Saturday, November 12, 2011

Nokia 700 review: Agent seven double-oh

Introduction

The Nokia 700 has a license to chill. Unburdened with high expectations, this phone is getting ready to surprise you. Not in it for the win, it has too much class to lose.

Scorching hot body and super crisp ClearBlack AMOLED screen, the Nokia 700 is stepping on its 1GHz processor to the delight of those who like their Symbian shaken (Belle) not stirred.

Small phone ready for big things. That's how we summed the Nokia 700 up in our preview. Time we guess for it to take its first big test.
                   
While the typical thin smartphone keeps fit by spreading the innards out under a huge slab of a 4+ inch screen, the Nokia 700 is compact in every dimension. That includes weight too - the nice metal touches that give the 700 its solid hand feel haven't pushed the weight over 100g.
The 3.2" nHD screen is a perfect fit in this petite smartphone. The AMOLED unit uses Nokia's ClearBlack technology, which has repeatedly demonstrated its great image quality and near-perfect sunlight legibility.
The Nokia 700 has a lot going for it, but it’s not without downsides either. Here go our traditional lists:

Key features

  • Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
  • Penta-band 3G with 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
  • Slim 9.7mm body
  • 3.2" 16M-color nHD ClearBlack AMOLED capacitive touchscreen (220 ppi); Gorilla glass
  • 5 megapixel fixed-focus camera with LED flash; geo-tagging, face detection, smart zoom in video
  • 720p video @ 30fps recording, stereo sound
  • Symbian Belle OS
  • 1GHz CPU and 512 MB RAM
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
  • 2GB of inbuilt storage, microSD expandable
  • Active noise cancellation via a dedicated mic
  • DivX, XviD, H.264 video support
  • Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
  • Stereo FM Radio with RDS, FM transmitter
  • microUSB port with USB On-the-go support
  • Stereo Bluetooth 3.0
  • GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free lifetime voice-guided navigation; Digital compass
  • Flash Lite support in the web browser
  • Smart dialing and voice commands
  • NFC support
  • Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
  • TV-out functionality (SD)

Main disadvantages

  • Small screen, too narrow for comfortable typing
  • 5MP fixed-focus isn't particularly impressive
  • No video-call camera
  • Browser lacks full Flash support
  • Relatively limited 3rd party software
  • No office document editing (unless you buy an upgrade)
  • Non-hot-swappable microSD card
  • No HD TV-Out
What's under the hood should come as no surprise. Nokia's current crop of Symbian phones have more or less the same hardware. The camera is down a notch to 5MP from the 8MP unit in the 701. However, with both using fixed-focus optics and both shooting 720p video, we don’t think there's that much of a difference.
Inside is Symbian Belle, which we quite liked, running on the 1GHz CPU and 512MB combo that's enough to keep Android happy, let alone an OS that emerged around 2001.

 

Watch this amazing Making Of video of the Nokia Lumia 800


Nokia's official blog has posted a behind the scenes video detailing the making-of process of the Nokia Lumia 800. The yet-unreleased but already widely-popular WP pioneer device for Nokia gets the viewer's attention for about 8 minutes of interviews with Stefan Pannenbecker, VP of Industrial Design, and others.


The video follows the process of choosing the acclaimed polycarbonate monobody and even shows prototypes of the Lumia 800 with other materials.
Here's the video itself - it's not what you'd call a short trailer-style video so sit back, relax and get your popcorn fix on.


It makes us wonder which came first - the N9 or Lumia 800. Obviously, the N9 was first to the party, sporting the beautiful monobody design - but watching the Lumia 800 video I get the feeling that Nokia is saying they came up with the Lumia 800 design from scratch. Maybe the design was primarily intended for the WP smartphone and only later was transferred to the Meego pioneer.

Here are not one but two videos about the N9 design philosophy.

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