It’s been a while since we last heard news about the upcoming Nokia E71 that we’ve practically forgotten about it. Thanks to the very-so-reliable Boy Genius Reports, they’ve reminded us of its existence and they’re even lucky enough to land a unit of their own for testing and has come out with a hands-on review on this yet-to-be-released model.

After all’s been said and done, they’re pretty impressed with the E71 though the keyboard did provide some room for a little nit-picking as the small form factor of the phone meant downsizing the keypad as well. However, performance, according to them, was pretty good across the board. Based on the various images they have in their photo gallery, the E71 seems to follow suit in the iPhone-inspired chrome accent  design which makes it look like the lovechild of the E51 and the E61i. It probably got more from the E51 as it comes in an ultra-slim form factor which makes it the thinnest Eseries phone to come out with a full QWERTY pad. Feature-wise, it has a 3.2-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, HSDPA capability, Bluetooth and an SD card expansion slot.

Unfortunately, release dates are still yet to be announced. Oh well, this is probably why patience is considered a virtue.