Nokia X3 Review

Software:

The Nokia X3 is a feature phone and similarly to all other “non-smart” handsets of the manufacturer, it utilizes Series 40 interface. We already know it from the 3720 classic, 6700 classic and e.t.c., so we are not going into details here. Even people who have never used a Series 40 handset will be able to find their bearings and get used to the shortcuts leading to basic functions like phone contacts, calendar, messaging and camera in no time. We would advise you to keep all menu transition effects turned off and the same applies to the animations played on opening/closing the slider – they all make the handset unresponsive, lead to annoying lagging and frankly, neither of them contributes to a better overall appeal and appearance of the interface.



The music-oriented X3 comes without built-in Wi-Fi and lacks 3G support, meaning you will have to put up with the rather sluggish as per today´s standards connectivity speed that EDGE offers. We cannot say that surfing the Web on 2.2-inch display using Series 40 browser is an enjoyable experience at the least – scrolling is exceptionally sluggish and the keypad buttons cannot be assigned shortcuts to various functions. Thankfully, Opera Mini 4.2 comes preloaded onto the Nokia X3 - the application is more comfortable for web navigation, loads pages much faster and allows you to save on traffic, so we eagerly recommend that you forget about the standard browser and stick to Opera Mini instead.



Several games come preinstalled on the handset and the highly addictive City Bloxx, that you can kill quite a lot of time with, is one of the titles. The X3 provides access to Ovi Store, so you can get yourself more software at anytime.




Camera and audio:

The Nokia X3 is equipped with 3.2-megapixel camera without flash and its interface is simple, just like all other Series 40 devices. The snapshot quality, no matter if pictures are taken in natural or artificial lighting conditions, is rather low. There are almost no details to speak of and the amount of image noise is overwhelming. The saving grace here is the relatively realistic color representation. Frankly, aside from being shared on social networks, we can´t think of anything else that the snapshots would be good for. And this is exactly how we feel about the videos captured with the X3. Their maximum resolution is 320x240 pixels, the average frame count is awfully low and to top it off, the handset is plagued by some weird video coding bug that leads to color swapping, i.e. you´ve got the wrong colors during playback. We do hope the problem affects our unit though.







The Nokia X3 may be a member of the new generation of music-oriented handsets of the manufacturer, but its audio player is the same old application we know well from previous devices with Series 40 interface (the 5220 XpressMusic, 5130 XpressMusic). Audio tracks can be filtered by relevant playlist, artist, album and genre and the options permit you to take a pick from the equalizer presets or create your own setting. The available themes change the appearance of the application and lend some color to its otherwise rather boring overall look. As a whole, its interface is really easy to get used to, so there is nothing to complain about really.



Audio quality is, however, much more important than interface and we have to say music sounds quite good through the boxed headphone set (the Nokia WH-205). You can hear rich and deep basses that, sadly, tend to drown out the trebles. It´s a good thing that you can try out another pair of earphones at anytime, thanks to the 3.5mm jack the X3 is equipped with. The handset puts on an enviable performance with music playing through the built-in loudspeakers and everything sounds loud and clear – you´ve got pretty much the same overall quality the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic delivers in this respect, which is a highly commendable achievement. 

As we mentioned already, the Nokia X3 comes with integrated FM Radio aerial that allows for listening of broadcasts without the necessity to plug in the headphones. The cell phones that come with such an extra feature are scarcer than chicken teeth these days and we do consider the option a huge plus.



The Nokia X3 plays MPEG4, H263 and H264 coded content with maximum resolution of 320x240 pixels and in our opinion you get the best results with videos with bitrate of around 512 kbps. Unfortunately, watching clips on the small and mediocre display is hardly an enjoyable thing to do really.