On my hardware review, the Nokia C7 got a high grade just like the Nokia N8 and E7, Nokia made sure that its latest Symbian^3 touch devices offerings were exemplary on their own rights. To compare it with the rest of the competing devices from other brands in its bracket, unsurpassed by a wide mark with its potent combination of style and high grade features.
The discussion this time will focus on the softwares installed and Symbian^3, Nokia C7’s operating system, the second general attempt of Nokia to level off the touchscreen playing field from the advances made by Apple and Android. The software was highly regarded at the same time criticized but does it really deserve such comments and does it feared with the rest of the competition. Read on!
The Nokia C7 is currently running the PR 1.2 version of the Symbian^3 software, the latest market version but currently not the most advance as Symbian Ana had been announced and will be rolling in the upcoming weeks. The aforementioned software version promises a huge upgrade of the overall performance of the current. The Nokia C7 just like the rest of the Symbian^3 devices will enjoy the said improvements.
Touch me!!
One of the most important selling points of a touchscreen device is the touch experience, the Nokia C7 provides a decent user interface on top of the generally responsive capacitative touch mechanism. It easily reacts to gentle presses and open applications instantly, can do flick scroll of the screen for faster navigation, smooth transition from one window to another, pinch to zoom to maximize or minimize images and web pages among the rest of the advantages of a full touchscreen device. In other words, it can do everything that expensive touch devices can do except that it’s currently not as fluid as the competitors. This is currently being address though the upcoming Symbian Ana update which has features and improvements that could level up the playing field.
Multitasking at its best
One of the strongest area in any Nokia Symbian devices version 60 and up is it’s multistasking capability. Users get to enjoy multiple applications and features all at the same time. The Nokia C7 is no different from the rest, it can multitask easily and instantly taking as much as 10 heavy applications all at the same time. The phones RAM is around 120MB with 512MB of ROM, this is the main reason why it can easily handle multiple open applications. I haven’t experienced a single memory full in the device except that it slows down when it goes beyond the norm.
Storage Capability
The phone carries an 8GB internal mass memory creating a huge space for music, images, movies, eBooks among other file downloads at the same time huge space for application installations for a faster response when used. Base on my techie and multimedia lifestyle, the 8GB is far more than enough and I’m talking about vast music collection and still images in here with a few movies and videos. The vast phone memory eliminates the need for an external memory unless you carry with you every one of your movie collections. You don’t even need to worry about this because the phone is capable of handling external memory card of up to 32GB.
Multiple Homescreen
The phone carries an AMOLED technology that brightens the 3.5inches screen, a lethal combination that is unique in the mid-range market. You could never find any other phone from manufacturers that carry these combinations yet in the aforementioned bracket. An AMOLED gives a vibrant color and contrast in a powerless way and is at the moment the most desirable among the screen technology. The phone has an active widget set up that is capable of updating directly from the screen. Among the configured widgets were eMail, Nokia Social, Nokia Reader, Nokia Maps, BBC News, CNN, Reuters, WLAN wizards and the rest of the online video sites.
Three customizable Homescreen are up to utilize were users can add as many widgets as they prefer as long as it doesn’t goes beyond the allotted spot. Users can also customize the wallpapers of each Homescreen and the position of the widgets. Customizing the Homescreen is as easy as prolonging the tap to enter the customizable mode and move the widgets up and down to desired location.
Homescreen set up is wonderful but not the best, Android for instance has a livelier one with its interactive wallpaper and the ability to change the size of the icons. I would not say that it’s helpful in daily use but it’s an eye candy that Symbian should adopt to make its operating system more futuristic.
Calendar and Phonebook
Nokia calendar is one of the best in the mobilephone world, it’s a very user friendly that you can easily set your calendar up like seconds. User can add or delete events, schedules, reminders among others fast with just few clicks. Best of all, users have every possible connectivity needed to sync PC calendar information’s to the phone.
Phonebook aka Contacts was as always reliable, you can add every possible data into it like images, email address, website, etc. Searching for contacts had never been easier with the improved fast swipe scrolling gesture and the predictive input mechanism. Best of all, the integration of Social Networks like Yahoo Messenger or Ovi by Nokia, which will automatically connect contacts information to the aforementioned sites and could access them easily via contacts menu.
Things that Nokia should improve, the Calendar looks, it needs a little graphic effect to make it more lively and interactive.
Web and Email
The phone’s Email set up have now leveled up with the best inheriting an E-series like mechanism. Users can enjoy push email service using a more stable version of Nokia Messaging compatible with every possible Email providers. Nokia had partner with the biggest telecom provider in the world to give unlimited push email service. Now how great was that? eMail on the dot, anywhere you might be. Configuring the eMail set up is rather easy, what users need to do is supply the address and password and it’s ready to go. I can now freely say that this service had come to an age. They only need some facelift and some eye candy transitions.
The web browser sports a WAP 2.0 over HTML with RSS feed, a typical Nokia browser with good web page implementation. Download speed is fast with an integration of full web page implementation and pinch to zoom but a bit clunky to use with no text reflow among other goodies that can be found on the competition. The phones browser is embedded with Flash Lite 4, making youTube video play flawlessly on the page. As much as I enjoy the browser, it’s not intuitive like say Opera Mobile 10 were it loads a semi pc look web page. It also doesn’t have a rich option menu which could help utilized the browser fully.
My major problem with the browser, I can’t use to edit my blog directly from Blogger.com, most of the time it will close the browser especially when I’m on the edit mode. I believe it cannot read long messages as the messaging mechanism is limited. Nokia needs to create a Blogger.com friendly application fast.
Part 2 Up Next!
May 1, 2011
Nokia C7, The Software Talk Part 1
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