Nokia x3 – An Attractive Cool Music Phone

Nokia x3 is a new addition to the X series phone from Nokia. It is an phone with loads of features but the price is very affordable. The music package available with the Nokia x3 is complete, but you can't expect various high end features as it is a midrange mobile phone. The Nokia x3 measures 96 x 49.3 x 14.1 mm and weighs 103 g. Li-Ion 860 mAh battery is very much impressive as it offers 7 hours 30 minutes talk time, 26 hours of music play and 200 hours of standby time.

The Nokia x3 has a tiny 2.2" TFT screen with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. Even though the screen can display 256K colors, the size of the screen is much smaller compared to the size of the phone. The sunlight legibility is also unimpressive. A D pad and other soft keys are provided just below the screen. As you slide open the phone, you will find an alphanumeric keypad made out of plastic with brushed metal finish.

At the back of the Nokia x3, there is a 3.2MP camera with a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. Considering the fact that the Nokia x3 is a low priced phone, it is not acceptable to expect high end camera settings features. There is no auto focus and LED flash is pretty disappointing. The camera shoots videos in QVGA resolution at 10 fps. Such videos are only good for MMS.

As a XpressMusic series phone the Nokia X3's music player won't let you down. It looks cool and supports a great list of formats. The stereo speakers are loud and clear. D pad lights up according to the rhythm of the song. Equalizer presets are interesting to use. FM radio with RDS has a built in antenna which means, you don’t have to plug your headset to turn on the radio. The video player is good to view videos in basic formats including MPEG4.

Symbian S40 6th edition UI is used in the Nokia x3. You can taste a bit of multitasking with the Nokia x3, but the whole control is not given to you. Parts of various applications share internet connection and you are allowed to close any process as you wish. The interface is basically responsive and quick, but the applications take a long time to load.

The phonebook on this phone is revamped and it makes searching the contacts much easier. Videos and ring tones can be assigned to contacts. Voice dialing is a welcome addition. The find on map option lets you search for the location of the contacts using the Ovi Maps application. The phonebook is integrated with Ovi contacts app and it supports GTalk. The telephony is great as usual just like other Nokia mobile phones.

You can send all types of messages such as SMS, MMS, emails, audio and flash messages on the Nokia x3. The conversations view makes it very easy to follow the previous messages in the thread. A dedicated IM application is available for the Ovi contacts. The email client is very much improved and the integration with different types of protocols is now possible.

The Nokia X3 doesn't support 3G connectivity, but the basic connectivity options EDGE and GPRS are available. The Webkit based HTML browser is pretty good to use. While running the web browser, the basic phone tasks such as calling, messaging can be done using quick links in the Nokia x3. Since 3G support is not available, it is expensive to stream online videos. A number of applications are available, but not all of them are useful. There is a windows messenger to IM your friends. The Flickr app and Ovi store are notable applications in the Nokia x3. Even though there is no GPS, you can use Nokia Maps to locate destinations.
Jerry Smith, the editor of http://www.mobilephoneonly.co.uk. An expert on mobile phone and an observer of UK telecommunication market. He writes reviews on latest mobile phones, and also suggests promotional deals and special offers from mobile phone retailers in UK.