Life with Nokia N70

How do I increase N70 battery life?

2006-08-29T14:57:00.000+01:00

Nokia N70 comes with BL-5C Li-Ion 970 mAh battery. It promises about 3.5 hours of talk time and nearly 11 days of stand-by time. However it is usual to hear complaints of the Nokia N70 battery not being good. Often the situation can be improved a lot if we were to identify the prime cause of power drain.

First step is to accept that the N70 is no mean machine. It houses a multi-tasking operating system, and packs several devices into one small unit. Do not compare it's needs with a normal cellphone. You are safest if you make it a habit to charge it daily when your day's work is done or while you are sleeping. This is what you would do if it were a Laptop or a PDA, and these are what are closer cousins of an N70 than the ordinary cellphone that probably has a low resolution camera and can play some polyphonic tones.

Okay, now here are the prime culprits for draining battery.

1) Talking too much!
When you are talking to your girl/boy friend, you probably end up thinking that you used up much less time than you actually did - Theory of Relativity by Einstein. If you are a sales person or spends lot of time talking to friends, get a backup battery. If a little increase in the talk time would satisfy you, try the tips that follow or get a BL-6C (1070 mAh) battery. It is a bigger battery but Nokia seems to have left just enough space under the battery hood for the BL-6C. However, be aware that it is a really tight fit and if you don't insert the battery and close the lid very carefully, you might end up spoiling the cover. It may not be a bad idea to monitor your call time at the end of calls. In case you don't get to see the call duration, go to Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> Call and enable the "Summary after call" option.

2) Operating the phone in low signal areas
It takes energy to keep searching out for your provider's network. The same can happen when traveling where the reception keeps varying. Look for a better provider if feasible.

3) Keeping 3G and Bluetooth ON even when not required
You can disable 3G by Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> Network and setting the Network mode to GSM instead of Dual mode. To disable Bluetooth go to Menu -> Connect. -> Bluetooth.

4) Heavy applications used frequently or kept running in the background
Heavy applications are those which use a lot of CPU power. These can include virus scanners, players (movie, music, graphics), 3D games, GPS utilities and office applications. Usage of the video camera and external speakers also drains power. A graphical-oriented theme could also have some minor contributions to depleting batery power. Since N70 allows multitasking, often you may leave multiple applications running by using the Menu key. Keeping the Menu key pressed would bring up the active tasks list. You can close unnecessary applications by moving the selection to the unwanted one and hitting the Clear (right-bottom C) key. Usage of video calls and bluetooth can result in exhausting the battery power quickly.

5) Old battery
Some suggest a full charge before first use and occassional full-draining before recharging. However, there doesn't seem to be any proof that these work.

6) Keeping the brightness level high
See if you can afford to reduce the brightness of the LCD screen and the time it remains ON, by navigating to Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> Phone -> Display.

How to use N70 as a Music Player?

2006-08-03T16:47:00.000+01:00

The N70 supports a wide range of audio formats - MP3, AAC, Real Audio, WAV, Nokia Ring Tones, AMR, AMR-WB, AMR-NB, AU, MIDI, MPEG-4 and eAAC+. It comes with a music player that lets you play from playlists, shuffle and play, looping etc. Two formats missing here are WMA & OGG. There are two applications WMAPlus and OGGPlay that can handle the respective formats as well as a wmaogg.sis codec that apparently lets you play both in the supplier music player. WMAPlus is not free. Getting these to work was no easy task and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone at the moment! OGGPlay is a free open source player that claims to be able to play MP3, AAC & MP4/M4A formats apart from the OGG format. Lookout for the future releases. If you wish to store more music files, it might be easier to convert them to the M4A format, which the Nokia PC Suite's Music Manager can do when you choose to Optimize the audio file for the phone.

The earphones supplied along with the N70, while achieving excellent sound reproduction, may not be comfortable for the ears due to the cylindrical construction of the ear plugs. If you have a favourite headphone with a 3.5 mm jack, you can buy a Pop-port to 3.5 mm conversion adaptor from eBay.

N70 does not support the A2DP profile for Bluetooth which would allow you to use a bluetooth stereo headphone. The normal bluetooth headset is supported by some Music Players like the MP3Player from Viking. This allows you to listen to music wirelessly but the sound is much weaker than it would be with the normal headphones. I have tried with a Jabra 250v and it worked fine but decided that the minor inconvenience of the wires was more comfortable.

Where can I get Free S60 Utilities?

2006-08-03T14:19:00.000+01:00

The N70 runs a Symbian Series 60 v2 Feature Pack 3 Operating System.

Most of the software that claim to be for Symbian Series 60 (S60 for short) work for N70. For most you would need the latest versions. There is a lot of free software available on the Net which becomes evident the moment you run a google query for, say, "S60 Free Software". Please be aware though that some can cause your phone to hang or at times can contain viruses. The best policy is to stick to popular and purchased utilities that have good reviews available.

