The Nokia N71 was introduced at the Nokia Mobility Conference which was held in Barcelona, Spain in November 2005.
Unusually for Nokia at the time, it was a clamshell design. It the company’s first Symbian clamshell smartphone, although the dual hinged
Nokia N92 was unveiled at the same event. The very first clamshell phone offered was the
Nokia 6131 feature phone.
It was relatively ugly design despite Nokia referring to it as being an “extremely attractive foldable and nice-to-hold 3G device” that would be viewed as “trendsetter in the mobile world."
At launch it cost approximately €400.
In August 2006 a customized version of the N71 was made Nokia for Vodafone’s K.K. network in Japan. It was marketed as the Vodafone 804NK. This was the fourth model Nokia provided to Vodafone K.K. Previous models were the
Nokia 6680 (Vodafone 702NK II) which became available in December 2005, the
Nokia 6630 (Vodafone 702NK) which became available in December 2004, and the
Nokia 6650 (V-NM701), which was added in August 2003.