The X factors

You would not believe the number of times I get asked for advice on phone purchases that start with a list of requirements and end with a “but it should be a Nokia”. With the launch of the X6 and the X3, Nokia’s reputation as an evolutionary innovator (not revolutionary, mind you) stays intact, but do they bring enough to the table to stave off the competition? Let’s find out.

The X6 really is an effort to make up lost ground in the touch-screen space, and Nokia’s kitted it with a capacitive 3.2-in 360x640 pixel resolution touch screen, a first for Nokia. With it, you get the kind of responsiveness that only a capacitive touch screen can provide, but the Symbian platform with the S60 5th edition user interface hasn’t changed a bit, so my usual complaints with the usability remain.

So it’s a pity that the underlying hardware is not powerful enough to take full advantage of this increased responsiveness, and the phone can get laggy when you start running a number of applications. Finger scrolling has improved though, so the experience of scrolling through your gallery, contacts or the web browser is slightly better.

The text/email experience is much better than previous models, and the camera and music player are pretty decent. To be honest, what really drags the phone down is the age of the platform — after having used much more modern operating systems, even in phones at similar price points, using the X6 feels so counter-intuitive. Regular Symbian users may not have as much of an issue, though.

On the outside, the design is rather minimalist and rather unimaginative, but the build quality is nice. Connectivity specs meet the regular checklist, just as long as you don’t need to add storage — the Nokia X6 doesn’t have a microSD card slot and probably doesn’t need one either with its 16GB inbuilt storage. Also, keep in mind that you will need to have a charger handy at all times since the X6 doesn’t charge through the regular mini-USB port and has a dedicated charging port.

The X3 is by no means a cut-down-into-half version of the X6, in fact, it makes no pretensions of taking on the premium segment, and is a budget feature phone with some music leanings. The form factor is a traditional slider design, though you do get a number of music control buttons on its face right next to the 320 x 240 pixel non-touch screen display.

The slider reveals an ample sized keypad, a little MotoRAZR inspired with the flat brushed-metal pad separated by illuminated ridges. The interface is a Nokia feature phone standard Series 40 rather than the S60 smartphone platform, so there’s not much to look at here, but it is easy enough and straightforward to operate.

Connectivity options reflect the budget and you get only Bluetooth and microSD support. Which isn’t a bad thing overall because you get a massive improvement in battery life — I got about 2-2.5 days on each charge with a moderate amount of phone use and some occasional browsing.

The pricing for both the phones is a concern. At current prices, there’re a bunch of phones — the Android gang for the X6 and the Cookie/Corby gang for the X3 — that beat them on features and specs. You can only really recommend these for the “but it should be a Nokia” folks.

Nokia X6

• Rating: 7/10
• Price: Rs 18,059 (16GB)
• URL: http://bit.ly/aINkqx

Nokia X3

• Rating: 6/10
• Price: Rs 7,509
• URL: http://bit.ly/bqrDOo


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