Having always had Nokia's I was getting a bit fed up, you go anywhere and 9 out of 10 people seem to have your phone. As I was pregnant and my current phone was being temperamental I decided to purchase a new one, something different this time.

I saw the Sony J70 and it was love at first sight, with its sexy chrome styling and slim svelte shape I knew it was the one for me. Unfortunately our relationship has turned out to be that shallow as it has nothing more than looks in its favour.

Price:
Mine is about a year old now and at the time I paid £75 direct from my local vodaphone shop. For this you get the phone, charger, sim card connected to pay as you go, and at the time you got £2.50 call credit with a further £7.50 upto 28 days after registering your phone.

Charges: I know this isnt directly related to the phone but though it might be usefull. I am on the smartstep tariff. I pay 25p for first 3 mins of calls each day, after it reduces to 5p per minute. First 3 txts are 12p then reduced to 9p.

Features:
Exactly what you would expect from any phone eg- sms, alarm, phonebook, call register. It also has WAP facillity but I have never used this so cant comment.

Ease of use: If you simply want to call someone it is really simple, but if you want to end a txt then it can be frustrating. Some people love the dial at the side but I hate it. Basically instead of pressing a key repeatedly to scroll through the available letters you have to press the key and rotate the dial at side. This is finicky. It also has suggestive texting so as you are typing it brings up possible words which you have to scroll through, this drives me nuts. I am sure their is a way to remove it but the instructions dont say and I cant for the life of me figure it out.
The dial has to be used for movement between the menu functionc too.

Battery life: this is actually good, not as good as the current Nokia's but not bad. If just
left on then it will last about 3.5 days. Full useage (eg txting and calling regulary) you will get about 1-2 days dependant on how much you hammer it.

Other moans about this include the fact that if you do let the battery run out completely then once charged you have to re-set the date and time as it reverts to midnight jan 1st 2001 for some unknown reason.