Nokia's C3-00 was its first handset that stepped into the ring of the inexpensive QWERTY phones flooding the Indian market by Indo-Chinese manufacturers. But at Rs. 5,800, the C3 is still a few thousands above average price range of the competition.
The X2-01 is an aggressively priced sibling of the C3 that cuts a few corners to get to a price point that will be more appealing to the cash-strapped, QWERTY keyboard desiring phone buyer. Let's find out whether this phone doesn't give up too much to attain that under Rs. 4,000 price tag.
Design and Build:
The Nokia X2-01 is designed differently than the C3-00. Where the C3 had a nice curvaceous body that we adored, the X2-01 has pointy edges and a noticeable use of cheaper quality materials. But fear not, the phone still feels fairly sturdy and shouldn't shatter into pieces after a few drops. The X2-01's design is a bit longish but doesn't cause any inconvenience while carrying it in the pocket.
The screen is exactly the same as the C3 -- a 2.4 incher with a QVGA resolution. Other than the lack of brightness control, we had no complaints with the display given the pricing. Content looks clear, fonts are nice and big thus bettering readability, and with a white background, text is fairly visible even under direct sunlight. The buttons above the keyboard click well and accurately. We liked the messaging and music player shortcut buttons to either sides of the D-pad.
The QWERTY keyboard is more or less similarly designed like the C3's, but for some reason, we felt the type-ability of the C3 was a tad better. Not to say the X2-01's QWERTY is bad -- it offers decent tactility and dedicated keys to frequently used symbols like a full-stop or a comma.
The 3.5mm earphone jack is located rightly to the top of the phone, while the thin-pin charging port is right next to it. The camera sensor and speaker grille lay at the back, as usual.
User Interface and Performance:
The X2-01 employs the exact same interface as the C3-00, so we won't re-iterate the same thing over; and would ask you to click here to read it instead. To summarize, the X2's interface is pretty good overall to use. Its easy, the interface looks much better than the archaic UI's on the Indo-china phones. The only main pitfall with it is its inability to minimize applications, let alone juggle amongst them. So, in case you had Opera Mini opened and you wanted to make an urgent phone-call or SMS, you'll have to close the app to do your thing and start from scratch after you re-open it.
Secondly, Nokia's built-in social networking apps and mail client are kinda laggy and take a long time to open in the first place. After configuring my Gmail account, I felt the advertised "push" mail isn't instant. The phone took around 10 minutes to notify a new e-mail and it missed notifying altogether sometimes.
As a phone, the X2 is pretty much up to the mark. Call clarity and network reception were spot-on. The earpiece volume on the X2 is fortunately loud enough, unlike the earpiece on the C3 which left us wanting for a little more volume. The speaker-phone volume is also loud. One compromise on the X2 in order to get the price down was to pack a VGA camera instead of the 2 megapixel sensor on the C3. Not saying that the C3's sensor was good to begin with, the VGA sensor is just pathetic when you have every other camera phone out there with more than 16 times its resolution. Pics taken in good lighting appear decent on screen, but forget uploading such tiny resolution photos onto even a social networking website. Videos were also shot in a grainy QVGA resolution, but at least maintained a smooth frame-rate.
Despite carrying the generally pro-multi-media 'X' series tag, forget camera quality but even the bundled in-earphones are very very mediocre. They weren't comfortable to wear too and I could not listen to them for more than a minute. But on the brighter side, plugging in a good pair boosted the audio quality through the roof, thus suggesting that all hope is not lost in case you plan to use this phone as a music player. In that case, we'd ask you to purchase a separate pair immediately.
The battery in the X2 has a little lower capacity than the C3's. Still, the phone managed to give be a decent up-time of a day and a half with heavy phone-call usage.
Price and Verdict:
The Nokia X2-01 sells for Rs. 3,850. Although that may sound cheap, but It still cannot match the pricing of phones from companies like Micromax that start at an insanely low Rs. 1,600. As compared to the C3, which still costs Rs. 2,000 more than the X2-01, you're loosing out on the better design and finish, Wi-fi support, the bigger battery and the higher-resolution camera (which honestly doesn't amount to much).
The Nokia X2-01 is a decent phone for somebody who's keen on buying an inexpensive QWERTY that'll help him/her to send-receive emails, chat on instant messengers, tweet and update Facebook statuses and read on the Internet.
