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E71x coming to AT&T. Nokia fans run like Hell!

Boy Genius Report is…  reporting that AT&T stores across the US are receiving the AT&T branded E71x.  The hardware looks to be the same as a normal E71, so the world is wondering how the X will differ.

There has been some speculation that the E71x will have Feature Pack 2, an upgrade to the E71′s FP1.  This would be a welcome upgrade, as FP2 supports Destinations to order your access points, WebDAV support for remote drive mapping, and easier multitasking.

As a long time Nokia fan, I’m obviously excited to see Nokias available in carrier’s stores.  Here in the US, T-Mobile is the only carrier with any Nokia love, and it’s mostly  the lower end devices.  Metro PCS, a lower-end prepaid carrier, also only stocks lower end Nokia devices.  Sprint and Verizon offer perhaps own or two Nokia flip devices, but it’s nothing to get excited over.

Unfortunatly for Nokia, AT&T has a history of ruining Nokia’s firmwares.  I’ve used an AT&T branded N75, N76, 6650, and E62, and the AT&T “upgrades” severly degrade the experience.

On AT&T branded firmwares, when an application tries to stay connected to the internet, the user will receive a popup every couple minutes asking for the access point selection.  VERY ANNOYING.

The AT&T branded devices also take over the most useful Symbian hardware keys on the keypad.  Imagine using a Nokia without the Symbian key for multitasking, or the pencil key for selecting.  Making matter worse, AT&T insists on mapping the hardware keys on the keypad to it’s own degraded Mapping and IM apps, and disallows key remapping.  This takes a lot of the Smart out of a smartphone.

In addition to the annoying non-standard Nokia keys, AT&T firmwares also included degraded versions of applications that YOU CAN’T UNINSTALL.  Sure, it’ll support Google Maps, Palringo for IM etc, but your still can’t uninstall the crappy (!) AT&T versions of these apps, which sometimes require extra monthly payments.  Sorry AT&T, I don’t want to pay for your apps, better free ones are available.

Another complaint I’ve seen around the internet is on AT&T’s pricing of the E71x.  Starting out at $199, it’s only $100 less than the unbranded/never-locked/lovely E71′s internet pricing at around $300.  I don’t think the pricing is a big deal, as I’d guess AT&T will drop it to $150 in a month or two, and free in six months.

Any user that’s used to unlocked/never-locked/born free Nokias would be advised to carefully consider is the $100 cost savings of the E71x is worth all the added annoyances over the $300 E71-NAM.  My recommendation is to do what the rest of the world does : Buy the unlocked device you want, and pop in your own SIM card.

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