It provides support forJava Applications through Java™ MIDP 2.0 & CLDC 1.1 (J2ME). What this means is that you can run most of the Java applications.

You can find a good compilation of free S60 software at the 3-Lib Page.

Useful Java and Symbiam applications (not all is free) might be found at GetJar.com.

I recommend the following very useful free utilities:

Autolock - lets you setup autolocking of the keypad after a configurable period of inactivity.

Fexplorer - a very versatile and must-have file manager.

XXL ScreenSaver - keep a big time display on screen with additional information when the phone is in locked mode.

How do I create movies for mobile?

2006-08-03T12:52:00.000+01:00

The N70 comes with a powerful RealPlayer that can play many of the super compressed movie formats like 3GP, MP4 & RM. Xvid, DivX, WMV and AVI are not supported with the supplied player. The 3GP resolution of 176x144 pixels is just perfect for the N70's screen resolution. If you wish to see the movies always in Landscape mode (choose Play in Full Scr. option when the movie starts playing) you may go for a resolution of 208x176. A one-hour compressed movie in these formats is likely to have size between 50-70 MB only. With a one or two GB card, you can carry several movies to watch them on the move.

While it is possible to find movies and videos on the net in mobile suitable formats like 3GP, these are relatively rare. However with the abundance of software on the Net including freewares and open source converters, it is possible to convert nearly any movie including the unsupported formats mentioned above) into a smaller version for your mobile. You could also think of buying a swiss knife converter like the Imtoo MPEG Encoder which can convert between several audio and video formats.

I describe here a free tool that achieves excellent quality at very less size. The Easy RealMedia Editor (download here) accepts most movie/video formats and outputs RealMedia (RM & RMVB) files. While all the formats output by the editor can be played back on the PC using the free Basic RealPlayer or the amazing MediaPlayer Classic, it needn't necessarily play on the N70. Depending on your preference for quality or file size, you may want to experiment with various settings. Choose RealPlayer 8 as the codec in the settings window of ERMP as higher formats may not work. Keep the bitrate to a constant bitrate of about 150 KBPS. The audio in real format gives excellent quality at 32 Kbps. Choose the frame rate as 25 fps. Smaller frame rates might give acceptable performance as well but if the frames per second is reduced too much, the movie gets a bit jumpy. As described earlier choose to resize (high-quality option checked) to 176x144. Once you have hit upon a right combination, you can save the profile and reload it next time or even choose to make it the default. Conversions usually take time and can be CPU intensive. Best thing would be to queue up all your files in the batch processing window, before you go to bed.

If you want to convert movies one at a time and is happy with popular input formats such as AVI and MOV alone, you can do it easily using the Multimedia Player (View Media option) that is part of the Nokia PC Suite. All you need to do is open the movie to be converted in the player and choose "Save As" from the File menu. You can specify the output size and the format, MP4 or 3GP. For N70, 176x144 should do, but if you want to also view the same file in the PC, use 352x288. In case you have not installed the PC Suite, the Multimedia Player as well as a standalone Multimedia Converter can be downloaded from the Nokia Forum website. You may need to register for free in order to download or to obtain the product key.

You can fast-forward or rewind movies in the Mobile RealPlayer by keeping the up & down keys pressed for a few seconds. If you want to stop watching the movie but resume later, Pause the movie and then hit the Menu button on the phone to get back to the stand-by screen. To get to the movie player again, keep the Menu key pressed for a while, till it displays the various running applications you can switch to.

Tips: You may use the Easy RealMedia Producer (comes with the intall) to combine multiple movies into one. If you like archiving movies in your PC, you can use this tool to compress movies without any perceivable loss of quality, effectively allowing you to store 3-4 times as many movies.

How do I install applications?

2006-08-03T08:54:00.000+01:00

Nokia N70 supports two types of installers - SIS files and Java/JAR files. You could think of these as the EXEs in a Windows environment. There are multiple ways to install applications on the Nokia N70. Let us assume you have the machine in your PC. The PC Suite utility that comes with N70 (install from the CD) has an Install Manager that would let you initiate the installation in the PC itself. You will any way require to complete your installation in the phone. The installer generally pops up warning messages relating to security and unavailability of certificates (even Nokia's own software does not escape this) but in most cases you can ignore these provided you are confident of what you are trying to install and it's source.

A better way to install would be to have an Install directory in your memory card and to transfer the SIS or JAR files to this directory. Use FileManager (Menu -> Tools -> File mgr.) to select the respective file (note: you may use the left/right arrow keys to toggle between the phone's and memory cards memory). You can use a utility such as FExplorer but it tends to create duplicate copies of the installation file.

