The Nokia X7 is the second Symbian Anna smartphone to hit the high-street. Built around a glorious 4-inch touchscreen display it’s ideal for movies, web browsing and simply making the most of multimedia. Find out more with our Nokia X7 hardware review.
The Nokia X7 looks and feels like no other smartphone on the market today. This is clearly a device aimed at those who want to shy away from the bland-box mentality that seems to be rife elsewhere in smartphone design world right now.
Check out our Nokia X7 unboxing
The full metal jacket is incredibly slim and with the curved sides adding to the sleek design, it feels great in the hand. Nokia has kept the design simple by making it a unibody design, so there is no battery to insert and even the ports and buttons are nicely discrete.
You’ll find the buttons on the side of the Nokia X7 are kept to the bare minimum with just SIM card and microSD slots on the left-hand side and rather small and flush buttons for the camera and volume/zoom buttons on the right. The top of the phone has Power switch, USB connector and a 3.5mm audio jack.
To fire up the Nokia X7 simply press the menu button and press the onscreen Unlock icon. The 4-inch screen has a 24-bit brightness and a standard resolution of 360 x 640 pixels. The AMOLED display is made from Gorilla glass, so not only is it bright and sharp but you’ll also find it’s tough as nails too.
We really like the size of the screen, as it’s the same size as found on the Nokia X7, but with the added bulk of the keyboard, so watching movies and generally holding the device when web browsing isn’t a strain.
The Symbian Anna operating system is nice and quick and you can really notice the difference between this version and the standard Symbian^3 OS. Apps load smoother, switching between homescreens is quicker. The Portrait QWERTY is large enough to use, much more so than on the slightly cramped Nokia Oro screen, but the winner new feature has to be the web browser that makes surfing the web a lot easier.
We think that’s what we like most about Symbian Anna, it simply makes things a little faster and easier. If you’re looking to add to the core apps on the Nokia X7 you can tap into the Ovi Store, where you’ll be able to download any of the thousands of current Symbian^3 apps, so there are no compatibility issues.
When it comes to storage you’ll find 350MB is set aside for the OS, while 1GB of mass storage is on offer for your music, movies and other downloads. The microSD card that ships with the Nokia X7 is the 8GB variety, but it will readily support up to 32GB of card.
The camera on the back of the Nokia X7 is the now standard 8-Megapixel variety and uses EDoF technology rather than the auto-focus we’ve found on the Nokia N8, or even the Nokia 5800 before it. We’ll be looking at the camera in more detail in a separate review but in the meantime, we found it easy to use and the results look pretty good.
The Nokia X7 is something of a powerhouse smartphone. We really like its large and bright screen and while the design won’t be to everyone’s taste, if you’re in the mood for the full multimedia experience then it’s worth checking out.
Check out our Nokia X7 hardware review photo gallery:
