Nokia N70 review

Sandra Vogel

It is not difficult to see why the N70 retains its appeal while other mobiles come and go with amazing speed. It is small, neat and easy to use. It has a 2 megapixel camera with the clever sliding lens cover that was used again in the N73.

The Nokia N70 may have been superseded by the new N73 but it remains a solid 3G smartphone which holds its own well

Nokia’s N70 is not a new handset, but it remains extremely popular. This despite the fact that it has been updated in the N73

It is not difficult to see why the N70 retains its appeal while other mobiles come and go with amazing speed. It is small, neat and easy to use. It has a 2 megapixel camera with the clever sliding lens cover that was used again in the N73. It is a 3G handset with a front facing camera for video calling, and its software internals are very strong indeed.

There is enough going on in this handset to make it a good phone for business use as well as for leisure and yet it is not a great burden in the pocket weighing just 126g and measuring 108mm tall, 53mm wide and 24mm thick.

The contacts database and diary can be synchronised with your PC and you get the cable and software you need for this. You can use the phone for mobile email and there are readers for PDF documents and for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint built in.

The screen displays 176 x 208 pixels, and is not as good for viewing complex information or Web pages as the newer Nokia N73 whose screen has more pixels and so can show more at one time, but it still performs well.

Meanwhile there is a music player and an FM radio on board, around 22MB of built in memory and a slot on the right edge for your own memory cards in RS-MMC format.

The main camera shoots stills at resolutions up to 2 megapixels (that is 1600 x 1200 pixels), and it has a 20x digital zoom. Starting the camera running couldn’t be easier. A lens cover sits along the full width of the back of the 70 and all you do is slide this down to reveal the camera lens. The main screen turns into a viewfinder, and you can simply point and click a button on the right side of the casing to take a photo. Slide the lens cover back and the camera software shuts down.

Ease of use is important with a complex phone and the camera operation is just one example of that in action. With a phone offering as much as this one, one person’s favourite application or function might be another person’s least favourite.

The good news is that there is plenty of opportunity for customisation, including configuring the two Selection keys, the Active standby mode and a dedicated programmable key which sits to the right of the 3 and 6 keys and is marked with a diamond shape. You can set it to launch whatever application or function of the phone you use the most.

If you want a more sophisticated handset then the more recent Nokia N73 is definitely worth a look. But the N70 holds its own well enough.