is lost in untangled the wires. The 6600 boom head-set was very convenient with a shorter wire. However, it is not compatible with the E71 🙂
8. It is high time that Calendar & Contacts be integrated. Isn’t it a fair thing to ask for Birthdays & Anniversaries to automatically show up in Calendar?
9. PC Suite has no way to save Anniversary date in Contacts.
10. Folders in Messaging cannot be viewed through PC Suite.
11. The Metallic Body picks up finger prints & scratches too soon. Also, the metallic portion of the lanyard scratches at the base of the phone (the microphone panel).
12. It is difficult to distinguish the Low-Priority icon in To-Do from the High-Priority one. At that resolution, they both look same. Either color them, or try different icons.
13. Pressing a key when the phone is locked, cause the back-light to flash. The back-light should only be turned on after successfully unlocking the phone.
14. In the converter, there is no way to save names for the Currency. How can someone refer to them as Foreign, Foreign,…?
15. Ovi can synchronize groups & contacts online. Downloading the app to phone and synchronizing over GPRS is a costly affair.
16. Ability to Extract messages to TXT or CSV file using PC Suite.
17. In Contacts, icons can be assigned to various fields/labels and also the layout can be optimized to show more data up-front. There is a lot of gap between fields now.
18. Battery ‘Charging Complete’ message can be similar to Nokia 5130. This will help created eco-awareness. Also, once should be allowed to set a tone to play on charging completion.
19. Can messaging (optionally) not start directly in ‘Inbox’ or the ‘Tabbed View (Inbox-Folders-Drafts…)’? An extra click is wasted each time. New Message has its own shortcut and you don’t need Settings every day.
20. The music player in its attempt to scan all files also picks up MP3 ringtones. Is there a way to stop it from scanning certain folders? Marking them hidden won’t help as this way the ringtones will become unavailable for use.
21. Charging the phone via USB is a must-have!

I just hope someone, somewhere is going to make note of this 🙁