Nokia N70 > Reviews (140)

Last Tuesday my Nokia N95 just broke. Literally it just broke, I woke up went to pick up my phone and it was dead, not what you'd expect from a £500 phone. But, it's gone in for repair and I've gone back to my N70.

Frankly I'm beginning to wonder why I ever wanted to change my N70. It's always been reliable and I've never had a single problem or fault with it.

The N70 is a bit of a "brick", but when I bought this phone I was working on building sites so I need something pretty robust. This is a good solidly built phone and the sort of quality we know Nokia are capable of producing. I would say that I've dropped this phone on the floor at least 100 times whilst I was at work. Yet everytime it has still worked, and other than a few scuffs and chips to the housing, there hasn't been any problems. Being a Nokia replacement housings where available easily on e-bay for just £5.00 so I replaced it around every 6 weeks. There are various coloured housings available for this phone so you can change the look and feel of the phone whenever you want. The housings can be fitted without any special tools, it's a very simple job.

The N70 has a diverse range of features. I find it very easy to surf the web on the phone. I am on the 3 network and can access e-bay for free from my phone. This was very handy when selling my junk as the phone made it very easy to check on sales progress without having access to a computer or even an wireless LAN.

I liked the MP3 player on this phone, though a good capacity memory card is definitely necessary. The loudspeaker is good and can be very loud. But above a certain level the sound is distorted somewhat. Video quality is good, but unfortunately the screen has a pretty low resolution so it's not excellent.

The phone has satellite navigation capability, but requires a bluetooth receiver. I didn't think I'd ever need the sat nav so didn't bother spending any more money. However I did on many occassions use the sat nav maps when trying to find new work sites. Providing you know the location you are currently at, you can look that up and try to plan your route using the maps. For this you don't need a bluetooth receiver.

The phone's camera quality of 2 megapixel isn't phenomenal but it does the job. It is put to shame by the N95's camera, but for my needs I didn't need anything better. The video quality was almost useless, but it wasn't something that I was ever going to need and was only really a novelty thing. But if you are looking for a phone with good picture quality and video quality this isn't the phone for you.

The ability to use MP3 files as your ring tone is a must have feature for myself. I assign different songs to different contacts which is easy to do and very helpful in quickly identifying who is calling.

You can play a wide range of games on this ohone. But to me this capability was little more than a gimmick. I played a preinstalled game on the train to work an wasn't overly impressed, but I guess you can't really expect PS3 quality from a mobile phone.

The sliding back that covers the camera is an excellent feature. When the camera is not in use, the lens is protected from damage and is kept clean from dust. Sliding the back down not only uncovers the lens, but also activates the camera.

The phone has good connectivity through bluetooth and seems to have a good range. Whenever I do a bluetooth scan I always seem to bring up at least one of my neighbour's phone's.

The phone does take a little while to load up. But once switched on, I personally never switch my phone off, so this isn't an issue. Battery life however is. I use my phone throughout the day and have to charge it overnight every night. If it doesn't get charged overnight for whatever reason, then the battery will runout by about midday.

The menu is easy to navigate, making the phone pretty simple to use. There are also shortcuts to certain features such as the MP3 player which are very handy.

Overall this is a very good phone. It had all the latest features at the time of it first being launched. It's still a great phone though does look slightly outdated. But it can be given a new lease of life with stylish new covers. Available secondhand for under a hundred pound I'd say it's a bargain!