Nokia X7 Part 1: Unboxing and Design Review

As a first part of our initial note about Nokia X7 we published recently a couple of days ago, we have an unboxing session of Nokia X7 ready along with the design review.

Summary

Nokia X7 has been bundled with stainless steel which makes it “Really Stunning” with its unique outlooks as it’s been finished with the making. X7 seems to be clean design from the front as well with the AMOLED display under 4 inch capacitive touchscreen fully covered with Gorilla Glass. Nokia X7 features 8 mega pixel full focus camera with dual-led flash and dual microphones for stereo audio in video recording.

Package Content:

The review unit we got, contained the following content in the package. A sales package should contain same items as follows.

1. Nokia X7 handset
2. Nokia USB Charger
3. Micro USB Cable – Connectivity/Data Cable
4. Noise Deduction capable Earphones – three sizes
5. User Guide and Introduction/Instruction Manual

Video: Unboxing & First Start

Outlook:

Looking at the device very first time and having in hands was actually a good feel plus the comments about the design I heard from the friends, here in office, were nice. Yes! Nokia X7 really looks great with its curvy back and turned corners with fully glassed front panel. Once again I’ll want to mention about my colleagues what they had the opinion about X7 on seeing it first time. Of course when some thing appears in front of some one, he/she does want to comment on it either negatively or positively. So X7 is some thing that got appeared and got appreciated by all of my friends.

To me, the 4″ inch capacitive touch screen on Nokia X7 is stunning with AMOLED display protected by Gorilla Glass. The menu button is placed beneath the screen and ear speaker on top of the screen.

Starting from the top panel, Nokia X7 serves with a stylo power button with a slightly extruded shape for not requiring to look at it to press it. 3.5mm jack for audio and video out. Micro USB port also resides on the top panel and is only a way for data connectivity as well as for charging. Nokia USB Charger is included in the package.

At bottom of the device there is nothing but a microphone. Continue to discover another microphone that is placed on the back. for now below is the standard micro phone for voice calling.

On back, there is the camera with 8 mega pixel sensor inside. Dual-LED flash placed just beside the camera lens. And an additional microphone is placed on the same panel to support stereo audio recording along with HD video recording.

8 mega pixel camera in Nokia X7 is the same controversial EDoF (or Full Focus) camera which can capture images at up to the resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. 2x digital zoom supported. The aperture is f/2.8 (read our technical camera review with Nokia E6 explaining about f-stop/aperture). 720p video recording is not more than the frame rate of 25 per second.

All of the four corners have been designed to look like same purposely to enhance the design but only the two of them (the bottom ones) hide the speakers inside for loud volume.

Ok! that was the cool stuff in the outlook and a few in camera features. But here is something which I believe needs to mention and has already been mentioned by many others – the design in technical aspects leaving the outlook apart. However in looks Nokia X7 is an attractive and eye candy design amongst the other smartphones, but placement of hardware buttons/keys and mechanism of SIM card and memory card slots are not that user friendly as they must have to be.

Yes! there are left and right sides of the Nokia X7, we haven’t yet told you about.

The SIM card and memory card slots both are just alike in design, on the left side and it’s bit tricky to take them out to put the SIM card and Memory card in. In fact you will think that you are going to break it right now. Tell you one thing. I just didn’t proceed fighting with it and decided to look into the user manual. I must say the manuals are there to help you. Do read them carefully before thinking you the best to do all things.

You need to press in the the slot from one end (marked) and pull the slot out from the opening end. Both the SIM card slot and the memory card slot work the same way.

Inserting them back inside is actually easy and just a push-in task it is.

On the right side of the device the volume rocker and the dedicated camera shutter key have been provided. But sadly they both also aren’t very user friendly. It’s not that they are also awkwardly designed like the SIM card and MMC slots but it’s due to the curved shape of the back panel of Nokia X7 which disturbs mostly when you try to pick the phone with a single hand to use camera. You’ll have a great chance of dropping the phone if not handled carefully.

When I said to handle technically with one hand to use camera, it’s the way I used mostly when I had no option but only one hand free to use it.

Tip to use X7 camera with one hand: “hold the device (horizontally from centre) with your thumb(at bottom) and the middle finger(on top), facing the screen towards you and camera key up-side. Spot the device with your index finger from top (little away from the middle finger) and use the third finger to use the camera shutter key.”

— Well this was the best way I could use it single handed but always risked it —

This is what you will get in the package if you go for a purchase. Don’t blame me if the retailer did something bad with the package.

That’s it for the unboxing and the design overview. Now be entertained having a look at the following gallery of Nokia X7 pictures.

And do give your feedback below if you really liked this unboxing and the design review. We have a software review pending and coming in later days. Keep your eyes on and like our facebook fan page and follow us on twitter for the latest news and reviews.

Nokia X7: Pictures Gallery