Smartphones are being released faster than i can say the word smartphone and we have seen several top of range phones from Nokia, notably the Nokia N8, Nokia C7 and Nokia E7; the latter two are yet to be lauched into the Kenyan Market.
Well i would say we have another jewel, well not really as good as the three phones i just listed. The Nokia C3 touch and type, notably called the Nokia C3-01 is a marvel, UI (User interphase and pricing).
This phone comes with the Symbian S40 6th edition which is a great OS version with a great UI.
The phone has 30MB of built-in memory and a microSD card slot under the backplate that will take a maximum of 32 GB storage, not bad at all. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and 3G are on-board, but there’s no GPS though and the operating system is S40 6th Edition (ie enhanced for touch).
At 2.4in, the touchscreen isn’t large by smartphone standards, but it’s good for a traditional candybar shaped phone. It has a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels, which means that it can display quite a lot of text on a single screen.
The battery is removable and is covered by a stainless steel faceplate, i would say the stainless steel idea all over is not a bad idea, makes it lighter and stronger. You know what i mean if you drop phones.
The memory card is removable without need to remove the battery, but to access the sim card you have to switch off the phone and eject the battery. I though we were done with this trend when Nokia released the N8.
The camera is 5 mega pixels, a bit low if you are used to a 12 mega pix Nokia N8 or the 8 mega pix Nokia C7, but i would say this is a good camera, quick photos and videos.
You are able to use most of the apps in Ovi store, apps make the phones worth using, ask anyone using a smartphone.
This phone is light and slim enough to slip inside the pocket fast……and out. The battery life is amazing, i have used it with one battery indicator for two full days, thats security.
Another thing i like about it is the fact that its optimized for social media. By this i say twitter and facebook which are the main players here. The communities app is fast and easy to use, and was updated to allow comments, status updates and tweets can be done fast. Upload of pictures from either your photo gallery or direct from its camera to your facebook or twitter is very convenient. Ofcourse with the option to use the many clients for twitter and facebook like snaptu, dabr and many others.
The keypad looks durable and is good to the eyes, and the fact that its touch and type makes alot of things easy, like playing games, scrolling and going through the menus.
I’ve given you the cream of the phone, for those of you who scroll down to see the cons of a phone, here they are:
- The phone doesnt have multitasking, if you came from a N8 or C7 you know what one misses.
- Camera doesnt produce high resolution images, and they may be blurred in low light.
- The touch functionality is not as sensitive as it is on other touch phones, sometimes you feel like you are pressing on a button instead of a screen.
Conclusion is that its a nice phone, better than its predecessor, the Nokia C3, yes, its a 3g phone, did i forget to say that? And the phone might launch at a rough price of 15,000 – 18000 Kenya shillings, not confirmed. Will retail at between 15,000/= – 16,000/=
