Camera Phone Reviews

Nokia E70 Smartphone

Technical Specifications:

General

* EGSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900 and WCDMA (3GPP Release 4) networks in Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific, North America, and South America where these networks are supported
* Automatic switching between bands
* Speech codecs: FR, EFR for WCDMA, and AMR for GSM

Size

* Weight: 127 g (with Nokia Battery BL-6C)
* Dimensions: 117 mm x 53 mm x 22 mm (closed), 102 cc
* Full messaging keyboard with fold open design

Multimedia Messaging (MMS)

Email and Messaging

Text messaging (SMS)
* SMS distribution list
* Concatenated SMS: Send and receive up to 30 messages as a single message
* Message register

Integrated camera and video
* 2.0 Megapixel camera
* Resolution up to 1600x1200
* Self timer function
* Sequential shot functionality
* Phone display used as a viewfinder
* Possibility to select image resolution, compression level and capture mode: standard, portrait and night modes
* 8x digital zoom
* Recording formats (encoding): 3GPP, H.263 video, and AMR radio
* Video resolution CIF (352 x 288), QCIF (176x144) or Sub QCIF (128 x 96 pixels)

From the news release:

Nokia Eseries models combine attractive and easy-to-use designs that appeal to individual business users with new underlying technologies that allow IT departments to effectively manage security settings, corporate applications and data. Each of the devices is designed to accommodate must-have mobile applications needed in today's business world like mobile email and advanced voice calling functions. The Nokia E60, Nokia E61 and the Nokia E70 will be available in the first quarter of 2006 worldwide.

The Nokia E60, Nokia E61 and Nokia E70 support today's most popular and newly announced corporate mobile email solutions like BlackBerry Connect, GoodLink from Good Technology, Inc., Nokia Business Center, Seven Mobile Mail, Seven Always-On Mail and Visto Mobile.

The new Nokia Eseries devices are built on the latest edition of the Series 60 Platform, the world's leading smartphone software platform. Series 60 3rd Edition together with Symbian OS v. 9.1 provide an identical application environment for the Nokia E60, Nokia E61 and Nokia E70. They include a variety of GSM frequencies and 3G (WCDMA) cellular network support for seamless roaming across different countries, as well as a range of local connectivity options such as WLAN, Bluetooth and Infrared and are USB 2.0 compatible.

The Nokia E60, Nokia E61 and Nokia E70 also feature superior voice functionality and quality when compared to other devices that combine PDA-like features with a mobile phone. The devices support advanced voice services, such as Internet (Voice over IP) phone calls, Push to talk, and other SIP-based rich call services giving businesses a variety of ways to make it easier for employees to collaborate or respond rapidly in or out of the office. Companies deploying an Avaya or Cisco IP PBX can connect the new Nokia devices directly to their corporate phone networks, enabling functions employees have come to expect from a corporate network like four-digit dialing and assisted call answering.

The Nokia E70: The all-in-one messaging device

At first glance, the Nokia E70 looks like a modern smartphone. Open it up and find a full messaging keyboard for fast and easy thumb typing, a generous color screen for viewing emails, plus attachments (document, spreadsheet, presentation, PDF viewer and ZIP manager) and an editing function (document, spreadsheet, presentation) for staying up-to-date with the inbox. Like the Nokia E60 and Nokia E61, the Nokia E70 supports a common set of applications like advanced voice and email. Nokia will offer two versions of the Nokia E70 - one optimized for mobile networks in Europe and Asia (GSM900/1800/1900/WCDMA 2100) and one optimized for mobile networks in the Americas (GSM850/1800/1900), yet both versions are able to roam in GSM networks across regions.

Nokia E70 Reviews

MobileBurn reviews the Nokia E70 and writes, "Unlike the E61, the Nokia E70 is equipped with a 2-megapixel camera. It is not of the auto focus variety, but it does its job well. The Nokia E70 can capture images at full 2-megapixel resolution (1600x1200), and in VGA resolution (0.3-megapixel, 640x480). The 8x digital zoom was pretty worthless, and I was quite surprised that the E70 did not make full use of its 2-megapixel sensor by cropping the image when zooming. ... Overall, pictures taken with the E70 gave surprising results, as they were quite sharp for a non-auto focus camera. If you are lucky, some of the pictures might be good enough for print. For a business oriented phone, this capable 2-megapixel camera is definitely a big bonus."

Infosync reviews the Nokia E70 and writes, "Call quality on the Nokia E70 was good, though sound was a bit dull. Noise was not an issue, on the street or in the office, and reception was always full strength. The robust address book outshines even the mobile Outlook; you get all the fields you could ask for, including fields for push-to-talk and video chat numbers. Conference calling is more difficult than it should be, with lots of digging in menus required to call a second number from your contact list. All in all, using the QWERTY keyboard to search contacts is always pleasant and intuitive, while the numeric keypad seems out of date by comparison. Though predictive text is available, it isn't as smart as you would find on a Blackberry Pearl or the Samsung SGH-T719, so you will probably find yourself opening the keyboard frequently."

ComputerWorld reviews the Nokia E70 and writes, "This device was seamless to use from minute to minute. Besides the simple Symbian interface, voice quality was excellent and I encountered no operating system lockups, not a trivial benefit these days as devices and mobile platforms become more complex. Navigating with the built-in joystick nub takes just a bit of getting used to but overall it is quite accurate and responsive."

PCWorld reviews the Nokia E70 and writes, "The phone has a full complement of entertainment features. The included MP3 player works perfectly well, but the built-in camera is the real standout. With 2 megapixels of resolution, it produced images that were easily the best in this roundup. You can store the ones you like on miniSD media (not included)."

CNET reviews the Nokia E70 and writes, "the E70 is equipped with a 2-megapixel camera with an 8x digital zoom and video recording capabilities. Editing options aren't as robust as we've seen on some of today's camera phones, but you do get a choice of two resolutions and three quality settings. You can adjust the white balance and color tone, and while there's no flash, there is a night mode, a self-timer, and sequence mode. We also like that there's an image counter displayed at the top of the screen to let you know how many more pictures you can take before running out of memory. However, as we always advise, you should store images on a miniSD card to free space on your phone. In Video mode, there are three resolutions available to you, and you can record in short or maximum length. Picture quality was good. Colors were rich, though lines were slightly blurry."