The BenQ Siemens E71 appears to be yet another desperate attempt to breath some life into the company, with no consistency with the range of handsets. Every handset is totally different, which makes it difficult for consumers to relate to the brand - unlike for example Nokia, who have a core brand,  complimented by non-traditional handsets.  It has to be said that the handset itself does look the part, polished black surface, fashionable rounded design with dimensions of 104 mm x 46 mm x 15 mm and weighing in at a very light 80 grams.  The phone is very easy to carry whether slipped into a pocket, or a bag - you will hardly know that it is there.  One drawback is the polished “glass” like surface which holds dirty and fingerprints a little too easy - a small point but unfortunate.  The phone itself is supported by a 730 mAh battery offering some 390 hours of standby time and 6 hours talk time (towards the top of the current range in the market). This is complimented by some 17.5Mb of memory available to store your information on the handset.

As with most “Candy-Bar” designs, the BenQ Siemens E71 is dominated by the TFT display screen which measures some 31 mm x 42 mm, offering pixel resolution of 240 x 320 and supporting a variation of some 262,000 colour combinations.  While the handset itself offers a shiny black finish, it is a little surprising to see that the display screen holds up very well in direct sunlight, which can be quite rare in today’s market.  Offering 8 text lines and 3 service lines, the screen gives a little more detail than many of today’s existing phones.

The BenQ Siemens E71 supports all of the main messaging formats, including SMS, MMS and Email, with the capacity to attach rather large files to your MMS and Email messages. The mandatory T9 predictive text software is preloaded, although this can be switched on and off for your preference.  The MMS facility ties in nicely with the 1.3 megapixel camera which offers the opportunity to take still photographs, or video clips on the move. The camera itself offers a number of pixel resolutions, up to 1280 x 1024 with 5 zoom options.  While by no means the best camera on the market, it does a job even if it is nothing sensational.

As well as the above functionality, the BenQ Siemens E71 also offer music facility, personal organiser, etc.  It seems a shame that this phone may have come too late to save BenQ Siemen, but while the parent company continues to pursue all different options, there may be a chance of further releases.  This is by far the best offering from BenQ Siemens, although if it had been released a year earlier, it may have had more of an impact on the company’s fortunes.