The Nokia N70 aims to try and bridge the gap between the business class smartphone with something you'll be happy to place on the bar next to your pint. Firstly the N70 is now a useable size measuring 09 x 53 x 24 and weighing just 126 grams, it's a smartphone that's been on a sensible diet. Its style is best described as professional chic but some may say it's only part way along its evolution and you can still see the slabiness of the outgoing Nokia 6680. Good use of materials makes the N70 feel good in the hand and the silver bezel around the large screen focuses the eye.

This slightly dubious design is due mainly to Nokia wanting to get a good screen and also a useable keypad on the front of device without resorting to sliders or flips. The only side action on the Nokia N70 is the cover for the camera on the rear of the handset, but we'll get to that later. The 262k colour screen has a respectable resolution of 176 x 208 and its clever ambient light sensor means that the N70 can adjust its backlight so you should always get the best view in all lighting conditions. To see the power of the backlight you'll need to take manual control in a dark room and use the screen as a torch, it's very powerful and there are a number of freeware applications which allow you to do small tasks like this easily on the Series 60 platform.

The keypad is well laid out and oozes quality to the touch, the feel is very positive and the little joystick seems much better constructed than that found on the SE k750i of which we have seen numerous returns for failure modes. Perhaps our only slight quibble on ergonomics is that we kept nudging the "2" key when using the joystick as they are quite close together.

Having a combination of a good screen and an ergonomic keypad is key to a business smartphone as most of the features are going to actually be used rely on data input. The Series 60 Symbian platform brings with it a now familiar range of PIM functions including email, pocket office and ability to read PDF documents, all the features that anyone who travels frequently will need. Connectivity is also a key factor in deciding on a phone for business, here the N70 scores well on almost every count, firstly it a Tri band 900/1800/1900 and also WCDMA 2100 MHz 3G compliant phone giving near global coverage and also access to both GPRS and 3G data services. Local connectivity relies on either Bluetooth 2.0 or Nokias own proprietary Pop Port which is in effect a USB 2.0 connection that should be quite speedy, the only physical connection missing is IR which has been dropped.

Our main gripe is that the N70 doesn't have WiFi and that the reduced size MMC card slot isn't well positioned to allow any external form of WiFi card to be used, assuming you could find one that would do the job! The RS MMC card slot is filled with a 64mb card as standard but will expand to at least 512mb should you wish to spend a bit more, this is probably necessary if you intend to use the multimedia features at all as the internal memory is just 32mb with around 21mb free for your own use.

Then we finally get to the N70's improved photo capabilities, the 2 mega pixel camera integrated in the rear of the handset is certainly powerful and manages to take good images providing lighting conditions are ok. Move into some darkened corner at a party and the feeble LED lamp fails to lift the gloom and all you get is noisy poor quality images. While the guts of the camera may be similar to other Nokia models the N70 lacks the Carl Zeiss lens of the N90 and this shows in the clarity of images especially if you use it close up to the subject. So not quite time for estate agents and car dealers to ditch the digital camera for the N70!

Music on the move should be the right of every stressed executive and Nokia have bundled its music player with this phone but sadly a combination of the limited space and poor quality headphones limit its usefulness. We tried to swap the headphones to see if they were (as we expected) the cause of the below quality replay but Nokia have not provided a real 3.5mm jack so you have to use their headphones.

There are some nice new touches including an FM radio now essential given the small N70 memory, it also supports visual radio where additional data is downloaded alongside the FM station you are listening to via 3G or GPRS, nice but no use in the UK yet! The dedicated media key is a good idea and one we found ourselves using a lot to get to the gallery application to retrieve images or play music and there is also no need to go into the menu to take a photo as there is a dedicated shutter button.

Battery life is respectable if not stunning by Nokias standards, the Lithium Ion battery will keep you mobile for around 12 days and a smaller than expected talk time of just 3 hours. A shock was that Nokia have changed their charger socket, for as long as we can remember all Nokia phones have used the same plug and so someone always has a Nokia charger!  But not for the N70 the socket is slimmer and while there is of course a charge provided, none of your old Nokia chargers will work, we'd have preferred Nokia to have shifted to mini USB if they had to change.

During a week of solid use we found that the RF performance and general phone features worked very well and lived up to the Nokia name, the menu system can seem a little sluggish at times especially when in the media gallery but this is not a major flaw.

Overall the Nokia N70 feels very much like a kevved up version of the 6680 and that's probably because its just what it is. Sure its a bit lighter and has a good camera and some other extras but fundamentally its still a bit of a slab and fells like it is playing at things other Nokia models do better. Its not as good as the N90 for imaging or the N91 for audio replay and then when you see the N80 is coming with all these features a 3.0 mega pixel camera and WiFi the N70 starts to look like a stop gap.

The Nokia N70 is the face lifted Ford Escort when the new Focus was only a month away, a good solid model that will server you well but if you can wait the new model will be more to your tastes.

Published - 04/02/2006

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