Jørgen Sundgot snuggles up to the Nokia N70, the latest stab at a do-it-all smartphone from a certain Finnish handset maker. Bells and whistles abound - but what about substance?
Review summary of the Nokia N70:
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 Despite being an otherwise excellent handset, the Nokia N70 struggles to measure up as a business phone mainly as a result of its inability to properly work with documents - for which its keypad and medium resolution screen are to blame. Poor synchronization capabilities further worsen matters, yet there is no denying that the N70 hosts excellent document viewing software, as well as rock-solid connectivity, good battery life, the ability to easily expand memory and a 2 Megapixel camera which delivers impressive results. Add an adequate brower, and you have yourself a decent 3G phone. Release: October 2005. Price: $430.
Pros: Pretty much everything; 2 MP camera; speaker independent voice dialling
Cons: Steel bezel scratches easily; minor keypad issue
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Full review of the Nokia N70:
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By now, we're certain Nokia has sold about a bajillion smartphones - and posesses more than the lion's share of this particular market. Still, the Finnish maker continues to churn out new models like there's no tomorrow, and the Nokia N70 is its most recent addition. Separated at birth, it and the 6680 share the vast majority of their specifications, which - if you've read our
earlier review of said device - is far from a bad thing.
Well hello, good lookin'
More or less a dead ringer for the 6680, one of the main things which separates the N70 from its predecessor is the aesthetics, which have thankfully been considerably improved. At 109 x 53 x 24 mm and 126 g, it's now not only compact but also a pleasure to behold with its classy looks and stainless steel bezel surrounding the screen and keypad.
The 262K colour screen is of the usual Nokia variety and is as such excellently crisp and clear with its 176 x 208 pixels. Users are certain to appreciate the adjustable brightness which ranges from pitiful to torching, and an ambient light sensor provides the finishing touch. Praise also befalls the keypad of the N70, which sports a comfortable backlight for all the right buttons in all the right places and sizes - providing excellent tactile feedback and very muted audible feedback. Of particular note is the new media key - more on this later. We do have one minor gripe, however: the '2' key is a tad too close to the bottom of the five-way navipad.
There are other improvements over the 6680, as well. Take the RS-MMC card expansion slot, for instance; no longer does its lid rely on a fragile plastic hinge, but rather a sturdy rubber hinge. Then there's the cameras, and although the front-mounted 0.3 Megapixel one remains unchanged, the back-mounted one has been upgraded to 2 Megapixels and delivers impressive image quality - although not on par with
the Carl Zeiss-toting N90. As with the 6680, however, the included LED flash doesn't yield particularly good results - yet on the other hand, both video recording and video calls went without a hitch.
Does this seem at all familiar to you?
As with the 6680, the N70 plays host to a range of connectivity options, at the base of which lies tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900 MHz connectivity along with WCDMA 2100 MHz based 3G. As always, legacy support is present through support for CSD, HSCSD and Fax, although Infrared has (rightly) been dumped in favour of a comfortable selection of profiles for Bluetooth 2.0. For those with a need for speed, there's also the option of USB 2.0 via the proprietary Pop-port connector of the smartphone.
As we've come to expect from Nokia, voice quality and signal reception proved outstanding in the N70, and we're thrilled to see Nokia finally introducing speaker independent name dialling - which performed expertly except for an expected decline in recognition in increasingly noisy environments. Furthermore, the loudspeaker mode works very well indeed, and battery life proved exceptionally good despite heavy 3G use; a couple of days and in some cases more could easily be squeezed out of this particular smartphone.
Another little nugget has also been added to the N70 in the shape of a stereo FM radio, letting users tune in to the airwaves should their onboard music collection be stretched thin - a quite likely scenario given the 30 MB of internal memory found on the N70. Granted, it's a sorely needed upgrade from the 10 MB of the 6680, but between this and a bundled 64 MB card for the RS-MMC expansion slot of the N70, there's no reason to start fantasizing about the out-of-the-box experience.
Making it all tick
Fitted with the usual assortment of Series 60 applications, the N70 shares both the strengths and weaknesses of so many of its predecessors on the software side. With general performance being snappy, the smartphone impresses with high quality PIM and messaging software, also adding a very apt suite of productivity applications in the Microsoft Office compatible Quickword, Quicksheet and Quickpoint trio as well as an Adobe Acrobat viewer. As with the 6680, the N70 also runs the 3rd release of Series 60, and as such incorporates an e-mail client supporting scheduled retrievals, the subscription of IMAP subfolders and a range of attachments including .ZIP files.
Another feature first witnessed in the 6680 is the very welcome transformation of the standby screen into a more functional area with the inclusion of a line of application shortcuts and a list of upcoming calendar appointments.
New as of the N70, however, is the dedicated media key on the keypad which takes users to the Gallery application to provide quick access to images, video and audio content. We find it a handy usability addition, but since viewing remains a bit of a chore due to screen estate constraints and listening quickly wears down the battery, we're slightly amiss as to the benefit of this. Also, potential owners should note that the audio player is far from as capable as that found in the
Nokia 3250 and
Nokia N91 music smartphones.
The usual drawbacks remain, however, with local synchronization of PIM data towards Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook not only being partial but also an agonizingly slow and cumbersome process - a problem that, incomprehensibly, has not been addressed since the introduction of the 7650, Nokia's first smartphone, over three years ago. Proper built-in support for over-the-air groupware synchronization could to some extent have mitigated this issue for business users, but as is it remains a royal cock-up.
Price and availability
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