Nokia X3 Review

With a whole host of devices announced at the recent Nokia World event in Stuttgart, Nokia showed their intention to hold on their status as the world’s leading manufacturer of mobile phones. Of particular interest was the announcement of two new handsets in the new Xseries range, the Nokia X3 and X6. It was rumoured a few months ago that Nokia were planning on releasing devices under two new sub-brands, the Xseries and Cseries. Whilst we still wait to see what the Cseries will bring us (whether indeed it is a range of phones, or even just accessories), we can now take our first in depth look at the Xseries, starting with the Nokia X3.

Coming in a sleek, slide style, the Nokia X3 really looks the part. Destined as a music focussed device, the Nokia X3 delivers a wealth of features in a compact, easy to use phone. Closed, the phone shows a large 2.2 inch TFT display, supporting up to 256,000 colours, with a QVGA resolution. Underneath the display is a common Nokia D-Pad navigation key, flanked either side by two soft option menu selection keys and the traditional style green and red send/end keys. Running down the left hand side of the display are three shortcut buttons for music playback, with a fast forward, rewind and a play/pause key. The device is a decent size, measuring in a 96 x 49 x 14mm and weighs in at a comfortable 103g. When the phone is slid open, it reveals a standard 12 key alphanumeric keypad, of a flat, etched metallic design.

Music is at the centre of the X3, offering a high quality music player supporting a strong selection of music types, including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. The X3 offers a large internal memory of 70MB, which is expandable with MicroSD memory cards, with the X3 supporting up to 16GB, plenty of room for thousands of music tracks. The Music player automatically sorts all music you store onto the handset, with lists separated by genre, album, artist and composer. All tunes can be sorted into playlists, and there is support for album art on the phone. You can also choose your own wallpaper and theme in the music player, so you can customise it to reflect your own preferences. With a built in 3.5mm audio output jack, you can use your own favourite headphones on the X3, or alternatively use a wireless Bluetooth headset, as the X3 has support for Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP.

To arrange music onto the phone, you can either install the Nokia Music Manager software, which will search your PC for all music files installed, and then allow you to transfer them to the phone, or alternatively you can use the default Windows Media Player, with the X3 being compatible with the latest version Windows Media Player 11. One of the benefits of using the Nokia Music Manager program is it will give you the option to convert your music to the eAAC+ file format before copying it over to the phone. This is particularly useful if you do not have a high capacity memory card available and space is at a premium. The eAAC+ format is a condensed digital music file, which has had all the high and low end information removed from the music file, generally sounds that cannot be heard by the human ear, so as not to effect the overall quality of the track. By converting music files to eAAC+ first, it allows you to store more music when space is at a premium, with a typical 4MB music file in MP3 format only taking up around 1.4 – 2MB instead.

The Nokia X3 is the first S40 device to have inclusive support for the Nokia OVI store. The OVI store is a big deal for Nokia, offering a central database for apps and games that can be downloaded to a Nokia device. As well as apps and games, you can find videos, podcasts and other related content for your mobile. The X3 also comes with a built in 3.2 Megapixel camera, which supports enhanced fixed focus and has an LED flash. Video recording is enabled at 15fps, at QCIF resolution, adequate for filming and sending video clips to friends via email or MMS, but wouldn’t look too good uploaded to YouTube or Facebook, for example.

The X3 does have a really nice web browser, and with auto screen rotation, you can get the best web browsing experience by browsing using the device in landscape mode. But, sadly, the X3 is not a 3G device, so web browsing is handled by the much slower data formats of GPRS or EDGE.

As one of the two first handsets to be launched in the Xseries range, the X3 has a lot riding on it. Although well featured in parts, there are a few areas where it is lacking, but that may actually work out to its advantage. After all, people who choose the X3 will be those who are looking for a smart music focussed device that won’t break the bank, and this is the area where the X3 is strongest. A sure fire handset to land on the Prepay market, we expect the Nokia X3 to be available to purchase during Q4 2009, in plenty of time for the Christmas rush.

Related Nokia X3 Links

• 
• Compare the latest Nokia X3 deals
• Compare Nokia X3 pay as you go prices
• Read user Nokia X3 reviews
• Full list of Nokia X3 specs
• View gallery of Nokia X3 pictures
• Watch latest Nokia X3 video