Nokia X3 Review

Introduction:

With the announcement of the first models of the new “X” Series, the Nokia X3 and Nokia X6, the manufacturer has turned over a new leaf in the development of their music line-up that was, until recently, called XpressMusic. Today, we are introducing the Nokia X3 that is less spectacular than the X6, but will certainly appeal to people on the lookout for a compact and affordable music-oriented handset. The X3 is a slider phone utilizing Series 40 interface and equipped with 2.2-inch display, 3.2-megapixel camera and the mandatory, for today´s all-about-music devices, 3.5mm jack and stereo loudspeakers. One of the more interesting extra features of the handset is the presence of a built-in FM Radio aerial – something that is quite rare these days. 

What´s in the box:

• The Nokia X3
• 2GB microSD expansion card
• Charger
• The Nokia WH-205 stereo headset
• MicroUSB cable
• User guide
• Software CD

Design:

Just take a quick look at the Nokia X3 and you will immediately notice it´s successor to the handsets of the XpressMusic line-up. The proof, the motley design elements on the front side, is right in front of your eyes. The one on the left hand side is actually the volume rocker and its buttons are almost flush with the surface, but still, you won´t have any troubles pressing them. The X3 unit we´ve got is in black and red, but the handset is available in grey and blue color solution as well.



You can compare the Nokia X3 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The Nokia X3 is quite compact really. It´s predominantly made from plastic and feels relatively fragile and, unfortunately, cheap in your hands.

The X3 comes with 2.2-inch display with native resolution of 240x320 pixels that is, frankly, nothing to write home about as per today´s standards. Despite its 262k color support, the images it delivers appear worn out and thin in the dark, just like what cheap, entry-level handsets offer. Fortunately, the device is totally usable in direct sunlight – everything on the screen gets kind of monochromic, but remains easily readable.

The slider feels tight while being opened, although we can´t say it´s among the best we´ve seen. Still, its quality is passable for a phone in this class. The keypad is enjoyable to use, because it sports large buttons that are clearly felt when pressed. You might think it´s made of metal when you see it first, but you will find out it´s actually plastic the minute you touch it. One of the stereo loudspeakers is right below, with the second located on the top side, next to the 3.5mm jack, microUSB port and the one for Nokia´s previous generation of chargers. The right and left hand sides of the device feature uncluttered design and what you´ve got is handy camera shutter, volume rocker and microSD expansion card slot.

Software:

The Nokia X3 is a feature phone and similarly to all other “non-smart” handsets of the manufacturer, it utilizes Series 40 interface. We already know it from the 3720 classic, 6700 classic and e.t.c., so we are not going into details here. Even people who have never used a Series 40 handset will be able to find their bearings and get used to the shortcuts leading to basic functions like phone contacts, calendar, messaging and camera in no time. We would advise you to keep all menu transition effects turned off and the same applies to the animations played on opening/closing the slider – they all make the handset unresponsive, lead to annoying lagging and frankly, neither of them contributes to a better overall appeal and appearance of the interface.



The music-oriented X3 comes without built-in Wi-Fi and lacks 3G support, meaning you will have to put up with the rather sluggish as per today´s standards connectivity speed that EDGE offers. We cannot say that surfing the Web on 2.2-inch display using Series 40 browser is an enjoyable experience at the least – scrolling is exceptionally sluggish and the keypad buttons cannot be assigned shortcuts to various functions. Thankfully, Opera Mini 4.2 comes preloaded onto the Nokia X3 - the application is more comfortable for web navigation, loads pages much faster and allows you to save on traffic, so we eagerly recommend that you forget about the standard browser and stick to Opera Mini instead.



Several games come preinstalled on the handset and the highly addictive City Bloxx, that you can kill quite a lot of time with, is one of the titles. The X3 provides access to Ovi Store, so you can get yourself more software at anytime.



Camera and audio:

The Nokia X3 is equipped with 3.2-megapixel camera without flash and its interface is simple, just like all other Series 40 devices. The snapshot quality, no matter if pictures are taken in natural or artificial lighting conditions, is rather low. There are almost no details to speak of and the amount of image noise is overwhelming. The saving grace here is the relatively realistic color representation. Frankly, aside from being shared on social networks, we can´t think of anything else that the snapshots would be good for. And this is exactly how we feel about the videos captured with the X3. Their maximum resolution is 320x240 pixels, the average frame count is awfully low and to top it off, the handset is plagued by some weird video coding bug that leads to color swapping, i.e. you´ve got the wrong colors during playback. We do hope the problem affects our unit though.







The Nokia X3 may be a member of the new generation of music-oriented handsets of the manufacturer, but its audio player is the same old application we know well from previous devices with Series 40 interface (the 5220 XpressMusic, 5130 XpressMusic). Audio tracks can be filtered by relevant playlist, artist, album and genre and the options permit you to take a pick from the equalizer presets or create your own setting. The available themes change the appearance of the application and lend some color to its otherwise rather boring overall look. As a whole, its interface is really easy to get used to, so there is nothing to complain about really.



Audio quality is, however, much more important than interface and we have to say music sounds quite good through the boxed headphone set (the Nokia WH-205). You can hear rich and deep basses that, sadly, tend to drown out the trebles. It´s a good thing that you can try out another pair of earphones at anytime, thanks to the 3.5mm jack the X3 is equipped with. The handset puts on an enviable performance with music playing through the built-in loudspeakers and everything sounds loud and clear – you´ve got pretty much the same overall quality the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic delivers in this respect, which is a highly commendable achievement. 

As we mentioned already, the Nokia X3 comes with integrated FM Radio aerial that allows for listening of broadcasts without the necessity to plug in the headphones. The cell phones that come with such an extra feature are scarcer than chicken teeth these days and we do consider the option a huge plus.



The Nokia X3 plays MPEG4, H263 and H264 coded content with maximum resolution of 320x240 pixels and in our opinion you get the best results with videos with bitrate of around 512 kbps. Unfortunately, watching clips on the small and mediocre display is hardly an enjoyable thing to do really.

Performance and conclusion:

The Nokia X3 is great at music playback, but sadly, doesn’t perform as well as a phone. The sound is loud on both ends of the line, but in-call quality is mediocre. Voices sound monotonous, there are occasional hang-ups and the situation is even worse on the other end of the line, because what your callers hear is excessively sharp, unintelligible sound. Things are not any different with the loudspeakers switched on, because they are decidedly less powerful during talks as compared to the mighty punch they provide during music playback, so as a whole, we would advise you to stay away from them during calls.

The battery is really robust and should be able to provide up to 7.5hrs of continuous talk time, allow for 24 hours of uninterrupted audio playback and keep your device operational for 380 hours in stand-by. With 30 to 40 minutes of talks, about as much time surfing the Web and about 2 hours of listening to music, all of this on daily basis, the battery of our X3 got flat at the end of the third day. All told, the X3 is a capable handset in terms of audio playback, but fails to offer anything on top of what the other music-oriented Nokia handsets in the same device class deliver. In certain respects, like display and camera quality, it is actually worse than the latter and that´s why we don´t consider it a better solution. You will surely be much happier with the 5130 XpressMusic that is one of the best music-oriented cell phones with an affordable price tag as of today. The asymmetric 5220 XpressMusic and the likeable Sony Ericsson W395 are also great, low-priced music devices as well.

Nokia X3 Video Review: