Review of the Design of Nokia X2

Review of the Design of Nokia X2
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Nokia-X2

The Nokia X2 is a candy bar type phone with a numeric key pad that stands out. It was released in July 2010. Being the latest in the X series line of smartphones from Nokia, this phone targets the young at heart, with a love for music and a limited budget. This phone packs features that make it very functional, a size that fits any pocket without being uncomfortable and looks quite sleek although this last statement can be quite controversial in that the phone tends to look cheap when you actually start to handle it. So let us jump right in and see what the Nokia X2 is all about.

Design (3 out of 5)

nokia-x2

At first glance the Nokia X2 does not look special at all. Why should it? Remember it targets the budget users. The Nokia X2 has got a sleek smooth design, not too flashy but subtle enough to complement the user’s style and likes. The Nokia X2 comes in an assortment of colors ranging from red on black, to blue on silver. The Nokia X2 comes cased in plastic that frankly looks as cheap as it gets.

Looking at the visible features by starting from the front, there is a TFT color display that is capable of 256K colors. This display comes in a size of 2.2 inches and a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. Above the TFT display there is the ear piece for listening in on phone calls.

Right below the TFT display, the Nokia X2 comes with a softkey panel that houses the five-way scroll keys also known on Nokia phones as the D-pad. This D-pad is surrounded on either side by the two softkeys. Below the left soft key there is the call answer button and below the right soft key there is the call end button. That is pretty much all there is on the softkey panel.

Below the softkey panel there is the numeric pad laid out in the standard 3 by 4 pattern grid. Turning to the right side of the Nokia X2 you will find the volume up and volume down buttons. These buttons appear right above the microSD card slot. Below the microSD card slot there is the hardware button for taking snap shots on the camera.

Moving on to the left side of the phone, you find the multimedia button controls that give you access to play, pause, fast forward and rewind music on the Nokia X2. The top end of the phone has the power button as well as the 3.5mm audio jack.

The back of the Nokia X2 comes fitted with the battery compartment, that also houses the SIM card slot. There is also a 5MP camera fitted above the battery compartment and an LED flash above the camera. The space below the battery compartment cover is fitted with stereo hands free speakers. The bottom of the Nokia X2 has a socket for charging the phone.

The Nokia X2 comes measuring in at 111 x 47 x 13.3 mm and weight a mere 81 gms. All in all, this phone has pretty decent design features.

User Interface (3 out of 5)

nokia-x2

The Nokia X2 comes with Nokia’s S40 proprietary operating system. This simply means the Nokia X2 is not as advanced as the many of the Nokia phones that carry the S60 User Interface. The Nokia X2 as a pretty basic navigation model that is intuitive and easy to use.

The home screen is pretty limited in what it offers as far as features go. The basic layout of the home screen consists of a list that shows the items being played on the multimedia player as well as the Fm radio. Below that, there is a shortcut to the Nokia Ovi store. Below the Ovi store shortcut, there is an application shortcut bar which can hold up to five customizable shortcuts to your most popular applications.

To navigate back and forth between applications and settings on the phone, you would have to go through the menu by using the left soft key. From the menu it is quite straightforward as each application is represented by an icon which once clicked gets you into the the application.

The numeric keypad can be used to dial phone numbers when making calls. The same numeric keypad can be used to type in messages with alphabetic characters. The Nokia X2 also support T9 text input.

Features (3 out of 5)

The Nokia X2 comes with a lot of features. We start off with the phone being able to support vibration alerts and MP3 ringtones. The Nokia X2 also comes with a MP4/H.263 video player and a MP3/WMA/eAAC+ audio player. There is a Stereo FM radio with RDS as well on the Nokia X2. All these can be played back using the 3.5mm audio jack or the External Stereo speakers and dedicated music keys for listening to music.

The Nokia X2 comes preinstalled with games such as Bounce Tales, City Bloxx, Snake III, Block’d, Diamond Rush, Rally 3D, Brain Champion and Sudoku.

Other application on the Nokia X2 include an organizer, a photo editor and voice memo features. Push email, regular email, Instant messaging, including a dedicated button to Facebook on the home screen and MMS are supported on the Nokia X2 in addition to regular SMS.

The Nokia X2 comes with a WAP 2.0 full HTML browser and Opera mini preinstalled on the phone. There is a 5 MP camera with an LED flash and a resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels.

As far as data connectivity on the Nokia X2, users are restricted to just GPRS and EDGE. There is neither 3G nor Wi-Fi on the phone. Bluetooth and USB are available on the Nokia X2.

Internal memory on the phone is 48 MB and up to 16 GB external memory can be added to the phone through MicroSD.

(3 out of 5)

nokia-x2

The Nokia X2 comes with a battery that keeps the phone going for hours and hours. This Nokia phone has standby time of about 624 hours and talk time of 13 hours. It can play music for up to 27 hours. The Nokia X2 doesn’t come with GPS or 3G which are known to consume a lot of power so that probably works to the advantage of the Nokia X2.

This Nokia phone has great external speakers with remarkable sound quality, which makes listening to music very appealing. The Nokia X2 has the ability to partially multitask; you listen to music you can continue to do other tasks on the phone. This Nokia phone comes with a 5 MP camera which apparently is not that good. The picture quality on the Nokia X2 would make you think that this Nokia phone is comparable to a 3.2 MP camera.

The voice call quality on the Nokia X2 is somewhat above average. The sound clarity and the sensitivity of the Nokia X2 are excellent. There is great background noise cancellation on the Nokia X2 and therefore making and receiving calls, be it indoors or outdoors, is something you would be comfortable with.

The FM radio does not have very good reception on most occasions, but that I would probably not hold the Nokia X2 accountable as FM signals tend to fluctuate even in distances as little as 1 foot. All in all, this is an acceptable phone as far as performance goes.

Verdict (3 out of 5)

All in all the Nokia X2 is a good phone. Even though it lacks many features that other Nokia phones have. The Nokia X2 is a phone that is definitely worth getting especially for the budget users. It is economical, has great call quality and one major plus about the Nokia X2 is its ability to play music really well. The fact that it has dedicated music buttons just makes things more better.

The downside of the Nokia X2 is the substandard 5 MP camera that is on board. Nokia should have done much better on the camera front, like it has on other models.

For a price of about $110 I would not complain. As a matter of fact, the pricing is what makes the Nokia X2 a great budget phone.