Recent Releases from Nokia (February 2010)

Although Nokia has been having some trouble competing at the higher end of the mobile phone market, it is still one of the finest firms in the world when it comes to producing mid-range and low-end mobiles that come with affordable price tags. Recently it has expanded its line up across the board and these are some of the most significant mobile phones to come out of Nokia’s labs.

Nokia 3710 Fold

The 3710 Fold is a very stylish mobile phone to behold and is available in three varieties which each look distinct and appealing. Whether you choose the pretty pink version with the teardrop motif, the black version with the masculine lines or the plum coloured version with the concentric circles, you will certainly be picking up a phone that stands out. Because this goes for a flip phone style design, there are dual screens, with a primary colour display housed on the underside of the upper half complimented by an easily viewable secondary display that is seamlessly integrated into the outer shell. This secondary screen gives you information including the time and whether you have received any new messages. The 3710 Fold has a microSD memory card slot and it is compatible with high capacity cards, allowing you to add in up to 8GB of storage space. It also comes with access to the Ovi Store for app downloads and software updates.

Nokia 5230

Music phones have been a stable of the market for some time and the 5230 represents Nokia’s latest attempt to provide mainstream consumers with the opportunity to access high-end performance. It has a large touch screen interface and can be personalised with the addition of seven different interchangeable battery covers to keep things looking fresh. It also has 3G network connectivity and HSDPA for download speeds of up to 3.6Mbps, which is excellent if you pick the Comes with Music version of the 5230 as you will be able to download songs in no time at all. To the untrained eye the 5230 will look virtually indistinguishable from the Nokia 5800 and the only obvious difference on the outside is that there is a 2 megapixel camera with no flash as opposed to the 3.2 megapixel camera you would find on the 5800.

Nokia 7020

The 7020 is not the most powerful of phones, but what it lacks in raw brawn it more than makes up for in intelligent interactivity options. It uses the clamshell design that is still popular and whilst its primary internal screen is fairly standard, its secondary external screen is where things get interesting. The 7020 has a built in accelerometer that allows the phone to detect when it is tapped or moved. So when the phone is closed and the buttons and primary screen are obscured from view, you can still interact with the secondary screen without relying on any physical buttons. You can simply tap on the screen to activate the clock, check to see whether you have received any new messages and produce a fun but ultimately frivolous graphic animation. There is no 3G, but with EDGE networking you can still surf at perfectly acceptable speeds. A 2 megapixel camera is mounted on the rear and as with all of Nokia’s current mobiles the 7020 looks as if care and attention has been paid to its design and construction.

Nokia 2220 Slide

Forget flip phones and leave touch screens to the trend followers; slide mobiles are still alive and kicking and the Nokia 2220 Slide proves that there is life in the market yet. As with many of Nokia’s mid-range mobiles the 2220 Slide opts for personality over performance and as such you can pick it up in a rainbow of colours to suit your tastes. A vibrant purple is on offer, alongside a more subdued turquoise or business-like black. Nokia is keen to emphasise the presence of what it calls Nokia Life Tools. These are essentially expanded personal organiser functions that go beyond the more basic capabilities of similarly priced mobiles. For example, you can add up to 1000 contacts to the internal address book, send and receive emails, make appointments on the calendar, write notes and lists and even keep an eye on your finances. Sharing pictures snapped with the basic camera is possible via MMS and the FM radio tuner can be used in conjunction with the onboard memory to store several songs to listen to at a later date.

Nokia X6

The X6 represents the latest in the touch screen music phone range that Nokia has been pushing over the last year. Many had criticised the use of resistive touch technology in a whole range of Nokia smartphones, including the N97 and the 5800 and to rectify the complaints Nokia has given the X6 a capacitive screen. This means that there is no need to rely on a stylus or have problems with unresponsive inputs; the X6 is arguably the best touch screen mobile that Nokia has released to date when you consider how easy it is to interact with its menus. The screen also has a pleasingly high resolution of 640×360, which provides quality video playback and great web browsing potential. And at 3.5 inches across, it is also bigger than many of the more expensive rivals. Inside 32GB of storage space is to be found and as this is a music phone you will certainly find ways to fill this up with your own tunes in no time at all. A 5 megapixel camera with a lens from Carl Zeiss and dual LED flash is located on the rear, which puts its photographic capabilities on a par with most of the recent additions to the NSeries range of smartphones from Nokia. With the same Symbian operating system as that found on the N97, complete with widgets and social networking features, the X6 can do a lot more than act as an oversized multimedia device. So if you are in the market for a meatier Nokia mobile than those listed earlier in the article, give the X6 a quick glance.