Nokia X7 Review: My Xper7ence

Nokia X7 Homescreen

Remember the Nokia X7 that I borrowed from Nokia a few weeks ago?. Actually, this review is soooo long. I just summarized this one. I enjoyed and hated this phone for 2 weeks. It took me 2 weeks to write a review because I’ve been busy with my school works and exams. Well here it is, I share with you my experience with the Nokia X7. My Xper7ence  

You can feel that the Nokia X7 is made pure metal on the back and solid glass on the rear. I like the design but they should’ve made edges on its sides. It is very hard to hold and text on this phone using only one hand. When I was taking a photo and I was about to press the camera button, the phone almost slipped into my hand because this phone has no edges.

Nokia X7 has a 4” AMOLED with CBD (Clear Black Display) which is superior to the Super Clear LCD (I tested it myself) but it has the same 640 x 360 resolution which is so outdated nowadays since most decent phones use WVGA or 800 X 600 resolution. I really like its thin and sexy profile but the lack of edges on this device is a turn-off for me.  If you love solid metal unibody phones, surely you’ll love this one.

The camera inside this device is an 8 Megapixel EDoF (Yes, Autofocus is missing). The camera is great when shooting at a distance but don’t expect a crisp and clear shot when shooting objects near you because the camera will not focus on it. Too bad, I forgot to copy those pics that I’ve taken using the Nokia X7 (ooohhh define fail). This device is also capable of recording 720p videos @ 25 fps which is quite good. Here’s a sample of HD video:

Yes, Nokia X7 still uses the same old Symbian OS but this one uses Symbian Anna, it is the updated version of the Symbian^3 but don’t expect a faster and crash-free Symbian here. I still get a lot of crashes especially when multi-tasking. But hey, Nokia X7 can sometimes run 7 app simultaneously

Symbian Social App

The 680 MHz processor of the Nokia X7 is a bit slow for Anna. I felt that Nokia X7 needs a faster processor. But until now, I’m still wondering how the 680 MHz processor  + GPU of the Nokia X7 can record 720p@25fps. While the Android phones needs 1GHz just to do that.

Checking-in at OVI Maps

There are a lot of apps that are included in the Nokia X7 like F-secure, Quickoffice and many more. But there is only one app that I like so much – OVI maps. OVI maps is the best free mapping application I tried so far.  In OVI Maps you can connect your different SNS like Twitter, Facebook & Foursquare. Hopefully, we can connect our Google+ account soon. You can also download Philippine maps, which supports turn-by-turn navigation.

I used the Nokia X7’s turn-by-turn navigation. I downloaded the PH maps that’s why I’m not connected to the internet

There are 2 games which are pre-installed on the device these are Galaxy On Fire and Asphalt 5. I already discussed the gaming experience on the device a few weeks ago. If you feel that these games are too boring, OVI Store offers a few cool games to download.

This phone is created for multimedia & games lovers. The 4” AMOLED CBD is so sweet. The colors are vivid but the small resolution is a letdown for me. If you are an S^3 user, you can notice some upgrades like the browser and the squarecircle icons which is quite pleasing to my eye. The browser was also updated but the maximum tabs that you can open are three.  Oh you will still experience frequent crashes on the browser

One advantage of Symbian is battery life. I manage to get 1 and a half-day of battery with moderate use of text, browsing using 3G and games. Well, I had this phone for 2 weeks and there is no single day that I haven’t experience a crash. And this one is the worst of them all:

The Nokia X7 crashed

I can’t turn it off nor remove the battery (Because the battery is non-removable) so I just waited for so many hours before it runs out of juice. Symbian Anna has a lot of bugs and Nokia really need to polish it. I hope that when Symbian Belle is out, Nokia already repaired those pesky bugs.

All in all, I like the improvements of Symbian but the bugs and diseases that plague S^3 hasn’t been cured yet. The Nokia X7 is a solid device with a nice hardware but the only downside of these is OS & slow processor.  The AMOLED CBD is so sweet; I could see the pictures and videos outside even with direct sunlight.  OVI Store offers a vast array of games and apps but it can’t achieve Apple appstore and Android Market success.

This phone is great for multimedia lovers. It can record and play 720p videos. The 4” AMOLED CBD screen is great for watching movies but it has smaller resolution compared to some phones out there in the market and Symbian OS is buggy. Let’s wait for Symbian Belle, if they can change the game. If you are willing to get this phone then you can get this at Widget City for only P19,000.00