The N70 WCDMA/EDGE imaging phone is a smart and elegant imaging tool for real time visual sharing. In addition to MMS, e-mail, Bluetooth, WAP 2.0 (XHTML) browsing, and Java... more
A review by timboid on Nokia N70 November 18th, 2007
Author's product rating:
Look & Feel
Satisfactory
Durability & Robustness
Weak
Battery standby time
Poor
Value for money
Very poor
Range of features
Large selection
Advantages:
Hmmm . . . errr, large colour screen?
Disadvantages:
Too many to list - - read my review (if you have a spare hour)
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
Ok, so I might be about the only one to bad-mouth this phone, but I really think Nokia have conceived and constructed a dud with this model.
Facts first:
I don't actually 'own' this mobile -- it was the one that got doled out to all employees when the company changed network providers.
This was a replacement to the diminuative Nokia 6230 tied to the Orange network.
I am reviewing this phone mostly from a business-use perspective and not a recreational/personal ownership one
The Story: When we were all told that the company was changing providers, which meant new phones, I was kind of quite excited since we'd had these 6230s for about 2 years and there had to be some new swanky phones floating around by now that were sleeker, faster and had better sound/mic, etc. Some of the bods had complained about Orange not having a good signal when 'moving around a building' although with hindsight, I think it is far better than O2 which we are now on ... but that's a different story.
So, boxes arrived complete with car clip-in attachment.
First Impressions: "God, it's big". None of the "Whoa! Sexy! Cool 2mp camera!" comments I've seen around the web. And it's also fairly weighty.
Second thought was: "Oh, and 4 new buttons".
Third though was: "God, those buttons are SMALL!"
Description and problems: The LCD dominates the fascia and the dual, front-and-back cameras are clearly one of the must-have gadgets that gadgeteers love.
Immediately, I saw a problem with the slidey camera lens protector/on-off switch on the back. Not only was it flimsy and quite awkward to slide it into "camera on" position one-handed (particularly without smudging that nice big LCD with your thumb, or accidentally pressing one of the buttons - with your thumb), but because I often carry my phone in my trouser pocket (front or back pocket) when extracting the phone from said pocket (or even putting it IN the pocket), the blasted lens cover would often slide down, turning the camera on and wasting what little battery charge this phone can handle.
Oh dear. Already I was having doubts about this new wonder phone and I hadn't even turned it on yet!
Better charge up the battery first then...
Ok, now I'm going to go off on another one here because I just don't understand why a phone company, particularly Nokia, can't STANDARDISE on certain key components, like the size of the charging socket. It's not as if it takes up 10cm more space on a phone that's already busting it's waist line. So, the phone takes its charge from one of those super thin adaptor plugs; you know, the ones that look like a surgeon's needle. "Big deal" you might think, and it even came with a super-thin-to-standard-size convertor. However, remember I'm a business user and I often make calls on the go, in the car, at client sites, etc. So, naturally the phone needs re-juicing every now and then and it's not always the case that you have a UK 3-pin wall socket to hand to charge the darned thing. Thus, with the old 6230 which takes a STANDARD sized charging pin, I was able to buy a STANDARD car charger, and a STANDARD USB charger so I can charge my phone with the laptop if needs be. For the 6230, the wall charger remained at home, the car charger stayed in the car, and the USB charger stayed in the laptop case ... easy, huh? I could juice-up the phone whenever I needed as the situation demanded. Now, with the N70, I have to drag an EXTRA super-thin-to-standard-size convertor around and remember to either take it out of the car, or out of the laptop case. An extra 'thing' to carry around is an extra thing to lose as far as I'm concerned. So that's my bender on standardisation.
Right, so the phone is charged, the sim card's in and we're ready to rock and roll. Let's switch it on ... "Engage!" as Picard would say.
Hmmm. Where's the 'on' button? I must have pressed the ear speaker, the front-facing camera and the camera shutter button a dozen times each for varying lengths of time before the tiny round thing on the top (which looks like a black fixing screw) caught my attention. My fingers now have callouses where I've tried turning the thing on and off -- seriously! Now, I don't bother and just leave the damned thing on all day and night (for other reasons too -- see below if you can bear to read any more).
Ohh-kay. So, the phone is on and the mammoth LCD lights up with the Nokia logo, it fades, it lights up again, it fades, lights up... and it does this several times. After 30 seconds of nothing happening I turn it off again (with some difficulty I might add) and check and re-check that the sim is sitting in its slot properly and the battery is seated in line with its contacts, etc. etc. Turn it on again -- same thing. After another 30 seconds I turn it off once more and do the checking thing again. Turn it on again and then off after yet another 30 seconds of light-and-fade. "Darn it, " I think. "Must have a faulty phone."
