The Nfactor: hands-on with the Nokia N70

Just when Crave was starting to think the 'N' in Nseries was for 'Not oN sale, Not Now, Not SooN,' a Nokia elf handed us an N70. It's the baby of the Nfamily, lacking the show-off swivelling lens of the N90 or the music-munching hard drive of the N91, but it's an Nphone nonetheless.

The N70's box resembles a jewellery box, albeit a cardboard one decorated with photos of a young Bill Gates lookalike eating toast, descending the stairs, taking photos, chatting to his out-of-focus girlfriend, and talking on the phone while said girlfriend sits by with an out-of-focus expression that says, "Put down the damn phone and pay attention to me, geek."

Open the lid and all you see is a silver-and-black phone that looks like a cross between a Nokia 6680 and a (whisper it) Sony Ericsson handset. It has a big colour screen, a small and (for Nokia) rather staid keypad, a front camera for video calling, and a sliding panel on the back that protects the main camera and photo light.

Lift up the cardboard flap on the right-hand side of the box and there are more treasures to discover: a slim 'Get Started' pamphlet, a CD with Nokia's PC Suite software, the battery, a 64MB Reduced-Size MultiMediaCard (RS-MMC), a black leather wrist strap, a soft black cleaning cloth and a white stereo headset that in no way complements the black-and-silver phone. The circular earbuds echo the ones provided with Apple iPods, but manage to be even more uncomfortable -- which is unfortunate, given that Nokia uses a proprietary connector. Tsk.

Remove the entire top layer and another set of goodies is revealed, including the new-style Nseries charger, with a super-skinny jack plug. If electricity were like water and needed room to flow, it would take three times longer to fill up the N70 via this tiny connector. Nokia also provides an adaptor that lets you use your old-style Nokia charger with your new phone, a USB cable for transferring data from your PC, and a comprehensive instruction manual.

In use, the N70 is very similar to the 6680. It's a 3G phone that runs the Series 60 operating system, enabling you to customise the interface and add applications. New features include a configurable multimedia button and a dedicated shutter button for the camera, which has been upgraded to 2 megapixels. If you hold the phone horizontally and use the shutter button, you end up with a portrait photograph; if you hold it vertically and press the navigation key, you get a landscape shot. The Music Player application supports both MP3s and AACs, but struggles to read the artists and titles from ID3 tags, even when you rip your CDs using Nokia's own Music Studio program. Overall, it's practical and inoffensive, but you couldn't call it Notable or iNNovative or uNique or even Nifty; its only Nquality is Niceness.

The Nokia N70 is available on all the major networks, at prices ranging from free with a £30 per month line rental to around £300 SIM-free. -ML

Update: a full review of the Nokia N70 is now live.