Snippets:
The ease of use, demanded by the target audience, is gone (as a rule they don’t have enough time to get into the labyrinth of settings). Other drawbacks include barely-there fashion charge of the E70, since its looks and the form-factor are not familiar to each and everyone. Against the background of oversaturated proposition (take even Nokia’s range for example) of typical smartphones, like Nseries (linking up a Bluetooth-keyboard is a breeze there) the E70 is lagging behind. As a matter of fact, the default applications set is no good on either end, so you will end up installing third-party software. So as it stands, the handsets positioning is rather odd
Folding out the thumbboard single-handedly is impossible due to the hinge being sprung hard enough, so that you will have to use both hand and a bit of an effort. By the way, it is not a problem, really, since you have to hold the thumbboard side-ways using two hands
The quality and ergonomics provided by the QWERTY, thanks to its size and dual design, are very good – don’t even think of having a hard time with this thumbboard, it is just not possible. At present the market has seen only a couple of handsets sporting thumbboards this good, whereas the Symbian market doesn’t feature any rivals for the E70 at all, except for Nokia’s very own communicators. On the plus side, the phone has standard key combinations enabled, allowing users to copy and past text fragments in a way similar to the PC’s one (“Select All†is the only missing option)
The hinge incorporates metal framings making the casing feel more solid, but the build quality was never a problem with the E70 in the first place, even though after some time of usage I found a back cover gap, which was not critical after all. But speaking of the paint applied here, I would rather give it “mediocre†mark for it does go off especially on the camera rim. If you are an active user, then expect the silver-coated surfaces to loose their attractiveness in one year’s time or so
While carrying the handset in a pocket or bag with the key lock turned off, you might end up having the camera activated – I stumbled upon a case when a recorded clip was 40 Mb big, and furthermore, somehow it features (well, accidentally, to tell the truth) my conversations with friends and colleagues, so should I tell you how much I was surprised this in the phone’s memory? Completely black snaps weighting 142 Kb each sneak into the phone pretty much in the same manner. To make the things easier and less “dangerous†for you, I would recommend removing the shortcut to camera from the left soft-key