One doubt which crops up often is whether to install it on the phone's memory or in the expandable memory card. This is a bit tricky. The free memory available internal to N70 is close to 22 MB, when unpacking. This is a lot of memory I should say for normal applications. In general, rarely does an install occupy more than one MB unless it is a data-intensive application. Even some of the applications like Tom Tom that requires to store large maps, might have an option to have the data (the map in this case) in your MMC with the actual application in the phone's memory. However, the general tip to follow is that if you have invested in a big enough MMC, try to install applications onto the MMC. There are some applications you should install directly on the phones memory though. These are usually display related ones and players that you would want to work properly even when the MMC card is removed. These include things like themes, screensavers and autokeylock. If you did install a theme on to the removable memory card, the display resets to the default theme when the MMC is removed but wouldn't reset back when you put the memory card back. At all cost avoid storing pure data in the phone's memory. If you want to carry a lot of data (pictures, music files, movies, documents etc.) in multiple memory cards and intend to switch cards to access these you would be better off having the related viewers and players installed in the phone's memory.

Similar to the Add/Remove Programs feature in Windows PCs, an Application Manager comes with the N70 to view and remove installed applications. You can access it at Menu -> Tools -> Manger. To remove an application browse to the application in the Manager's list and hit the Clear (C button at the right bottom) to pop up the confirm dialog for uninstalling.

TIP: If you are trying out free applications, trial software, games etc., uninstall these when you no longer intend to use this or has ceased functioning. It keeps your memory free for useful stuff and improves the performance.

How do I upgrade the memory?

2006-08-02T12:59:00.000+01:00

Apart from the 22 MB of free internal memory, Nokia N70 comes with a 64 MB Reduced Size Dual Voltage (1.8/3V) MultiMediaCard (MMC). This is a half-sized card, so don't confuse it with the normal MMC or SD cards. While this memory is sufficient to store day-to-day data, it would soon run out if you want to store several music tracks, a few movies, several recorded video clips, some audiobooks, pictures etc. Currently RS-DV MMC is available with upto two gigabytes (2 GB) capacity. You could get a good one GB Kingston brand card easily on online stores such as eBay, Amazon or photo/cellphone vendors for under $50. Nokia too sells these cards but are costlier. Try not to go for unheard of companies. Any of Nokia, Sandisk or Kingston would be fine, the latter to being specialists in memory cards. If you intend to use the N70 as an MP3 or Movie player or would like to take lot of photos or capture video for long then this would be money well spent.

Okay, you did get a new RS-DV MMC, a 512 MB or a 1 GB. First thing to do would be to copy the data from the existing 64 MB card to the new one. If you are one of those lucky ones who have a Laptop or PC with a Memmory card reader, things are easy. The reduced sized cards come with an extension piece which makes it a full MMC card. Use the full cards to temporarily copy all the data from the 64 MB card to the computers hard disk and then copy it back into the new MMC. The other way is to use the PC Suite software along with the PC Connectivity cord to transfer the files and folders temporarily to the PC. Now if you are one of those unfortunate souls who don't have a computer in sight, you can ignore to copy the data (yes! the phone would still work fine) or do it with a little patience by using the N70's in-built memory. To do this go to Menu -> Tools -> File Mgr. and then copy the folder/files to a temporary folder created in the phone's memory. Note that you can switch between the phone's memory and the card's memory using the right & left arrow keys in File Manager. Depending on you may need to do it in pieces.

Note: The removable memory card is by the right side of the N70. Open the flap carefully (looks a bit flimsy) and use your nails to give the card a push to pop it out. When inserting it back feel the click into position.

Why Nokia N70?

2006-08-02T11:51:00.000+01:00

Nokia N70 is a popular N-Series SmartPhone from Nokia featuring 3G Video Call, a powerful MP3/AAC/M4A player, an amazing Video Camera that can store videos directly in ultra-compressed MP4 format, a 2-megapixel Digital Camera, a Radio, Microsoft Office, Text and PDF viewers, Image and Video editing capabilities, multi-tasking as in Windows and above all the capability to expand the features by installing Symbian Series 60 (S60) software. It is an excellent cellphone with Bluetooth, Tri-band, GSM/WCDMA support, Picture Messaging and excellent call clarity. It supports screensavers, themes and desktop wallpapers as well as has all the other handheld type features such as calendar, reminder, notes, calculator, converters etc.

While there are heavier and bigger models in the NSeries, the N70 offers the right amount of everything with an excellent form factor. For example one could ask – When you get crystal clear video, photos and text on screen with a 176x208 resolution screen, what do you get extra by having a 320x240 or more resolution other than ending up with more picture/movie size? Or when you could print a 1.3 Megapixel photo with acceptable quality on a 5x7 inch photopaper, why would someone need more than a 2 megapixel camera for the casual photographer? If it is an MP3 player alone that you desire, go for an iPod rater than an N91. If it is a excellent digital camera that you want, go for a good Nikon or Sony digital camera rather than an N80 or a Sony Eriksson K800. The cellphone just can’t get as good as a professional device! If it is a good bit of everything that you want at a size that fits into your palm and cost that fits into your pocket, Nokia N70 is the one for you!

Got a Nokia N70 already? Great! Let us get the best out of it.