Nokia C7 review

[howard]

Here's a review of the Nokia C7 from our very own Howard Chu:

Design and Specifications

The C7 is Nokia’s mid-range Symbian^3 smartphone. It’s marketed between the C6-01 and the N8. It has a candy bar form factor, 3.5" AMOLED display with glass touch screen and chrome bezel. There’s a metal battery cover on the back while the main body housing is made of plastic.



On the right side are: Volume rocker, Record / Speech toggle, Screen lock slider, Camera shutter release.

In front along the bottom are backlit send, home and end buttons. along the top are the front facing camera, light sensor, proximity sensor and ear piece.



There’s Nokia barrel port charger on the left. On top are a power button, 3.5mm AV connector (for headset / headphones / proprietary AV cable) and a Micro USB port. You also get a white LED that lights up whenever the charger is connected.



On the back there is a 8MP main camera with dual LED flashlight in the upper part of the handset. A hidden red LED indicator light will turn on when shooting the video. On the other side of the camera, there is a loudspeaker. In the middle part, it is the metal battery cover, opened / locked by the latch near the bottom. The BL-5K battery is rated 1200mAh. There’s 8GB of internal flash memory along with a Micro SDHC card slot.

Other connectivity includes WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR which are quite standard these days. The 3G supports HSDPA up to 3.6Mbps for the downlink and HSUPA up to 2Mpbs for the uplink. C7 operates in 3G in the UMTS Band I (2100), II (1900), IV (AWS), V (850), VIII (900) and 2G in the GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900 bands. That makes it a world phone wherever service is available.

Experiences and Impressions



C7 weighs 130g and measures 117.3 x 56.8 x 10.5mm. It is a little thinner and lighter than the Nokia N8. The relatively bigger screen means it is more eye-pleasing and practical to use than the C6-01 for many tasks. I like its ergonomics and it offers a very solid feel which could not be found in some cookie-cutter, low-end models.



While C7 also has inherited the solid fundamentals like many Nokia models i.e. Audio Quality, RF performance, Data Throughput, Battery life, etc., the WIND mobile unit may reveal some of the weaknesses and flaws of the still-expanding network itself.

In the audio department, C7 is capable of "HD" voice calls between other compatible handsets on WIND mobile. The experience is impressive, thanks to the WB-AMR codec implementation. I would compare it with Skype in high-quality mode... crispy and clear with a second of delay. However, for those calls without HD, the experience will become half-duplex like conversation even the audio quality itself is fine... when I talk, I could not hear the other side and vice versa. I suspect the echo-canceller on the network side could be the culprit. Another thing I want to mention is the significant heat generated during the call. Perhaps the battery cover is metal and the handset is relative flat, it becomes very warm to hold for extended period.

Other than voice calls, it is doing fine with other audio playback. The sound coming out from the loudspeaker, wired headset / headphones as well as the wireless stereo headphones via Bluetooth connection is clear, with ample volume.

The 16-million colour AMOLED ClearBlack display is vibrant with a resolution of 640x360 pixels but it is slightly less readable than the C6-01 under sunlight / outdoors in my opinion. But it is definitely much better than the Nokia 5230. Watching high quality photo and video, streaming TV and Ovi Maps navigation are just right even though the screen size is not as large as other smartphones come with the 4" inch screen. The touch screen is accurate with good, unique haptics.

Messaging experiences have improved in Symbian^3 with threaded SMS and MMS (in "conversation" mode). Setting up email is more straight-forward and smoother too. The rendering of HTML contents is also a plus. Social network (Facebook and Twitter) integration is rather done by a separate application. It is not seamless but I think it is okay. All of these can be customized as widgets on the home screen. However, when comes to text input in portrait mode (orientation), it does not offer a virtual QWERTY keyboard but rather an Alphanumeric keypad. I can adapt to that arrangement, especially when dealing with a relative small candy bar form factor handset. But this PR1.0 "limitation" may be a turn off to others. The newer firmware release PR1.1 of C7 will offer QWERTY keyboard text input in portrait mode (as well as in calling mode too).

The native web browser is also improved with more websites rendering properly. But awkward UI / menu makes me stick with Opera Mobile rather. The music player, FM radio have the much improved user interface and layout. I also like the new version of Internet Radio downloaded from the Ovi Store.