I give up, switch the phone on one last time, throwing it on the bed, and head off for some dinner.
When I return, the screen is dark but it has something different on it! Crikey -- it's on at last!
Actually, I soon discovered that this so-called 'Smart phone' takes around 38-45 seconds just to switch itself on. Geeze -- it's like those good old Amstrad 8086 days when you stuck your DOS floppy disk (5.25 inch, for those of you who remember) into the drive and waited for the OS to boot up. Very painful is all I can say, and by now I am losing my rag with the phone somewhat. (Addendum: this renders the phone completely useless in an emergency when you NEED that phone switched on ready to dial that 112 / 999 number.)
I also discover that when the phone boots up in anything other than SILENT profile, it plays that goddamned Nokia start-up jingle at full volume -- you cannot turn it off like you can with the 6230 and probably all other Nokias. Well, there goes those times when you just want to switch your phone on without announcing to the world that you have a Nokia phone. The best solution is just to leave the thing on all the time. Or in my case, I'd rather just leave it switched off.
It can't get any worse, surely. It can, and it did.
To spare you the trauma of my life's story with this phone, I am merely going to list out (in no particular order) all the remaining things that I can remember that do not really do any favours for it:
* Once you switch the phone on and it's in its boot-up mode, it is darn near impossible to switch it off again without physically removing the battery.
* Although the Answer and End Call buttons are coloured (respectively) green and red, in the dark when back-lit, they both show as blue keys and are almost indistinguishable from each other or the other 2 'short-cut' keys above them. Not good if you're used at other types of phone -- you just can't tell which one to press to take the call or end it prematurely. Wonderful touch there, Nokia.
* The extra 4 buttons are pointless and serve to be one of the reasons why the KEYS ARE SO DAMNED SMALL (I will rant on about this afterward)
* The loudspeaker quality is absolutely pants. Good luck if you use it a lot like I tried to. There is so much distortion that you have to cover half the speaker in order to muffle the phone vibrations a bit. Yes, you read that right -- I actually have to cover the speaker a bit in order to counter as best I can the ridiculous distortion caused by crappy internal components/design. Turning the volume down is no good as you just get 'quiet distortion'. The alternative is to just leave it in 'Handset' mode and get microwaved to death -- again the audio quality is, shall we say, "audible" at best. Great. Kudos yet again, Nokia.
* Reception quality is far worse than the 6230. Now this could be a combination of Orange vs O2 coverage as well but I would bet money on the main cause being the phone itself. For me, it cuts out during conversation much more than the old phone, so I have adopted this awful habit of saying "yes, uh-huh, ok" to my recipient telephoner just so I can put an end to all the crackling, distortion and drop-outs in the call as quickly as possible. Generally not good for business/friend relationships.
* The user interface is totally counter-intuitive and departs radically from the good old 'STANDARD' Nokia menus most people can navigate blindfold. There are too many to list here but those 4 new buttons just help add to the confusion of which buttons you need to press.
* You can no longer use the numbers as 'shortcuts' to menu items. For example, on the 6230, I can press "Go To > 5" to get me straight to the alarm clock. Not so on the N70. You'll need to navigate through the 1001 different Windows-like folders and icons to get you where you want.
* Voice dialling: don't get me started on this. Each contact you have now has a 'synthesised' voice tag (in other words, it's based on the name of your contact and you can't record your own voicetag against a particular name). Pity then that it can't seem to recognise the word 'Home' (for example) and comes up with some other random person. This is particularly bad when it comes to dialling hands-free on the bluetooth widget. You have to keep picking up the damned thing in order to check it's picked the right person -- and strictly, this is now illegal.
* While on the subject of hands-free dialling, it took some 5 or 6 attempts to properly 'hook up' my existing headset (a Jabra BT200) to this phone. Although the 2 devices were paired, I could only accept incoming calls and not actually make any without physically picking up the phone, going into Contacts and finding the person I wanted. At this time, when I switched off the headset (you know, to save battery power, as you do) the N70 would also take the liberty to completely de-pair the device too. Gee thanks -- I really want to spend 1 minute each time I get in the car trying to get the blasted things to communicate with each other. Then one day, all of the sudden, it started working. I have no explanation to this day... I followed exactly the same on-off routine as per my old phone and ... well, I'm ranting again.
* Auto-Keyguard (to help prevent the phone from dialling random numbers when it's in your pocket): it hasn't got one
* Speed of operation: errr, sorry but the word 'speed' just doesn't come into it. You really have to experience this phone in order to fully appreciate how painfully, painfully slow it is to do anything. Press the 'Menu' button and you have to wait about 1.5 seconds for it to respond, press the 'Profiles' button (which I have programmed into the left selection key), same thing. Very occasionally, it'll respond in just under a second and I guess this might have something to do with a 'cached option' or something. Anyway, please note that this phone is SLOOOOW. Should you press a button by mistake...too late, you'll have to wait for it to go into that option and display it (which takes another age), then press 'back'. Should you even KNOW the menu structure and wish to navigate to an option quickly...don't bother. The key presses are not 'cached' (as such) in read-ahead mode. So either way, you lose: it's either too slow, or TOO slow.
