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Over in old blighty Nokia have released the N70 3G phone -  It’s a 3G device, but unlike the N80 it’s doesn’t have Wi-Fi Bluetooth 2.0 is part of the spec, however. Next to the N80 slider, the candybar N70 feels positively slimline. It’s still a couple of centimetres thick, mind, but it feels very comfortable in the hand.

The front of the N70 is dominated by the gorgeous 2.2in, 176 x 208, 262,144-colour display surrounded by the N series’ trademark stainless steel trim, itself bordered by black plastic which wraps around the handset’s silver-look plastic shell. It’s a stylish look that’s business-friendly without appearing conservative. That said, this colour scheme is the T-Mobile World Cup variant – the regular version wraps silver plastic around a charcoal body.

The N70’s digital zoom runs to a whopping 20x, but you can limit it to 4x to ensure you get decent results. Certainly approaching 20x pixelises the image horribly and magnifies hand-shake significantly. At lower zoom levels, the results are better.

Videos are fine too, with a decent 352 x 288, 15fps MPEG 4 option and lower quality, memory/bandwidth-conserving options if you prefer. Again, the highest quality setting is fine for spur-of-the-moment shots, though it’s hard to see why you’d use the lower settings unless you’re an avid MMS sender.

The N70 has Bluetooth 2.0 on board, and pairing it then syncing contacts and calendars with my MacBook Pro was a doddle, and I’d expect Nokia’s own PC Suite to be much the same on a Windows machine. Transferring files was a joy at the higher speed Bluetooth 2.0 provides, though a wired connection is clearly better. Not that Mac OS X shows the N70 as a mass storage device.

The N70 is equipped with the Symbian operating system, but it’s Nokia’s own Series 60 that users interact with, and its latest release maintains its ease of use and provides all the PIM and messaging tools you need. There’s now Active Standby mode, which adds a Window Mobile Today-like screen, complete with five application and/or activity – eg. new text message – shortcut icons. Or you can set the navigation control to operate as a set of five application buttons.

Nokia’s N70 isn’t half bad. Unlike so many 3G phones – including Nokia’s own N80 – it’s neither chunky nor inelegant. It’s got the slick look of Nokia’s business phones coupled with a consumer-friendly feature set. The camera’s good, and there’s a nice music player for your MP3s – it supports iTunes-friendly the AAC format too, though not songs downloaded from Apple’s online music store. Sure, it has its idiosyncracies – size, the lack of flight mode – and the battery’s life could be (much) better, but the N70 won me over despite that. A great all-rounder.

Chris Leckness (3547 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.