Review of the Nokia C7
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Introduction

Nokia C7

The Nokia C7 was announced in September 2010 and made available in October 2010. This unmistakable stainless steel, sleek phone comes with performance improvements on the hardware and a feature rich interface backed by Symbian^3 OS.

The Nokia C7 has a solid feel to it. It is remarkably slim at just over a centimeter thick and that makes it great to handle. You would assume the Nokia C7 is meant to be an entry level or mid level device at most, as is the case with other phones from the Nokia C Series family (such as the Nokia C2). This does not seem to be the case here, as this Nokia C series phones seems to be encroaching on high end phone territory.

Design (3 out of 5)

The Nokia C7 comes with a 3.5 inch Nokia clear black AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display. This display takes up almost the whole front face except for the earphone and the microphone. The other elements on the front face are the call end, the call begin buttons and a selection button place right in-between the call control keys.

The back side of the phone has the 8MP camera and the dual LED flash. Next to the camera on both sides you will find the stereo external speakers. Below all these is the battery compartment.

The left side of the Nokia C7 has got the dedicated camera buttons as well as the hardware volume up and volume down buttons. The top part of the Nokia C7 has got the microUSB socket, the phone’s power control and the 3.5 mm audio jack.

The Nokia C7 as a whole measures just 117.3 x 56.8 x 10.5 mm, weighs in at 130 grams and is available in a selection of colors that includes charcoal black, frosty metal and mahogany brown.

User Interface (3 out of 5)

The Nokia C7 has a much improved user interface over its predecessors. The user interface supports interactivity using the multitouch sensors on the display. The accelerometer on the device facilitates the auto-rotate features of the phone for convenience. Navigating the Nokia C7 is easily achieved by tapping on the touch sensitive controls to open the particular application or settings you are interested in.

Themes can be changed to suit your preferences. These could be, but are not limited to, font size and color, background images, menu and control colors. Compatible applications can appear on the home screen in the form of widgets which give instant access to vital information from the application such as alerts, feeds, and messages among other things.

Text and digits can be input into the Nokia C7 using the on board soft numpad and the soft QWERTY keyboard. Also available is the option of using a Nokia approved stylus to write text on the display using the handwriting recognition features.

There are a few hardware keys that make controlling the Nokia C7 easier. These include the volume increase and decrease keys, the dedicated camera key, call control keys and a select button.

Otherwise, the basic simplicity of finding controls on screen that is common to all Symbian devices is evident on the Nokia C7.

Features (3 out of 5)

Nokia C7

The Nokia C7 comes with data connectivity support covering 2G and 3G network speeds. The 3G protocols support HSDPA with speeds of up to 10.2Mbps. As for the 2G speeds there is GPRS and EDGE. Other than that there is Wi-Fi, Bluetooth version 3.0 and microUSB.

Storage on the Nokia C7 is 8GB internal memory and external memory supports up to 32GB microSD memory cards. With that storage you have the liberty to store the photos and videos taken with the primary 8MP camera that supports a resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels with fixed focus and dual-LED flash. The camera also supports Geo-tagging and face detection.

The video camera supports 720p HD quality videos at 25FPS with video stabilization. The Nokia C7 also includes a secondary camera for video calls.

There is an AMOLED Nokia clear black display with a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels. This display has got a proximity sensor for assisting in auto turn off and and accelerometer sensor for auto rotate of the user interface.

There is a stereo FM radio as well as an FM transmitter on the Nokia C7. With this Nokia phone you have access to a MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ music player and a MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV video player. Other multimedia features found on the Nokia C7 include connectivity to Web TV and a TV-out connector. Games and applications can be downloaded from any of the data connectivity sources.

Flash lite 4.0 is supported by this Nokia C Series phone. Document format support available on the Nokia includes MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and PDF.

There is an assisted GPS receiver on the Nokia C7 which also has support for Ovi Maps 3.0 that comes pre-installed on the device.

Performance (3 out of 5)

One thing is for sure - the Nokia C7 has visible performance improvements. This Nokia phone comes fitted with the ARM 11 680 MHz processor, and a hardware 3D graphics accelerator. The camera on board is also great with crystal clear picture quality and effective lighting from the flash.

The Nokia C7 can keep you talking for up to 9 hours and keep you entertained with a music playing time of up to 54 hours. Battery life on stand-by is up to 648 hours.

The call quality is great with decent background noise cancellation. Internet connectivity is fast both on 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity modes.

Applications run pretty fast on the Nokia C7 and this includes browsing through websites with large pages.

Verdict (4 out of 5)

Overall the Nokia C7 is a great phone, no doubt. It has made some bold moves in trying to move out the the Nokia C series comfort zone to compete with some of the market’s high end phones, including those recently released such as the Nokia E7. With the pricing model set at about $430 for an unlocked version, the Nokia C7 may find its push into the market a bit of a challenge as there is stiff competition and the already damaged reputation that Symbian OS has.

With Nokia relying on the Symbian^3 OS to redeem the Symbian OS as a whole from its short comings, it is up to phones like the Nokia C7 to prove that Nokia can be a threat to the likes of iPhone and Android.