First Looks: Nokia X7 – Sexy Slice of Symbian Anna
Making an appearance at CommunicAsia 2011, Nokia's X7 "Entertainment" smartphone has great styling, build quality and a beautiful 4-inch AMOLED display, but does the Anna update make its beauty more than skin deep? Read on to find out.
Silver Stealth Fighter
The Nokia X7 is one cool-looking phone. Hardware has always been one of Nokia’s strong suits and they continue this tradition with the sleek and futuristic design of the X7. Its sharp angles and little grill accents remind us of a silver stealth fighter jet. You might think that the X7 has four speakers because of the grills, but it’s only the two at the bottom that actually have them.
It’s a refreshing take on touchscreen phone design which has usually been clones of the iPhone. In your hand it feels really solid and well-built, since there is virtually no plastic involved in its construction. It reminds us very much of the build quality of HTC mobile phones. On top you have the 3.5mm headphone jack and a micro-USB port which serves as the charger as well as the data transfer port. This makes it much more flexible when it comes to charging, especially if you misplace your charger or you just plain don’t have it on you.
The X7's sharp angles remind us of a stealth fighter jet.
The top section of the phone has the two connectivity ports (micro-USB and 3.5mm headphone jack) and a uniquely shaped lock button.
Another hardware highlight is its 4-inch AMOLED touch screen, which is wonderful to behold. Its contrast and saturation are comparable to Samsung’s Galaxy S II. The colors really pop out and despite the relatively low resolution (360 x 640), videos and pictures are nice and sharp. Which is just as well, since Nokia is positioning this as an “entertainment” phone.
A pre-loaded surfing video played very well on the 4-inch AMOLED display.
Meet Anna
Of course, the main attraction here is the new “Anna” update to Nokia’s Symbian mobile OS. You have three home screens with six spaces each for shortcuts and widgets, just like in Symbian^3, but scrolling through them is much quicker now. You don’t have to do a full swipe to switch between them like before, and it makes the phone feel quite snappy. The icons have a more rounded shape and are more brightly colored, much like the ones on the Meego-powered N9. Tapping on the upper right hand corner of the screen opens up a convenient notifications window, which also includes connectivity options and more detailed battery information.
Symbian Anna updated the icons to resemble the MeeGo icons in the N9
Tapping the top right corner opens a drop-down notifications menu.
Photo And Video
The X7 comes with an 8-megapixel camera and has the ability to shoot high-definition video. The pictures are quite sharp, although the camera struggles in low light situations, even with the dual LED flash on. Video on the other hand is consistently great both indoors and outdoors.
Photos taken with the maximum resolution of 8 megapixels are very clear, although maybe a bit over-sharpened.
The X7's camera struggles in dark indoor situations, even with its dual LED flash.
Final Thoughts
As far as Symbian phones go, this is the best you can get. Sleek and solid styling, a big beautiful screen, and excellent photo and video make for a very attractive package. Using it though, you can feel the age of the operating system. It’s still menu heavy, which is a remnant of the non-touch days, which means you go through one extra step to get where you want and applications are deep-nested. The Anna update does give it much more polish, but it is still miles behind Android or iOS. If you don’t mind all that, it’s yours for PhP 21,275.
The Nokia X7 is the best Symbian phone on the market today.
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