(As an aside, my friend [who has a Nokia 6230i] thought his phone was slow -- and it is certainly slower than my 6230. I gave him the N70 to 'try' as he said he was thinking of getting one. After playing with it for just 5 minutes, he was more than happy to stick with his 6230i.)
* So then, on to these miniature buttons disguised as 'numeric keys'. You could say that unless you have dextrous, child-sized fingers, you are never going to be able to hit the right numbers first time. And by child-sized, I am talking sub-2-year-old ... seriously! I consider my fingers to be fairly thin and nimble; not skinny but not podgey. I also play guitar, so I grow my finger nails a little to help with string-plucking. This does not help, as your nails simply keep slipping off the tiny keys and make you press something which in turn causes swearing, shouting and curses.
So there we have it. Is there anything good about this phone I hear you ask? Well, a couple of the games are quite good and interesting, but ONLY if you can get your fingers to strike the correct buttons ... fat chance!
I didn't bother trying to set up all the internet and email facilities or load on all the myriad applications you can download onto it because I got so frustrating waiting for the darned thing to react to any of my button presses, there was no point. So I have reverted back to my humble 6230 -- small, light and compact, no fancy gimmicks, just good enough to make and take phone calls and do some quick texting.
Advantages: Its fab, stylish, looks and feels great Disadvantages: Can be slow to open applications, scratches easily
...decided to go for a Nokia N70 in January this year, for reasons of versatility over my existing Nokia 6230, stylish looks, more megapixels for the camera (2 mp), it was actually really difficult to get hold of. It's quite hard choosing a phone just from seeing a dummy one or reading the specs but this time I read a few reviews as well. At first they made me more confused - so is my review going to help anyone I ask myself?! I think they helped me ... ...for normal size MMC slots, Nokia stereo headset HS-3 (which twists itself in knots!), battery, travel charger AC-4, connectivity cable (USB), CD Rom, user guide and add-on application guide.
Initial thoughts
Blimey this is a bit different from the norm but I love it!! I like the grey/silver cover, the weight is fine - not too heavy nor too light (126g). It has a nice, bigger than average sized screen for pictures and menu options (main colour display: ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: 2 Mega Pixel Camera, Video streaming/calling and Visual Radio. Disadvantages: Crashes far too often, needs re-booting a lot
...with the phone.
1 x Nokia N70
1 x Battery
1 x Charging unit
1 x 64Mb RS-MMC Card
1 X U SER mANUAL
1 X Data CD
1 x USB Cable
1 x Ear phones.
Spec Details.Size 108.8 x53 24mm
Weight 126g
Display 262,000 Colours
Resolution 1176 x 208 Pixels
2 Mega Pixels
Video recording and Playback
Audi Playback - MP3, AAC
Connectivity - Bluetooth and USB
Internal Memory - 30 Mb
Memory Card Slot - Multi - media card
Games - Carddeck, Snowboard 3D ... ...264 hours.
The Nokia N70 is a 3G smart phone. The key pad has a five-way scroll key, two soft keys, an application key and a multi- media key.
The screen is a good size, but it does scratch easily. I bought a cover for my phone and this prevents scratches and also protects the phone should you drop it.
This phone has a 2 mega pixel camera, which makes the N70 a very powerful imagining device. It has a 20x digital zoom, and a choice of modes including ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Easy to use, does everything you'll ever need Disadvantages: Battery length and size of keys
NOKIA N70
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Every year, I receive a free phone upgrade through Orange, and this year I went into the shop not having a clue of what I wanted. I looked around at all the models available, and decided I would go for something that was more than just a phone, that could organise my life for me, and do much more. I ended up taking home the Nokia N70.
IN THE BOX
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Inside the box of the Nokia N70, you will find the phone itself, and a few other ... ...messaging system. Whereas on some Nokia phones you have to select different options to change between SMS and MMS (text and picture messages), this isn't so any more. You can write a text message here and it selects the type of message you need automatically. You can also read your unread messages, and check your e-mail if you have set that up on your phone. If you have 3 unread messages, a number 3 appears on your display next to the message icon, ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Everything from the camera right through to the mp3 Disadvantages: The amount of people who under-estimate it (not the phones fault)
...handy to have 2 extra nokia phones)
And you can get a better battery, though you probably cant use the back cover with it (e.g. the N-Gage QD's battery)
4. Not Enough Memory: Just buy another memory card lol - or you can get either "Stacker" or "Space Doubler" - Which are automated compressors, which compress your programs 5. Difficult To Navigate: This is generally a big problem to people who have just entered into the technology world. All i ... ...used to its immense features.
