Option to add more services as well. All that and more at a very economical price tag.
Street Price in Delhi:
About INR 5,700. (Ain't that Sweet!)
You can also buy Online from Sites such as Ebay.in for as low as 5400/- (plus shipping ofcourse)
Here is what we cover in this review?
- Features: I'll talk about what is under the hood and what can you expect from C3 (and what not!)
- Whats missing (compromises is a part of life people...get real)
- Is it worth it?
- What all can you do with it
- Limitations
- Who should buy this (and who should not)
So lets get started...
Under The Hood
- Quad-band GSM/EDGE
- 802.11b/g Wi-Fi support
- Solid SNS integration on the homescreen widgets and with dedicated buttons
- 2.4" 256K-color QVGA display with excellent sunlight readability
- 2 megapixel fixed-focus camera
- QVGA video recording at 15fps
- Series 40 UI, 6th edition
- Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual radio
- Bluetooth (with A2DP)
- Standard microUSB port
- microSD card slot (8GB supported, 1GB included)
- Great audio quality
- S40 Symbian OS with Visual upgrades
- 128 MB ROM, 64 MB RAM & 55 MB of User Memory (Internal)
- Reasonable price
Over the hood:
- QWERTY messenger bar
- 3.5mm audio jack
So whats missing in it huh?
- No 3G
- Low-grade camera, no autofocus, no flash
- Poor video recording
- S40 is a bit outdated, with a few visual upgrades and tweeks
- No multi-tasking
- Doesn't charge off the microUSB port
- No USB cable in the retail box
- No office document viewer
- No smart dialing
What can you expect from this phone?
Excellent Social Media Integration! With screen widgets, you can get emails (push mail included), facebook/twitter updates, chat right on the homescreen.
The display is pretty good and the font size is fairly big. Basically stuff is visible on the screen without you having to put in too much effort to look for it.
Call quality is superb. Voice clarity during calls and Signal quality while making or taking calls - thanks to Nokia's expertise in this realm.
Average audio quality when it comes to listening to songs. Pretty good for the price you pay however. Pop in a good pair of headphones/earphones and you have yourself a nice MP3 player on the move.
Built-Quality is fairly good and the keypad is pretty comfortable. Hence you can expect it to last you for a long time. Text away to glory!
Price: Approx INR 5700/- (all inclusive)
What you CANNOT expect it to do:
Well its not much of a gaming device. Besides a few standard games such as Bounce, Snake etc
Multi-Tasking. Now that is something which the S40 platform is incapable of doing. However the widgets for chat / mail etc will not let that aspect hurt much. Although it does allow you to install apps from Ovi Store - but then only one app runs at a time. I don't suppose that would be a problem for most people.
Shoot great photos: Camera is below average standing @ 2MP with a fixed focus. So images would not be upto your expectations certainly. It does not sport a flash either.
Contacts: as with all S40 phones, you can expect it to store upto 2000 contacts
SMS: Limited to Internal Memory (which is 55mb). So about 5000sms. The newer symbian phones allow you to switch the memory from phone to card. S40 does not allow that. So till such a time that you dont run out of 55mb - you are good.
No Maps / GPS.
No 3G.
So who should buy this?
I would say that this phone is an entry level multimedia texting & SNS device. It will please the teenagers and aspiring mobile users who wish to own a phone with QWERTY keyboard. However it is NOT a smartphone or business phone people. So stuff like office documents etc wont work on this device.
Good for:
- Social media site users
- Heavy Texting
- People who like text to appear BIG on the screen
- Chatting on the move
- Light web surfing. (considering Webpages & browsers needs a lot of memory & this phone has 64mb to spare)
- Casual Emailing
Not Good For:
- Office or avid emailing (phone cant handle too much of that)
- Multi-Tasking
- Heavy Gaming
Wi-fi - Yes Please!
Well the phone does sport a decent wifi unit inbuilt. So where ever you have a wifi hotspot - connect to it and surf @ improved speeds for free. The phone however does have a bad habit to use Cellular data connection for some apps such as Ovi downloads etc. So at times it becomes diffcult to control that. However most of the times - wifi would help you through.
Battery Life:
Nokia rates it @ 7hrs of continous talk time and 800 hrs of standby time. Seems promising on papers but once you get it running on emails and chat etc - and you are on wifi, backup should fall down to a day. Else expect it to last for 1.5 to 2 days.
Should I buy this phone?
Its a great device at that price point people - no doubt about it. And for most people - it will suffice all needs. Except 3G, its all there: wifi, QWERTY, Bluetooth, wide screen etc etc etc
If you want more - try stretching your budget by another 2k and buy the E63 which has it all.
So if your budget is within 6k - this is a sure go-go.
Conclusion:
In todays market - its virtually impossible to make a choice on which phone to buy. And once you are at the store, the overwhelming options seems to baffle you more. There is always a trade-off people, price vs features. You cannot expect the world of features in a budget phone of 6k. And the manufacturers are not stupid to pack in everything in a cheaper phone - would give you no reason to buy a more expensive phone later right?
So if you wish to venture into QWERTY phones, this is a sure start. It won't disappoint you.
Even though S40 OS is a bit outdated and does not support multi-tasking, it does have its own upside. Phone does not hang as much and the OS is snappy.
So here goes people, the Nokia C3 - SNS unleashed at the sweet price point. Everybody onboard.
Been using it for 2 weeks now and only loved it more. It would be a crime to compare it with high end phones such as the Blackberrys of the world. Remember the 8k price difference says a lot.
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