The X2 falls under that intense under Rs. 5,000 range, and I would prefer buying it over Indo-Chinese phones only because of a better interface and keyboard design. However, if you're into using two SIM cards with one phone, then X2 isn't going to fulfill that.
source- techtree
The X2-01 is an aggressively priced sibling of the C3 that cuts a few corners to get to a price point that will be more appealing to the cash-strapped, QWERTY keyboard desiring phone buyer. Let's find out whether this phone doesn't give up too much to attain that under Rs. 4,000 price tag.
Design and Build:
The Nokia X2-01 is designed differently than the C3-00. Where the C3 had a nice curvaceous body that we adored, the X2-01 has pointy edges and a noticeable use of cheaper quality materials. But fear not, the phone still feels fairly sturdy and shouldn't shatter into pieces after a few drops. The X2-01's design is a bit longish but doesn't cause any inconvenience while carrying it in the pocket.
The screen is exactly the same as the C3 -- a 2.4 incher with a QVGA resolution. Other than the lack of brightness control, we had no complaints with the display given the pricing. Content looks clear, fonts are nice and big thus bettering readability, and with a white background, text is fairly visible even under direct sunlight. The buttons above the keyboard click well and accurately. We liked the messaging and music player shortcut buttons to either sides of the D-pad.
The QWERTY keyboard is more or less similarly designed like the C3's, but for some reason, we felt the type-ability of the C3 was a tad better. Not to say the X2-01's QWERTY is bad -- it offers decent tactility and dedicated keys to frequently used symbols like a full-stop or a comma.
The 3.5mm earphone jack is located rightly to the top of the phone, while the thin-pin charging port is right next to it. The camera sensor and speaker grille lay at the back, as usual.
User Interface and Performance:
The X2-01 employs the exact same interface as the C3-00, so we won't re-iterate the same thing over; and would ask you to click here to read it instead. To summarize, the X2's interface is pretty good overall to use. Its easy, the interface looks much better than the archaic UI's on the Indo-china phones. The only main pitfall with it is its inability to minimize applications, let alone juggle amongst them. So, in case you had Opera Mini opened and you wanted to make an urgent phone-call or SMS, you'll have to close the app to do your thing and start from scratch after you re-open it.
Secondly, Nokia's built-in social networking apps and mail client are kinda laggy and take a long time to open in the first place. After configuring my Gmail account, I felt the advertised "push" mail isn't instant. The phone took around 10 minutes to notify a new e-mail and it missed notifying altogether sometimes.
As a phone, the X2 is pretty much up to the mark. Call clarity and network reception were spot-on. The earpiece volume on the X2 is fortunately loud enough, unlike the earpiece on the C3 which left us wanting for a little more volume. The speaker-phone volume is also loud. One compromise on the X2 in order to get the price down was to pack a VGA camera instead of the 2 megapixel sensor on the C3. Not saying that the C3's sensor was good to begin with, the VGA sensor is just pathetic when you have every other camera phone out there with more than 16 times its resolution. Pics taken in good lighting appear decent on screen, but forget uploading such tiny resolution photos onto even a social networking website. Videos were also shot in a grainy QVGA resolution, but at least maintained a smooth frame-rate.
Despite carrying the generally pro-multi-media 'X' series tag, forget camera quality but even the bundled in-earphones are very very mediocre. They weren't comfortable to wear too and I could not listen to them for more than a minute. But on the brighter side, plugging in a good pair boosted the audio quality through the roof, thus suggesting that all hope is not lost in case you plan to use this phone as a music player. In that case, we'd ask you to purchase a separate pair immediately.
The battery in the X2 has a little lower capacity than the C3's. Still, the phone managed to give be a decent up-time of a day and a half with heavy phone-call usage.
Price and Verdict:
The Nokia X2-01 sells for Rs. 3,850. Although that may sound cheap, but It still cannot match the pricing of phones from companies like Micromax that start at an insanely low Rs. 1,600. As compared to the C3, which still costs Rs. 2,000 more than the X2-01, you're loosing out on the better design and finish, Wi-fi support, the bigger battery and the higher-resolution camera (which honestly doesn't amount to much).
The Nokia X2-01 is a decent phone for somebody who's keen on buying an inexpensive QWERTY that'll help him/her to send-receive emails, chat on instant messengers, tweet and update Facebook statuses and read on the Internet.
The X2 falls under that intense under Rs. 5,000 range, and I would prefer buying it over Indo-Chinese phones only because of a better interface and keyboard design. However, if you're into using two SIM cards with one phone, then X2 isn't going to fulfill that.
source- techtree
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