Day 4,5,6 with Nokia N70: Sound and Software
Posted by Chris Leckness on 03/2/06 in Smart Phones
For another entry into the journal of my experience with the N70 I am spanning a few days. This may seem wierd that I did not do daily updates these last few days, but there were a few reasons for that.
First off, this is the middle of the work week and I was busy at work with a lot going on, this also let me put the N70 through its paces and give it a nice working trial. Second, spanning a few days gives me the ability to better talk about some of my experiences in this work use situation.
So, I have been carrying the N70 in my pocket for quite awhile now, and it is still feeling like a great phone. In my pocket, the size is not much bigger than my T616, and it is fairly easy to get used to. I found it easy to slide in and out of my pocket for frequent calls, and with a little practice, I did get the phone lock function down (where you need to push the left soft key and then the * button to lock/unlock the phone (note that it auto unlocks for calls but then relocks once the call is ended)). On the subject of keylock, I still would like to see an auto keylock implemented as that…
is one of the greatest features (for me) with the T616.
There is one thing that the N70 has blown me away with over the last few days and that is the sound clarity. Calls sound absolutly amazing through this phone and the quality is very good. Even the loudspeaker is very clear and does not have that muffled effect that most small phone speaker phones have. The earpiece volume could be a bit louder at times, but the loudspeaker can be turned up quite well and works very well even in noisier rooms. I would rate the sound quality better than the Razr and T616, but the T616 and Razr can get a bit more volume from the ear piece.
Now comes the second thing I want to talk about, software. The N70 is still a smartphone as it runs Symbian OS, but it is quite simple in its calander and to-do PIM functions. Since this is also a phone from Nokia, Nokia has supplied their tools suite which I am not really that big of a fan of. It is like other mobile phone suites (like from Sony, Motorola, etc.) and it has a lot of features and a neat interface, but it can be a pain to get done what you really want to do. For example, connecting the phone via the included USB cable proved to be a major nightmare on my Windows XP Pro machine. It would not install the drivers no matter what I would do, and I ended up having to restart the phone itself about 4 times to finally get it to work. Once you have the software installed and connected you get 2 more icons in your task tray (one for the connector and one for the actual Nokia suite) that really want to run all the time. Working in the software itself, it is obviously made to be your sole Contacts/Calendar/To-Do program. You can sync between Outlook, but the proceedure was a bit slow and sometimes had problems with extra fields besides the basics. On the phone itself it is also much harder to look through your calander and add entries since you are having to do it all without a touchscreen. It is very straight forward though, anyone can figure out how to add entries pretty easily as you pick a date, click new entry, and fill in the details.
To be fair, the PC software also is there to do a lot of other things (like let you connect through you phone to the internet if you have a data plan, and to transfer photos and videos), but it is very cluttered in my mind and is just like all other mobile phone suites I have used….Slow, Buggy at times, and hard to get working. It comes no where close to the ease of use of the Palm Desktop or ActiveSync with Outlook for your everyday contacts and calendar.
Summarizing what I think of the N70 for Calendar and PIM Functions, I think it is miles ahead of a normal cell phones, but miles behind a Palm or Windows Mobile Based phone as far as the power in the calender functions and the ease of integration with current Desktop PC software. This is mostly due to Symbian in my mind as it is a much simpler OS. On a scale of 1 - 10 for PIM functions I would give this phone a 6-7 rating for it being much better than the average, but not a full bore smartphone. If you need a full PIM device with calender functions that are your life and you make 20+ entries a day, this is not the device for you, but if you are casual and need maybe 1-5 entries a day, I can see this as a decent PIM device.
Written by Chris Leckness · Filed Under Smart Phones
Tagged:
Did you like this post?
Share your vote!
(No Ratings Yet)
Leave a Reply