We've had the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type for a few days now, and it's immediately made a big impression on us. It may be one of the cheapest new Nokia touchscreen handsets, but it's packed with features and offers great value for money. Join us after the break for our Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type review...
Build quality on the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type is excellent, proving that you don't have to spend lots of money to get a high quality product. The majority of the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type is constructed out of stainless steel, with a metal bezel around the screen, and a metal back plate.
Check out our Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type Unboxing
The Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type is slightly thicker than the Nokia X3 Touch and Type, with which it shares a similar form factor, but at just 11mm it's still thinner than the majority of touchscreen handsets.
We particularly like the size of the buttons on the Nokia C3 Touch and Type, with all of them proving easily large enough for those with big fingers and thumbs.
The same can't be said about the buttons on the side of the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type. The buttons are high in quality, and look great, but they're slightly too small, with the lock button proving especially fiddly.
As with most other Nokia handsets, you'll find volume keys, a lock button and a camera shutter button on the right-hand side of the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type.
On the top, there's a socket for the power adapter, a micro USB port, and a 3.5mm headphone socket. The left-hand side and the bottom of the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type are completely free of buttons, adding a sleek feel to the handset.
The 2.4-inch screen is big, bright and colourful, and although it's not quite as good as Symbian ^3 devices when it comes to web browsing, the touchscreen technology makes it a lot easier to navigate the S40 6th Edition operating system.
Using the touchscreen to tap and scroll through menus soon becomes second nature, and the lack of navigation buttons on the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type is never an issue.
At £159 SIM-free, it's easy to think of the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type as the poor relation in comparison to devices like the Nokia N8 or Nokia C7, but it stacks up incredibly well when it comes to features.
Offering 3.5G connection speeds, it's a great handset for browsing the news on the go, and 802.11n Wi-Fi makes downloading an effort-free process. Bluetooth is in place for wireless data transfers.
The Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type also packs in a 5-Megapixel camera. We'll be bringing you a full review of the C3-01's camera in the next week, so be sure to check back here soon. At 30MB, internal memory is limited, but you'll be able to add up to 32GB via microSD card.
Every time we use the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type, we like it more and more. It offers more features than other entry-level handsets, yet is a lot easier to use than the majority of smartphones.
We still have to try out the battery life, along with the 5-Megapixel camera, but on this showing, if you want an excellent value handset, packing in both a touchscreen and a proper keypad, then the Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type surely has to top of the list.
Check NokNok in the next week for more Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type reviews, including the camera, battery life and software.
Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type Photo Gallery:
