Nokia E70 review: Folding typewriter

Obsessively fine

Nokia E70 has a very good keypad (numeric) but there is no point in talking about it when the phone offers such a fantastic QWERTY keyboard, right? Anyway, to summarize in one sentence, the numeric keypad is very well elaborated and will suit you fine, just like any good mobile phone keypad.

The QWERTY keyboard is even better. The buttons are made of a fabulous plastic which makes touch very comfortable but what's more - the keyboard produces very clear, distinctive button presses. One of the pluses of the keyboard is the "bulb" shortcut key which switches on and off the keypad backlighting. It also has a Menu button, red & green receivers, Ctrl, Shift, Backspace, Enter and Space buttons. The Ctrl, Shift and Space buttons are doubled for your convenience as you may press them with either of your hands effortlessly. This makes the writing much faster.

The two parts of the keyboard

The backlighting of both the phone's keypad and keyboard glows perfectly even in soft white color.

Backlighting of the keypad

Backlighting of the keyboard

16 million reasons

The wonderful display of Nokia E70 visualizes 352 x 416 pixels and offers a remarkable picture with vivid colors and perfect shapes. The large dimensions of the display allow the phone to show more content which is crucial in Internet browsing and text reading. The display is legible under direct sunlight but there is still room for improvement. The backlighting of the display is of the highest quality. It glows evenly and every part of it is perfectly illuminated.

The display's backlighting

When active, Nokia E70 display its active stand-by display with six icons of applications, list of calendar tasks, missed calls and received messages and the labels of the assigned functions on the two soft keys. Above all this, there are the signal strength bar, the clock (digital or analogue), operator name, and date and battery status. After several seconds of inactivity, the display light goes off and it displays the date and time, the current ringing profile (if different from General) and the missed calls and received messages, if any.

The active stand-by display in both vertical and horizontal mode

Nokia E70 provides very good sound during calls and there aren't any noises and distractions in the signal. The network signal is strong and reliable, too. The vibration is normal and can be felt in almost every occasion. When somebody calls you, the phone displays the caller name and picture. E70 also displays the picture of the phone (home, work, other) if it is in your phonebook.

Dexter is calling • typing a number • calling somebody

Series 60, the 3rd

The main menu of the phone is made of a 3 x 4 matrix grid but turns into a horizontal 4 x 3 matrix when you use the phone opened. You can also set the menu to be viewed as a list. Some sub-menus can also be viewed in grid view but there are some that offer list view only. The horizontal mode of the phone can be very useful when browsing in the Internet or viewing a text document as it allows you to see much more.

Main menu in both vertical and horizontal mode • matrix view submenu

There is a Voice aid application which pronounces everything you do when started. We cannot see the need of such application unless you are driving a car and you need to dial a number or something. Besides, Voice aid is available only in several menus.

Dialer and Clock in Voice aid

Generally, the speed of Nokia E70 is about the same as all the recent Nokia smartphones from the E and N series. This means that it is fast for a smartphone, but it doesn't react as fast as some phones without operating system. The switch between horizontal and vertical mode is very annoying as it is almost always accompanied by a huge delay.