6. Slow Image Viewer: This only really happens in the gallery, and only once. What it does is build up little preview pictures called thumbnails. Once they are all there, it wont be so slow. There is also some pretty good image viewers out on the market too, and you can also use a file explorer (such as FExplorer) to open images.
7. Weak Front Camera: This is because its meant for video calling, and to put a 2mp camera ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: So many features! Disadvantages: Teeny tiny buttons. Plus the phone is quite bulky and heavy
...before the pin request). The Nokia logo comes up, and then onto your main display screen. Along the top is your signal strength, the clock, your network provider, and your battery strength. Then underneath there is like a 'mini menu', it provides shortcuts to your preferred features in the phone. You can, of course, change these shortcuts, or get rid of the menu completely (for examole, if you have a fancy wallpaper! The menu really gets in the way!),but ... ...chuffed as it replaced my mp3 player and my camera, giving me much more space in my handbag! Although the size of the phone made up for them! Its massive!! But overall, Nokia i give you 10 out of 10. I take my hat off to you :) :) :) ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: With great features Disadvantages: Phone loads slower when many files are stored
...NokiaN70 Music Edition
It was 3 years ago when I needed to replace my old mobile phone. I liked the design of NokiaN70 when I first held it so I thought I would be buying NokiaN70 too. Then I found out that NokiaN70 Music Edition was a little better and upgraded without compromising the look of the mobile phone that I liked and comes with 1 gigabyte memory card.
The Body
NokiaN70 Music Edition comes in a black color and keypad which weighs 126 grams and measures 108.8 mm in length, 53 mm in width and 21.8 mm in thickness. The big screen measures 2.1 inches with 262,000 colour support. The cover consists of the front, the upper backhead and the back cover. The back cover has sliding extension which reveals the back camera lens and the flash when slid downwards and hides them when slid upwards.
The black was too...
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...I have edited the review a bit after a comment by a viewer. Do let me know if I could do something else to make it better. :-)
I currently use a NokiaN70 and my review of the same is as follows:
I believe there might be tons of reviews on this product but having first hand experience about this device I decided to give my opinion of it. I like to start with the disadvantages first, just like I used to tell my dad my bad marks in school first, and then follow up with the advantages, ditto at home with my marks and I often ended up with a satisfied if not happy smile from my dad.
1. It is a very bulky piece, if you?ve seen one you?ll know. At least a lot more bulky than other pieces that my friends own.
2. It is a little slow operating piece, takes up to 3-4 minutes to process the music folder if you?ve got 30-40 songs stored.
3. It...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: music, camera, very good Disadvantages: none
...Product description:
NokiaN70 Music Edition is all-in-one music player. The NokiaN70 Music Edition gives you more music in your pocket. You can personalize your music with a choice of digital music tracks and press the music key for direct access to them. Also, use the music-optimized headset with remote control for easy access. With these enhanced music capabilities, this compact package has high-performance multimedia at its core.
i love music, i can listen music wherever i want, just play it, with only bring this phone cell in my pocket, very simple.
i think that, nokian70 is very easy to use, even for me the newiee who use phone cell with high technology, also i love record everything i love around me, like my family, my laptop, the graphic quality is very good....
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Messaging / Data Features: XHTML Browser, PDF support
Ring tones
Polyphonic Ring Tone Voice Qty: 64
Ring Tone Formats: MIDI, True Tones
Manufacturer's product description
The N70 WCDMA/EDGE imaging phone is a smart and elegant imaging tool for real time visual sharing. In addition to MMS, e-mail, Bluetooth, WAP 2.0 (XHTML) browsing, and Java technology, the device features two integrated cameras, 2.0-megapixel back camera and VGA front camera with two-way video call and real time video sharing application. The N70 imaging phone is suited to both business and mobile lifestyle applications.
Multimedia features
Playback Digital Video Formats: RealVideo and RealAudio (RealMedia), MPEG-4, 3gp, H.263 video and AMR audio
Downloadable Content: Audio files, video files, themes, games, ring tones, screensavers, wallpapers
Security features
Phone Lock: Yes
Keypad Lock: Yes
SIM Card Lock: Built-in
Restrict Access to Phone Book: Built-in
Organiser
Alarm Clock: Yes
Calendar / Event Reminder: Built-in
Reminder: Built-in
Calculator: Basic
Digital player (recorder)
Supported Digital Audio Standards: WAV, AAC, Real Audio, AMR, MP3
This product has not yet been reviewed. 
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