Nokia N70

Update 17:56: This also meshes with what Phone Scoop said, and from the pictures of the N70 that they have, the phone being sold is going to be the N70-5. (You can tell because the colours are reversed.) The N70-5 should be on sale in China already.

We suspect that the Nokia N70 is going to be released in the US direct-to-consumers, similarly to how the Nokia N90 was recently launched.

That seems to be the only possible justification (apart from ... largesse) for Nokia's plan to send out Nokia N70s to bloggers in their revolutionary USA marketing exercise which started with the N90 blog; and this new move seems to confirm that Nokia's primary goal in this exercise is to generate buzz about all N-series products in the US.

We're even tempted to say that Nokia might be trying to gain enough momentum to release it's high-end phones without carrier support - but then again the N80 has already been spotted with a Cingular logo - so surely that's not the case.

The Nokia N70 will be a decent upgrade from the Nokia 6682, with the addition of radio and a 2MP camera (just make sure you don't need GSM 850); but keep in mind that the upcoming models have both higher resolution screens, and WiFi support.

Approximately two months after the triband GSM + WCDMA 2100 Nokia N70-1 was FCC approved, the triband GSM-only Nokia N70-5 has received similar approval, making it more likely that the handset will be widely marketed. The only other difference is the lack of a foward facing VGA cam; the N70-5 retains all other features, including a 2MP cam, 208*176 262K colour screen, and bluetooth 2.0. It is not known if the N70-5 will come with new colour options, the Nokia N70-1 currently comes in silver/black and ivory/aubergine; in the N70-5 the positions of the colours are reversed.

Coming about 2 weeks after the Nokia N70-1 was -finally- widely available for purchase, it should provide a lower cost option to users who don't want or need 3G services.

There is still no news about a version of the N70 which will support GSM 850GHZ, and so our recommendation for US users is to stick with (or get) the Nokia 6682 - their planned upgrade is the yummilicious (and hopefully not too huge) Nokia E70.

Click here to look at some N70-5 live pics we published previously; the FCC approval page is here, with better-than-usual photos (as above), and the entire user manual.

[PhoneArena via Slashphone]

Infosync has a short review of the Nokia N70, the higlights are below. The N70 has very recently become generally available (Europe, Asia) and is a decent choice unless you are willing to wait for the Nokia E70.

Highlights:
• fascia is a pleasure to behold
• crisp and clear screen
• good keypad - comfortable backlight, excellent tactile feedback, acceptable size
• lousy LED flash
• Bluetooth 2.0
• stereo FM radio

Nothing really unexpected, but we don't really understand why InfoSync says that local synchronization of PIM data towards Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook not only being partial but also an agonizingly slow and cumbersome process, because even the Nokia 7610 has a decent sync capability, and the less fully featured Series 40 based Nokia 8800 also has a acceptable notes/calendar/contact sync factility.

We can't imagine that we're not as demanding - we've tried activesync (windows mobile) and palm desktop; both aren't much better. Indeed, we haven't had problems with PC Suite at all since version 6.5.(v6.6.18 is current)

Ever since the Bluetooth SIG Qualification Review Board let slip that there would be a variant of the Nokia N70 with no 3G or front camera, we've been wondering when Nokia would deign to actually announce the handset (codenamed N70-5).

It appears that it's not going to? Or already has, or something.

We've been pointed to a Nokia N70 product page on Nokia China, which shows what must be an N70-5 in all it's glory; the specifications also match, and the product is even listed in the "upcoming" section of the Nokia China site.

But the naming confuzzles us. It's listed as an N70; but a quick search of the press releases on Nokia China reveals that they issued what was fundamentally the same press release that Nokia.com issued.

To make matters worse, going to the "official N70 site" located at http://www.nokia.com/n70 brings us to the same flash presentation it always did - except now you can pick a country. Selecting China shows you the N70-1 (with dual cameras and WCDMA 2100 support). So what's up with that?

(Oh, and the US has a cooler flash animated N-series thing than the rest of the world.)

[Thanks, foosoomin]

5 weeks after it was FCC approved, Nokia has announced that the Nokia N70 is shipping .

However, don't expect to be able to rush out to get one quite yet - a quick check of the UK online stores of three, orange, vodafone and o2 has shown that none of them list the Nokia N70 as available yet. We hope that the supply situation will not be as dire as that of the Nokia N90 - which was announced to be shipping on 11th August but is still scarce in most markets.

The Nokia N70 is a GSM 900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100 (sorry US market) Symbian S60 v8.1 device with a 176x208 262K colour screen, a 2 megapixel camera, bluetooth 2.0+EDR and accepts dv-RS-MMC cards.

The Nokia N70 is set for a September release (according to Vodafone UK). This is quite expected, but is still rather refreshing, given that actually arriving earlier than announced. (It was announced to be released in Q4 '05, which is October.)

This gives us hope that the Nokia N91 will here soon too! [Ed: As we specifically mentioned in our Macromedia Flash Lite post.]

The Nokia N70 is a the replacement of the Nokia 6680, and improves upon it by adding a 2.0 MP camera, 352x288 (CIF) video, a dedicated camera key and active slide, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, and is marginally smaller and lighter. I wouldn't upgrade from the Nokia 6680, but unless you need a 4GB hard disk and a 3.5mm headphone port, this is the Symbian S60 phone to purchase! (US users should wait for the non-3G version.)

If you're in the UK on Vodafone, you can register to be notified when Vodafone releases it.

More news has surfaced which gives rise to hope that the Nokia N70, a Symbian Series 60 device with a 2MP camera (which was recently FCC approved) will be available soon. Previous information pegged the launch date as late september, and this information is looking more solid as we've recently discovered that the N70 qualified for Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR certification on 2nd September.

This is the same sort of Bluetooth supported by Apple's most recent Powerbooks, and it retains compability with Bluetooth 1.x but is up to three times faster than its predecessors, offering a maximum data rate of 3Mbps.

Another interesting snippet(PDF Warning) from this qualification procedure is that there will be two versions of the N70, one with WCDMA 2100 (N70-1) and one without (N70-5), similar to the Nokia 6680 and Nokia 6681.

There is no information about an N70 analogous (i.e. with triband 850/1800/1900 Mhz) to the Nokia 6682.

[via Howardforums]

Matt Croydon noticed on sunday that the FCC has approved the Nokia N70. This is very strange, because the N70 is a GSM 900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100 device - while usually US handsets need to be GSM 850 or WCDMA 1900.

Maybe this is in preparation for the planned FC auction of the 2100 spectrum next year, but it seems rather early.

More likely, this is a publicity stunt (we're glad to help!) to persuade users in Europe, Africa and Asia to wait for the N70 instead of going out and getting the Sony Ericsson K600i now. This might provide punters with a little more hope that the phone is just-around-the-corner.

The N70 is the symbian phone to get for the foreseeable future if you need 3G services; otherwise, wait for the N91 which has yummuy-licious 802.11g goodness. (and a 4GB microdrive built-in)

The rumoured release date for the N70 in the UK is the last week of september.

Update 5th September: Nokia N70 has qualified for Bluetooth V2.0+EDR.