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
Display: Active matrix display
Supports up to 16M colors within 352 x 416 pixels
Up to 6 lines (Latin) in message viewing. Two display modes: portrait when flip is closed, landscape when flip is open
Zoom enables enlarged view of content in office applications and the browser
Price: 489.35 to $594.95
At first glance the Nokia E70 doesn’t look like a PDA phone at all: It’s an unassuming candy bar-style handset, with a smallish 2.1-inch screen and a tiny numeric keypad. But flip the keypad up, and the E70 reveals its charms-namely, a unique and very roomy QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is split in two, half of it on the right of the screen and half on the left. When the unit is open, the screen automatically changes orientation from vertical to horizontal.
When closed, the E70 is about the size of an average cell phone-measuring 2.1 by 0.9 by 4.6 inches (width by depth by height)-but slightly heavier, at 4.6 ounces. Its shape is somewhat ungainly, though, because a large hinge included for opening and closing the keyboard makes holding the phone next to your ear somewhat uncomfortable. Overall, audio quality is about average, and dialing with the miniature buttons on the keypad can be tricky. Talk-time battery life in our tests was quite impressive, at 9 hours, 52 minutes.
At heart the E70 is a fairly standard S60 3rd Edition Eseries smartphone, with the full set of PIM and Enterprise-focussed applications, including the new S60 Office suite and licensed versions of Handy Expense, Zip Manager and WorldMate. See our E61 review for all the gory detail of the platform, hopefully most people reading this will know the drill by now - S60 3rd Edition is slicker and prettier, with better support for different screen sizes, but has a slightly more limited range of third party software available (though in practice this mainly means less games). The display’s impressively high resolution at 352 by 416 pixels and all S60 screen elements are nicely drawn and smoothly finished off.
The first thing that went through my mind was how boxy and brick-like the E70 looks. The Nokia 6820 had smoother curves and sleeker lines, though it was just an S40 phone, without the high tech gadgetry featured in the E70. The flip on the E70 is very square and has sharp edges. The plastics used for the phone also felt cheap, and did not match the high price tag slapped on the phone. However, the phone was solidly built, and I experienced no creaks or squeaks.
The kicker comes when you open the device up. As you’ll have spotted from the pictures, the numeric keypad lifts up and over the screen in ‘gull-wing’ fashion, creating a two-part qwerty keyboard that’s surprisingly useful. The ‘flip’ hinge is very sturdy indeed and the keyboard locks nicely into the flat position, ready for holding in both hands and thumb typing. As soon as the keypad is lifted, the display starts to change, and after a couple of seconds delay the S60 interface appears again but this time in landscape mode, as appropriate for keyboard text entry.
Key features:
Full keyboard and wide, high-resolution color screen
Native email client (POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP)
Text messaging (SMS and MMS)
Instant messaging
Email attachment viewers (documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs and .ZIP manager) and editors (documents, spreadsheets, presentations)1
2.0 megapixel camera benefits businesses and industries by providing innovative ways to incorporate images into the everyday workflow
Organizer: contacts with images, calendar with accept/reject a meeting request, to-do list, applications synchronize with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes
Office applications: documents, spreadsheets, presentations (both viewers and editors) 1
Internet Connectivity: Nokia Browser, JavaScript™ 1.3 and 1.5 support
Car enhancements enable flexibility of communicating while on the road
Up to 64 MB of built-in memory provides high capacity for storing add-on applications, email attachments, photos and MP3 music files
Supports hot swapping - the ability to swap out one memory card for another without having to remove the battery
Ability to store 2 gigabytes of data with miniSD (secure digital) memory cards 2
Navigation:
Two soft keys with five-way scroll, power key can be used as profile key
Configurable right and left soft keys
Full keyboard with fold open design
List and grid menu
Active standby: Provides fast access to applications with 5 items user configurable
Symbian operating system OS 9.1
Series 60, 3rd edition
Connectivity:
Pop-Port™ interface
USB 2.0 full speed supported via Pop-Port™
Connect to a compatible PC wirelessly or with Nokia Connectivity Cable CA-53
Integrated infrared module (IrCOMM, IrOBEX, IrTinyTP)
Bluetooth wireless technology 1.2
Install applications with Nokia PC Suite for the Nokia E70 phone
Video and audio streaming (3GPP and RealMedia)
WCDMA (3GPP Release 4)
WAP 2.0
Multiconnectivity
WLAN connection can be shared by multiple applications at the same time. For example: email, browser and synchronization
Possible to use WLAN, Bluetooth technology, USB and infrared at the same time
Max 6 Bluetooth technology connections in use at the same time 4
