Nokia X2 Review

Introduction:

Looking for a music on-the-go mobile with stereo speakers, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a 5MP camera? Want all that at a pretty good price? Look no further, Nokia's X2 is all of the above in a candybar body, and can be picked up for under £60 offline in the UK. With competition from Sony Ericsson's Zylo and the rest of Nokia's XpressMusic range however, can the Nokia X2 hold its own as the budget music phone for the masses?

Design:

Design-wise, the Nokia X2 is a fun looking piece of kit that manages to avoid looking cheap and plasticy. With a more classical look than some of the older XpressMusic phones (such as the 5310), the X2 has sleeker lines, edgier flourishes and a great looking metal battery cover with a brushed effect. When we, and others picked up the Nokia X2, the fact it was so light came as a surprise, which is testament to how solid the phone looks. It made us wish it was a bit heavier.



You can compare the Nokia X2 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

In traditional candybar format, the front is taken up by the numeric keypad, a call and end button, two soft-keys, a five way d-pad and the screen. At 2.2 inches, the screen's a little on the small side, though with QVGA resolution (240x320), it's sharp enough. With adequate brightness levels, viewing outdoors is fine, therefore while the Nokia X2 won't be ideal for video or photo sharing, it will be good enough for day to day tasks. There are however two minor detractors to the screen, the first being less than ideal viewing angles and the second relating to the fascia of the X2 - it loves fingerprints.


All the keys fall under a single piece of plastic covering the entire fascia, except for the screen, and are divided by raised plastic strips. These provide adequate differentiation between keys for comfortable short text entry and number dialling, but don't facilitate extended amounts of typing.

On the left hand side of the Nokia X2 are the music buttons (play, back, and forward). The right hand side has the volume rocker, camera button and microSD card slot (it ships with a 2GB one), while the phone’s top-side is where the microUSB port, 3.5mm headphone jack and Nokia's 2mm charging port can be found. The buttons along the side are rubberised, tactile and responsive, though could be a bit more raised. The volume rocker could also be a bit bigger for easier pressing (when in the pocket for example), as with the Nokia X2's focus being on music, we imagine it will be used quite a lot.




Overall, the Nokia X2 looks good for the price. It comes in white with blue trimmings or black with red trimmings, our unit being the black version. While it feels a bit light for our tastes, it still manages to feel solid, with no creaky or wobbly moving parts. The cherry on the cake is the aluminium back cover, which adds a nice illusion of luxury to the phone.

Interface:

Running Series 40 can be a blessing or a curse depending on who you are. For total tech-heads, it will unlikely suffice, however If you're looking for simplicity on the go with some email and basic web-browsing, Series 40 isn't a bad option at all. More to the point, Series 40 on the X2 isn't a bad option as the classic form-factor works well with the simple interface. As we have looked closely at the interface in past reviews (see Nokia 7230 review), we will look at key things only.

The home-screen is customizable with some live widgets that display time, calendar info, radio/mp3 player status or other items of your choice. There is also a horizontal shortcut bar along the bottom with customizable links to functions like alarms, facebook, messaging etc. You can customize the home-screen pretty extensively, adding or removing elements and even changing the font colour.


As for the core functions, they are all standard to Series 40 and won't be delved into here, however, suffice to say, we found the various functions such as organizer and call log to work reliably well with no device specific pit-falls in sight.

Camera and Multimedia:

While the Nokia X2 is one of the lowest priced 5MP camera phones on the market, it still comes with the added advantage of an LED flash, even if it does lack autofocus. Outdoor images captured on the X2's camera were promising, with good levels of contrast and saturation. As you can see in the image of the apple on the ground for example, the results were a hopeful indication of how the camera as a whole would perform. When it comes to indoor shots however, as with most camera-phones, the X2 starts to waver. Noise is a real issue, especially with background objects and blocks of dark colour. While the LED flash is bright and works well in illuminating nearby subjects it lacks the power to fill up large groups or whole rooms effectively as you can see from the samples taken.





The Nokia X2's camera has another issue - processing time. While the camera doesn't slow-down when taking a shot, with everything being pretty instantaneous, once the picture is taken, it takes about 25 seconds for the image to process in the background. During this time, you can take other snaps, however, can't edit or even delete the picture you just took which can be frustrating.

Videos can be captured at 320x240 or 176x144, both at 15fps. Videos can be comfortably played back on the phone, however, exporting them to a PC shows up the poor frame-rate and resolution.



The music experience on the Nokia X2 is rather good. It ships with a pair of Nokia's ear-buds, and these are indeed better than the standard headphones that ship with most Nokia handsets, however, coupling the on-board 3.5mm headphone jack with a better pair of headphones pays dividends. With slightly tinnier sound than our dedicated MP3 player, audio playback quality is nevertheless good for a handset of this price range.


The stereo speakers were loud and the sound carried, however it was sharp, and not too pleasant, especially at higher volumes. Clarity was good however when using the Nokia X2 as a loudspeaker.

Connectivity and Data:

The Nokia X2 is extremely run of the mill when it comes to connecting it to the rest of the world, with EDGE, quad-band GSM and Bluetooth 2.1 being the extent of connectivity options. As there's no 3G or Wi-Fi, there's no way to speed through the web on the phone, rendering the whole experience slow compared with other handsets. Getting a constant signal for browsing also proved unreliable, so if staying connected on command is vital, the Nokia X2 isn't for you. For standard communication functions such as texting and calls however, it proved very capable.

Software:

Out of the box, the Nokia X2 has Ovi Sync to get your contacts on-board without too much trouble if you're subscribed to the service. Email incorporates Nokia's Series 40 messaging system which provides quick access to major email clients such as Yahoo!, Windows Live and Gmail. Other email addresses are supported but may require additional information. While no 3G or Wi-Fi renders browsing slow, the Nokia X2 does ship with Opera Mini, so when pages do load, they are displayed well. In addition, there are Facebook, YouTube and Flickr apps that come pre-loaded.

Performance:

When it comes to speed, other than the length of time it takes to process an image, everything runs smoothly with no lag. Series 40 is efficient in its simplicity, so while it won't multi-task applications (other than playback music in the background), it is reliably snappy.

Call quality on the Nokia X2 is for the most part clear. When receiving a call in the busy hustle and bustle of city life we noticed a couple of occasions when the max volume wasn't loud enough, however, clarity is good overall. When making a call from the Nokia X2, the recipient reported good audio quality,with minimal interference from wind and other external elements. In addition, when using the phone as a loud-speaker, there is good overall quality both in the sound produced from the stereo speakers, and the audio transmitted from the X2.

Battery life on the X2 is good for this kind of phone. Quoted at 13.5 hours of talk time, 619 hours (26 days) of stand-by time, We found that it needed to be charged every 3-5 days with medium use, a fair bit of music playback and not much browsing or emailing.

Conclusion:

The Nokia X2 performs pretty well across all fronts for a phone of this price and class, except when it comes to being connected. The lack of 3G and Wi-Fi is a real disabler if that is a priority. If it isn't however, then the Nokia X2 is a good choice. Other phones to consider would be the Nokia X3 if you'd prefer a sliding form-factor with a similar feature-set; if you're looking for something a bit more capable on the 3G front and are prepared to sacrifice on camera performance and a 3.5mm jack, check out the Sony Ericsson Zylo – one of Sony Ericsson's latest Walkman-branded slider phones which also comes loaded with a GPS.

Nokia X2 Video Review: