Nokia's new X3 phone combines the ease of use of touch screen and the traditional numerical keypad to make an intriguing compromise between touching and typing - Nokia are trying to cater for consumers that like to text and dial the traditional way, but who also want to use a touchpad for browsing the internet. Have they succeeded and made a winning combination or mixed bag?
Overview
The main gripe with phones that have both numerical keypads and a touch screens is that it takes up valuable space from the screen and this is the case with the Nokia X3 - while the touch interface works well; it does make the screen quite small if you're used to the extra screen space with other smart phones. You may find the screen too small.
We were right at home with the phone and if you have used one of their phones before you will find it a breeze to navigate around the features and functions of the phone. With a simple "Go To" button you will be greeted with a grid of nine shortcuts of apps. From here you'll be able to personalise your home screen to suit for your needs. You'll find shortcuts to contacts, text messages, Facebook, music player and the camera.
Features
If you're big Facebook user you'll be quite at home with the Nokia X3 as your feed will be displayed quickly and clearly, it not the best experience in the world - and will not replace you desktop online version - but will allow you to update your status, check messages, likes and post comments effortlessly.
You'll be able to drag-and-drop music directly onto the phones on-board memory either manually or in the form a program like Windows Media Player. So, no need to use the rather annoying iTunes, and for non-Apple users this is great news.
The 5-megepixel camera is more than functional for a capturing the best moments of your life, it also comes with a wide range of effects like Sepia, Greyscale and Negative. We found the shutter speed good, and the focus was quick and accurate.
Some of the main gripes for the Nokia X3 is the touch screen, quite often when we scrolled through some menus it would select icons when we hadn't selected them. Which got old very quickly. But you’ll soon get used to it.
The X3 comes with two different Internet browsers, both have problems, the first Opera is very quick, but doesn't do a good job at showing pictures, as they are often rendered blocky and ugly. On the other hand the S40 browser, renders pictures with greater color fidelity but is also significantly slower. So you're stuck between the choices of a slow or ugly browsing experience.
We found that the Twitter app was a bit slow and clunky and due to the screen size you can't read tweets in full from your timeline, so you'll have to open each one to see what your follower are tweeting.
Unfortunately the camera does not have a flash and for a new phone in 2010 this is unforgivable.
Conclusion
The Nokia X3 Touch and Type is a good phone and great value, it's not able to compete with an expensive Smartphones, but if you looking for a phone that has touch screen and a keypad you can't got wrong with Nokia's latest, but if you're looking for a Nokia Smartphone this is probably not the one for you, it's a functional mid-range handset and would be perfect as a gift for someone who has an old phone and is looking to take their first steps into the world of touch screens and simple apps.
Gaj-it Rating 3/5
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