nokia x7 Review

Nokia's pledge to keep Symbian alive and well has been tested with the Windows Phone 7 announcement, and the Nokia X7 is the first device since the shift to launch with the original platform.
The Nokia X7 features a large widescreen 4-inch screen, and comes in at less than 12mm thick - not the thinnest on the market, but certainly pretty svelte with rounded edges.
However, it still feels pretty chunky in the hand (although that could be partly down to the fact we've been using the ultra-thin Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc for the last few days). The metallic chassis feels premium enough though, and will win over one or two admirers.



Blindin'
An 8MP camera is flanked by a frankly blinding dual LED flash, capable of HD video recording - the shutter speed is pretty decent in our tests, although it could do with being a little better at jumping back to the viewfinder once the snap has been snapped.

The new Symbian Anna update is, in our opinion, simply a very small in the general direction of where Nokia needs to be going to bring its new phones up to speed in the smartphone wars.
The homescreen scooches along with a finger now, rather than waiting a couple of beats to move, and the portrait QWERTY keyboard has been added to the mix.

However, the widgets are still in the same 4-icon rows, with very little available in the way of customisation. Nokia claims that this is fine and simple for its users, but we really can't agree - if users want a full screen music widget with huge album art and a few random application icons dotted around the place, they should be able to have them.


The portrait keyboard is fine at entering text - the placement of a few of the keys feels a little counter-intuitive, but it won't take long to adjust to the new system if you feel like picking up the Nokia X7.
Media playback
The video playback is pretty sensational, as you might hope - the ClearBlack OLED screen does its jobs admirably at showing high-resolution video although there's no HD video out option here.

The internet browser doesn't feel that much faster either - it's certainly improved, but the loading time, especially on video-heavy sites, is still on the slower side. Scrolling around the page is still very laggy at times too, but we'll put that down to early-build software at this time, although pinch to zoom was very inaccurate.


Overall, the Nokia X7 looks like it flatters to deceive once again. We'd hope this would be a little cheaper on contract than its rivals, but users won't be able to help worrying about the support they'll get for Symbian over the next two years, despite Nokia pledging to keep investing.

The Symbian Anna upgrade isn't enough of a change in our opinion, as the time delay between tapping an app and it opening is still far slower than the competition, so basically the only update - in terms of software - the X7 has over the Nokia N8 is a smoother homescreen scroll and better portrait keyboard.