===============
Intro
===============
Prompted by the loss of my year old Samsung i8910,I found myself losing interest in high end mobile phones.And the next day i read about Samsung's next-gen processor which is supposed to be Dual-Core and all and possible i8910 successor,so I say what the heck,good riddance.Lack of Symbian support was getting on my nerves anyway.
So i was on the market for a phone with the requirements of:
Decent Camera
Small,Light
Good Music player
CHEAP.
Somehow i didnt have to look for long as i immediately found Eldar's review of the X2 and i liked what i read.
Here is my take on the Nokia X2.
================
In The Box
================
Equipment is pretty standard for a Rs.6000 mobile.
-The Handset
-Battery BL-4C(850mAh)
-Nokia Charger(2mm)
-Headset(in-ear type with 3 sets of silicone tips)
-User Manual
-microUSB Data Cable
-Ovi Suite Mini DVD
-2GB microSD Card(Officially this is not supposed to be in the box but i guess its a negligible thrown-in for mobile sellers)
-Ovi Music voucher for 25 free tracks from the Ovi Music Store.
================
Physical
================
The phone is SUPPOSED to be available in 2 color schemes.Red/Black and Silver/Blue.In the shop the sales person told me he had gotten only 2 silver/blue pieces in a shipment of 5000 mobiles and would not have any idea about when he might get the next 2
I just loved the Silver/Blue in the screen shots and videos but had to settle for the Red/Black.
Coming from a 160gram monster the Nokia X2 feels unbelievably light!Almost like the plastic dummy in mobile shops,the only real weight is from the battery i bet.
Front face is pretty simple with well placed and spaced buttons
.Whole of the front is made of a single piece of Black plastic with red accents on top and bottom edge which gives it a good highlight,and rubber ridges between the rows of the keypad.A warning,the plastic is a finger print magnet as all plastic surfaces,but its easy to clean up.Back light is even and slightly bluish.
Speaker on top with the Nokia X2 branding.
Screen size is 2.2 inches diagonally TFT at 240x320 pixels and very bright and crisp which makes it look bigger than it is.Text is very crisp and easy to read.Font size is changeable with 3 options.But one problem with the screens within this price range is the poor viewing angle of the display.The screen is perfect as long at ur looking at it at a 90* angle,tilt a bit and the colors get washed out and inverted.
Below the screen are 2 soft buttons,the D-Pad,Accept Call button and End Call button.The soft buttons and D-Pad buttons are user customizable.
Typing on the keypad feels comfortable,with sliding the finger between buttons being possible thanks to the plastic surface.The keys are firm to the press without any click and a very small play.Makes for speedy typing.No Complaints here.
On the Top we have the 3.5mm headphone jack,2mm charging port and The data cable port(covered).USB charging is possible in this device which is a good feature for such a cheap phone.The headphone jack has a pretty tight click as I have noticed,might prevent accidental disconnection of the headset during activity.
Bottom of the device has the loop for the lanyard/strap.
On the left side we have the music player control buttons.In order of top to down they are Previous Song/Rewind,Play/Pause and Next Song/Fast Forward.The buttons are rubber and feel hard and distinguishable for vision-less operation.I wouldn't expect any softening of the rubber soon.
On the right side is the Volume Rocker,micro-SD card slot(covered) and camera button,in that order from top to bottom.A note about the sides of the device,they are slanted towards the front face which is a very good ergonomic touch which helps a lot in gripping the phone and in pressing the buttons. /___\ This has worked very well compared to keeping the sides flat(like the nokia 5130)
Now the back which is the best view of the phone.The upper 1/5th and lower 1/5th of the device is plastic.You have 2 plastic grills on top,with the single LED flash in between.The 5MP camera aperture below this.Below this is the Brushed Aluminum battery cover with etched NOKIA labeling.Below are another 2 plastic grills with the battery cover removal latch between the them.
Now for the impressive part,the placement of the speakers.The phone has 2 amazingly loud speakers.The upper speaker is on the right of the camera aperture(below the 3.5mm jack) and the lower speaker is on the other side.The other grills are just dummies.You realize the positioning of the speakers only when u hold the mobile in your hand(right hand only)The upper speaker is placed just next to ur index finger and the lower speaker is right in between your ring and little finger.What this means is that the speakers dont get blocked but anything anywhere.Simply genius i think.