The fixed focus 8MP camera is able to take photos and videos in good quality, provided the lighting condition is ideal. The images have got very natural, accurate colour rendition compares to those taken with the C6-01. The camera applications and included editing tools offer a lot of potential. However, I think the C7 camera is going backward in terms of technological advancement. Even a four years old Nokia 5610 XpressMusic comes with auto focus (and the optics were blessed by Carl Zeiss). Taking macro / close-up snapshots is nearly impossible. Perhaps cropping is a viable option for some.

The only "good" thing with this kind of "Extended Depth of Field" design is that video that can be shot without it being out-of-focus when panning around. Auto white balance is relatively slow to adapt. The Dual-LED flash seems to be over-power for the near object and often throws the white balance off the scale. This is in line with many other phone camera though. Another annoying thing is the location service settings. When the geotagging is enabled with the AGPS, the screen will suddenly black out and ask if I would allow the network connection. Then it will ask if I allow to create a "destination"... OK, then pick the APN or WiFi SSID configured in the list... And, if I disallow one of those actions, it will keep asking again and again! By this time, some precious moments may be gone.

Then there’s the Symbian platform that powers the Nokia C7. Once it was the pioneer, the leader in smartphone (or Nokia prefers to call it "mobile computer"). It was not just for personal information management but also designed for multitask with low power consumption, with support for external storage, etc. However, as the Internet revolution progresses, mobile data applications have become more realistic, interactive and on-demand. It is crucial to keep the user experience relevant in the fast changing world. Nokia, unfortunately, has failed to integrate all its innovative ideas. It executes badly with its Ovi services even though they have improved. It is the lack of consistency that annoys me the most. Take an example of the mobile app from Bloomberg; I do not understand why it is available to C6-01 but not C7! Both share the similar specifications, same resolution touch screen and the C7 even has a larger screen.

Nokia has already lost its direction for many quarters while the Apple’s and Google’s platforms have already become stronger and bigger. Now Nokia has placed its bets on the Micorsoft Windows Phone 7 and announced the Symbian^3 will become a "transitional" platform until 2012. The question is: how can Nokia convince the majority content/application developers to stay put? More and more developers are stopping development, end of lifing of pulling their apps from the Ovi Store. It’s a dead OS walking!

My Verdict

Nokia C7 is a "poor-man’s N8" to some as it offers good value. It is still well made and with solid fundamentals. Besides the apparent price points, the differences between the two models are the cameras, HDMI output, the amount of the internal memory and the accessories come in the box. Some people may prefer the user-accessible battery in C7 more than N8. The Symbian^3 experience should not be too bad for many loyal Symbian fans. Just that I think it may frustrate other end-users who have no prior experience with Symbian. The Ovi services have improved but perhaps a little too late in the game. However, as a smartphone out of the box and compatible with the AWS networks like WIND mobile, C7 is still a worthy keeper.

Sampling Screen shots / Photos...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/howi/se...57626668103109

[Drillbit]

I remember seeing and handling this phone since last year. Did Canada just get it now?

[HC - NO "i"]

Drillbit,

Greetings.

Yes, almost like half a year later than the rest of the world! WIND Mobile first rolled it out in Canada back in March and recently by Videotron.

[Sivraj]

I played with this phone at t-mobile and it's descent. This is the 1st time I ever played with a symbian 3 phone and it's good enough for me as far as an OS. But I don't like full touchscreen phones so I'll definitely get the E6.

[HC - NO "i"]

I played with this phone at t-mobile and it's descent. This is the 1st time I ever played with a symbian 3 phone and it's good enough for me as far as an OS. But I don't like full touchscreen phones so I'll definitely get the E6.

Sivraj,

Greetings.

E6, the QWERTY keyboard-Touch screen hybrid... it is also my cup of tea. But again, Nokia should bring it on last year while it still has a chance to wow the crowd.

[naypalm[]maker]

I had a choice between the C6 and the C7 and now I know what I'm going to get. Thanks for the review!

[HC - NO "i"]

naypalm[]maker,

Greetings and my pleasure!

Make sure you ask for a live unit before deciding though. You know, things work out for me may not work out for others. In my case, the C6-01 (NOT the C6-00 with the slide-out keyboard) is good "2nd / backup" handset while the C7 is a "workhorse" candidate.