Another classy touch is the Grey brushed aluminum battery cover which rests in your palm nicely because of the curved surface of the back and gives the phone a much costlier and solid feel.It also gives the back a bit of a grip.Very impressed to see such materials in cheap phones.
Over all the build quality is excellent,the phone feels solid in the hand without any squeaks(went for a few runs with it too)The covers of the USB slot and microSD slot are of tough rubber and wouldnt be a problem.Placement while typing SMS is also very comfortable without any top-heavy feeling.Only concern would be the quality of plastics which would defiantly loose the shine and sparkley embedded bits over time.
================
Battery
================
Battery is a 850mah unit,which took about 2 hours to charge and is at 50% now after 2 days of exploring the phone.More detailed evaluation later...
================
Connectivity
================
Well its got everything except WiFi.Usual 3 modes for USB(Mass Memory,Media Transfer and Ovi Suite)
Battery charging via USB is there but only for top ups,dont expect to charge the mobile solely using USB it would take u a day or longer.Data transfer rates go up to 2.5 to 3 MBPS.
Another surprise feature here is what Nokia calls USB On the Go which lets u connect a regular USB flash drive/USB memory stick using a adapter to the USB Slot of the mobile and lets you transfer files from the USB to mobile,kinda like a PC.This feature is advertised as a Highlight in the N8 and nice to see it in such an inexpensive mobile.
=================
Memory
=================
The phone has inbuilt 70MB out of which 45-50mb is available on first boot.You might be able to increase it to 60MB if you delete the included games and apps.The phone took my maxed 8GB microSD card which had 1000+ songs and some photos.Slow down only for music player refresh and gallery caching.The phone comes with a 2GB microSD card which is literally worthless,but is good to have i guess.
=================
Camera
=================
You get a 5MP fixed focus camera(no 2 level shutter button,no fancy Carl Zeiss optics)in the X2 which is surprising since the X3 gets only a 3.2MP unit.Camera interface is standard S40 affair.
-Flash has On/Off/Auto options.
-Self timer of 3,5 and 10 seconds.
-Effects of B/W,Sepia,Negative.
-White balance option Daylight,Incandescent,Fluorescent
-Portrait/Landscape orientation
Zoom is upto 4x Digital.Camera operation is very quick and time between shots is about 5-7 seconds.
Quality is generally good in well lit outdoor situations.
Indoor pictures have noise and a slow shutter means motion blur is common and u need to keep the camera steady.
But over all for the price the camera aspect of the phone is pretty good and well worth the money.Samples below:
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1923/photo0040jt.jpg
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5163/photo0037e.jpg
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/9360/photo0036l.jpg
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9721/photo0023w.jpg
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/5797/photo0021ud.jpg
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/9894/photo0015s.jpg
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3577/photo0013r.jpg
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/4762/photo0002bs.jpg
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/6955/photo0000y.jpg
One thing i noticed was that when you take a pic,the image is saved as a .nrf file first(nikon raw file)which is almost 4-5mb which needs to get processed to a .jpg file in the background and connecting the phone via USB before this PP was done lead to the phone crashing and rebooting.
Video recording is present at 320x240 (18 frames per second) 3GP format.A huge step down from the 720p 24fps recording of the i8910 *SIGH* (and life goes on...)
Quality is well known,no need to go into detail here.
===============
Main Menu
===============
-Calendar: Same ol Same ol
-Contacts: Only thing new i think is "Sync with Ovi" which lets you back up your contacts with your Ovi account.
-E Mail client: Lets u customize upto 12 accounts to retrieve email from.
-Internet: Phones comes preinstalled with Opera Mini 5 which is good enough for light browsing.
-Messaging: Conversations is built into the Messaging app which is a nice touch,lets you keep a better track of a long conversation by presenting it to you in a time line like manner.
-Photos: Has Camera App,My Photos,Time line,My Albums,Video Camera App and My Videos.Everything pretty self explanatory.
-Ovi Store: Lets you buy stuff which you can download for free from elsewhere :-D
-Music: Music Player App and Radio App.
-Games: Phone comes preloaded with a lot of games:Block'd,Bounce Tales,Brain Champ,City Bloxx,Diamond Rush,Rally 3D,Snake III and Sudoku.Really impressive list.
-Settings
-Call Logs
-Applications: You get the standard Alarm Clock,Calculator,File Manager(named Gallery confusingly)Extra(Converter,Facebook App,Flickr App,Nokia Life Tools,My Nokia,Size Converter for clothes and shoes and World Clock)Voice recorder,Organizer,Notes,Countdown Timer and a Stop Watch.
==============
Music
==============
This being a music oriented phone,the Music aspect needs to have a separate review.
Firstly,the supplied earphones:These are much improved compared to the previous bundled nokia headsets iv listened to.The cable is flat ribbon like and easy to untangle.It is asymmetrical,with a mic with a integrated shirt clip,The mic unit has a call receiving button and is very light not adding much bulk to the cable.The earphones are in-ear type and provide pretty good isolation from outside noise and are comfortable for long use(2 hours test period).As usual the medium size fit the best.Small and Large tips are also supplied.
SQ wise the bass freaks would love these since the bass is loud and full in these earphones and a big harsh at times.But at the cost of lacking Highs.Mids are respectable.If you like bass these will do the job.
The Music player:The layout is simple and changeable with themes.Album art is supported.Play lists can be made on the phone.There is no folder view sadly.Categorization is by Artist,Album and Genre.
Equalizer is the standard options,with 2 user customizable slots.
The music player can be seen in the Home Screen,displaying Artist and Song Name.Left and Right keys of the D-Pad can be used as next/previous song if the Music Player widget is highlighted.
You can view your videos from the Music Player App as well.
All in all a good easy to use layout.Sound quality with my UE triple.fi 10s is much better,almost as good as a Sansa Clip+.
Radio Player:The phone has a built in antenna so you dont need to connect headphones to listen to radio.You can set radio as the alarm tone too.Reception is also very good except in very cramped places,like the ground floor bathroom of my 2 floor house.
The speakers as said are extremely loud with good clarity and stereo separation.
================
Conclusion
================
So there is the smallest kid of the X Series from Nokia and at Rs.5800 to Rs.6000 its a killer mobile,at least that's what i feel.
Things i liked(for the price):
-Camera
-Build Quality
-Earphones
-Pre installed apps,games
-Price
Things of Concern:
-Plastics wear and tear on the front and back with age.
-Random Phone Reboots(fixed after a format of the memory card)
Intro
===============
Prompted by the loss of my year old Samsung i8910,I found myself losing interest in high end mobile phones.And the next day i read about Samsung's next-gen processor which is supposed to be Dual-Core and all and possible i8910 successor,so I say what the heck,good riddance.Lack of Symbian support was getting on my nerves anyway.
So i was on the market for a phone with the requirements of:
Decent Camera
Small,Light
Good Music player
CHEAP.
Somehow i didnt have to look for long as i immediately found Eldar's review of the X2 and i liked what i read.
Here is my take on the Nokia X2.
================
In The Box
================
Equipment is pretty standard for a Rs.6000 mobile.
-The Handset
-Battery BL-4C(850mAh)
-Nokia Charger(2mm)
-Headset(in-ear type with 3 sets of silicone tips)
-User Manual
-microUSB Data Cable
-Ovi Suite Mini DVD
-2GB microSD Card(Officially this is not supposed to be in the box but i guess its a negligible thrown-in for mobile sellers)
-Ovi Music voucher for 25 free tracks from the Ovi Music Store.
================
Physical
================
The phone is SUPPOSED to be available in 2 color schemes.Red/Black and Silver/Blue.In the shop the sales person told me he had gotten only 2 silver/blue pieces in a shipment of 5000 mobiles and would not have any idea about when he might get the next 2
I just loved the Silver/Blue in the screen shots and videos but had to settle for the Red/Black.Coming from a 160gram monster the Nokia X2 feels unbelievably light!Almost like the plastic dummy in mobile shops,the only real weight is from the battery i bet.
Front face is pretty simple with well placed and spaced buttons
.Whole of the front is made of a single piece of Black plastic with red accents on top and bottom edge which gives it a good highlight,and rubber ridges between the rows of the keypad.A warning,the plastic is a finger print magnet as all plastic surfaces,but its easy to clean up.Back light is even and slightly bluish.
Speaker on top with the Nokia X2 branding.
Screen size is 2.2 inches diagonally TFT at 240x320 pixels and very bright and crisp which makes it look bigger than it is.Text is very crisp and easy to read.Font size is changeable with 3 options.But one problem with the screens within this price range is the poor viewing angle of the display.The screen is perfect as long at ur looking at it at a 90* angle,tilt a bit and the colors get washed out and inverted.
Below the screen are 2 soft buttons,the D-Pad,Accept Call button and End Call button.The soft buttons and D-Pad buttons are user customizable.
Typing on the keypad feels comfortable,with sliding the finger between buttons being possible thanks to the plastic surface.The keys are firm to the press without any click and a very small play.Makes for speedy typing.No Complaints here.
On the Top we have the 3.5mm headphone jack,2mm charging port and The data cable port(covered).USB charging is possible in this device which is a good feature for such a cheap phone.The headphone jack has a pretty tight click as I have noticed,might prevent accidental disconnection of the headset during activity.
Bottom of the device has the loop for the lanyard/strap.
On the left side we have the music player control buttons.In order of top to down they are Previous Song/Rewind,Play/Pause and Next Song/Fast Forward.The buttons are rubber and feel hard and distinguishable for vision-less operation.I wouldn't expect any softening of the rubber soon.
On the right side is the Volume Rocker,micro-SD card slot(covered) and camera button,in that order from top to bottom.A note about the sides of the device,they are slanted towards the front face which is a very good ergonomic touch which helps a lot in gripping the phone and in pressing the buttons. /___\ This has worked very well compared to keeping the sides flat(like the nokia 5130)
Now the back which is the best view of the phone.The upper 1/5th and lower 1/5th of the device is plastic.You have 2 plastic grills on top,with the single LED flash in between.The 5MP camera aperture below this.Below this is the Brushed Aluminum battery cover with etched NOKIA labeling.Below are another 2 plastic grills with the battery cover removal latch between the them.
Now for the impressive part,the placement of the speakers.The phone has 2 amazingly loud speakers.The upper speaker is on the right of the camera aperture(below the 3.5mm jack) and the lower speaker is on the other side.The other grills are just dummies.You realize the positioning of the speakers only when u hold the mobile in your hand(right hand only)The upper speaker is placed just next to ur index finger and the lower speaker is right in between your ring and little finger.What this means is that the speakers dont get blocked but anything anywhere.Simply genius i think.
Another classy touch is the Grey brushed aluminum battery cover which rests in your palm nicely because of the curved surface of the back and gives the phone a much costlier and solid feel.It also gives the back a bit of a grip.Very impressed to see such materials in cheap phones.
Over all the build quality is excellent,the phone feels solid in the hand without any squeaks(went for a few runs with it too)The covers of the USB slot and microSD slot are of tough rubber and wouldnt be a problem.Placement while typing SMS is also very comfortable without any top-heavy feeling.Only concern would be the quality of plastics which would defiantly loose the shine and sparkley embedded bits over time.
================
Battery
================
Battery is a 850mah unit,which took about 2 hours to charge and is at 50% now after 2 days of exploring the phone.More detailed evaluation later...
================
Connectivity
================
Well its got everything except WiFi.Usual 3 modes for USB(Mass Memory,Media Transfer and Ovi Suite)
Battery charging via USB is there but only for top ups,dont expect to charge the mobile solely using USB it would take u a day or longer.Data transfer rates go up to 2.5 to 3 MBPS.
Another surprise feature here is what Nokia calls USB On the Go which lets u connect a regular USB flash drive/USB memory stick using a adapter to the USB Slot of the mobile and lets you transfer files from the USB to mobile,kinda like a PC.This feature is advertised as a Highlight in the N8 and nice to see it in such an inexpensive mobile.
=================
Memory
=================
The phone has inbuilt 70MB out of which 45-50mb is available on first boot.You might be able to increase it to 60MB if you delete the included games and apps.The phone took my maxed 8GB microSD card which had 1000+ songs and some photos.Slow down only for music player refresh and gallery caching.The phone comes with a 2GB microSD card which is literally worthless,but is good to have i guess.
=================
Camera
=================
You get a 5MP fixed focus camera(no 2 level shutter button,no fancy Carl Zeiss optics)in the X2 which is surprising since the X3 gets only a 3.2MP unit.Camera interface is standard S40 affair.
-Flash has On/Off/Auto options.
-Self timer of 3,5 and 10 seconds.
-Effects of B/W,Sepia,Negative.
-White balance option Daylight,Incandescent,Fluorescent
-Portrait/Landscape orientation
Zoom is upto 4x Digital.Camera operation is very quick and time between shots is about 5-7 seconds.
Quality is generally good in well lit outdoor situations.
Indoor pictures have noise and a slow shutter means motion blur is common and u need to keep the camera steady.
But over all for the price the camera aspect of the phone is pretty good and well worth the money.Samples below:
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1923/photo0040jt.jpg
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5163/photo0037e.jpg
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/9360/photo0036l.jpg
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9721/photo0023w.jpg
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/5797/photo0021ud.jpg
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/9894/photo0015s.jpg
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3577/photo0013r.jpg
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/4762/photo0002bs.jpg
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/6955/photo0000y.jpg
One thing i noticed was that when you take a pic,the image is saved as a .nrf file first(nikon raw file)which is almost 4-5mb which needs to get processed to a .jpg file in the background and connecting the phone via USB before this PP was done lead to the phone crashing and rebooting.
Video recording is present at 320x240 (18 frames per second) 3GP format.A huge step down from the 720p 24fps recording of the i8910 *SIGH* (and life goes on...)
Quality is well known,no need to go into detail here.
===============
Main Menu
===============
-Calendar: Same ol Same ol
-Contacts: Only thing new i think is "Sync with Ovi" which lets you back up your contacts with your Ovi account.
-E Mail client: Lets u customize upto 12 accounts to retrieve email from.
-Internet: Phones comes preinstalled with Opera Mini 5 which is good enough for light browsing.
-Messaging: Conversations is built into the Messaging app which is a nice touch,lets you keep a better track of a long conversation by presenting it to you in a time line like manner.
-Photos: Has Camera App,My Photos,Time line,My Albums,Video Camera App and My Videos.Everything pretty self explanatory.
-Ovi Store: Lets you buy stuff which you can download for free from elsewhere :-D
-Music: Music Player App and Radio App.
-Games: Phone comes preloaded with a lot of games:Block'd,Bounce Tales,Brain Champ,City Bloxx,Diamond Rush,Rally 3D,Snake III and Sudoku.Really impressive list.
-Settings
-Call Logs
-Applications: You get the standard Alarm Clock,Calculator,File Manager(named Gallery confusingly)Extra(Converter,Facebook App,Flickr App,Nokia Life Tools,My Nokia,Size Converter for clothes and shoes and World Clock)Voice recorder,Organizer,Notes,Countdown Timer and a Stop Watch.
==============
Music
==============
This being a music oriented phone,the Music aspect needs to have a separate review.
Firstly,the supplied earphones:These are much improved compared to the previous bundled nokia headsets iv listened to.The cable is flat ribbon like and easy to untangle.It is asymmetrical,with a mic with a integrated shirt clip,The mic unit has a call receiving button and is very light not adding much bulk to the cable.The earphones are in-ear type and provide pretty good isolation from outside noise and are comfortable for long use(2 hours test period).As usual the medium size fit the best.Small and Large tips are also supplied.
SQ wise the bass freaks would love these since the bass is loud and full in these earphones and a big harsh at times.But at the cost of lacking Highs.Mids are respectable.If you like bass these will do the job.
The Music player:The layout is simple and changeable with themes.Album art is supported.Play lists can be made on the phone.There is no folder view sadly.Categorization is by Artist,Album and Genre.
Equalizer is the standard options,with 2 user customizable slots.
The music player can be seen in the Home Screen,displaying Artist and Song Name.Left and Right keys of the D-Pad can be used as next/previous song if the Music Player widget is highlighted.
You can view your videos from the Music Player App as well.
All in all a good easy to use layout.Sound quality with my UE triple.fi 10s is much better,almost as good as a Sansa Clip+.
Radio Player:The phone has a built in antenna so you dont need to connect headphones to listen to radio.You can set radio as the alarm tone too.Reception is also very good except in very cramped places,like the ground floor bathroom of my 2 floor house.
The speakers as said are extremely loud with good clarity and stereo separation.
================
Conclusion
================
So there is the smallest kid of the X Series from Nokia and at Rs.5800 to Rs.6000 its a killer mobile,at least that's what i feel.
Things i liked(for the price):
-Camera
-Build Quality
-Earphones
-Pre installed apps,games
-Price
Things of Concern:
-Plastics wear and tear on the front and back with age.
-Random Phone Reboots(fixed after a format of the memory card)
. Yeah it does not require headsets plugged in to start the radio , which i doubted first but after leaping outside my window the phone was able detect radio frequencies .
