Nokia C7 – Hands-on Review

The beautiful Nokia C7 we got is “Frosty Metal”. In this review you are gonna have a lot more idea about the features of Nokia C7 which are not so prominent and you may need some extra stuff to get them work for you.

An Overview

With respect to software and interface, Nokia C7 is just like as Nokia N8 powering with Symbian^3 OS. It’s equipped with 8MP EDoF (Full Focus) Camera with dual led flash and a front faced VGA Camera for video calls (also supports video recording).

UPDATE: More pictures of Nokia C7 added in Gallery. Check them out


Topics Covered

Design and Look & Feel

After using C7 for a quite good time, I can say that it’s true people calling it a sexy device. It looks very smart in hand. Slim in figure and light in weight. 130g of weight is actually not that much lighter than Nokia N8 weighing 135g.

 

 

I still believe Nokia always tried to give users a quick access to the features by giving a wide set of dedicated keys and buttons around the device. So does the Nokia C7 with two call handling buttons on front beneath the screen for rejecting/ending or accepting/dialing a call respectively. A wider menu key is housed in between the both call handling buttons. The call handling keys however are transparent and remains idle when the device is sleeping and they are lit green and red when the device is active. The menu key notifies with nicely blinking white light for missed calls and new message alerts in idle/sleeping mode.

 

 

On top front “Nokia” branding is standard on each Nokia device. C7 does the same with ‘C7’ on left side. In the middle there is a ear speaker and on the right side, there lie a proximity sensor, ambient light sensor and a secondary front faced camera. Sensors are not really prominent with the naked eye. I just tried snapping them to show here. See the picture below.

 

 

On top side of the chassis, C7 gives a covered micro USB port for PC connectivity, USB charging, and USB-OTG. 3.5mm Nokia AV Connector for Audio and Composite Video. And a power button.

Right side of C7 is hosting a dedicated camera key, a lock key, volume up and down keys, and voice key

 

 

There is nothing special on the bottom but on the left side of C7 there is a micro connector for charger and that’s it

 

 

Back side is pretty nice in build with a battery cover starting right from the camera panel.

 

 

Unlike Nokia N8, C7 is not all inside one packed body. Remove back cover to reveal battery. The design inside I didn’t like much, may be it had been the requirement to fill it with all other stuff. But it is like it is. SIM Card can be removed or inserted without removing the battery but ofcourse a restart of the phone is needed for a SIM card to get registered with the network.

The MicroSD card (memory card); Believe me it didn’t appear easily to me. There’s however a mark on the sticker on the C7’s body which can be seen only after removing the battery and so as well the battery removal is required to insert/replace or remove the memory card. Yes! it’s not hot-swappable.

 

 

What could I tell more about the design. To me it’s pretty nice. The device itself is beautiful and of course I can’t stay without saying it really a sexy. The only thing I didn’t like was the memory card slot, hidden inside enough that you can’t take it out without shutting the device off.

 

Hardware/Features

What’s inside this beautiful device, is actually the hardware supporting to line it up in the high-end devices. High-End but in really moderate price value. Of course the day now it is just getting over and over regarding the hardware in a smartphone.

At most places in hardware it matches the Nokia N8. However it lacks somethings somewhere and as well it gives something a bit more than the N8.

  • C7 supports multiple frequency bands
    • (Quad Band GSM) GSM 1800, 1900, 850, 900,
    • WCDMA Band I (2100), Band II (1900), Band IV (1700/2100), Band V (850), Band VIII (900).
  • Like Nokia N8, C7 also is equipped with ARM 11 CPU at clock rate of 680 MHz.
  • A dedicated GPU (Graphics Processor) performs a full time job for 2D/3D hardware acceleration with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support. Ah! beautiful game play as well as high resolution movies play back.
  • C7 gives more user storage in phone memory up to 350 MB. It’s just 170 MB in Nokia N8. Mass Storage, however, is only 8GB which is less than Nokia N8. C7 comes with 1GB NAND Memory where as N8 is only at 512MB. RAM is 256MB on C7 same as N8.
  • 3.5inch screen with 360 x 640 px AMOLED display, is not that big but not that small as well. (I liked the E7 having 4inch display, of course not that means I hated C7. I am with Nokia N8 since it was launched here in Pakistan and it’s pretty good with me. 3.5inch is a moderate screen for a smartphone.)
  • C7 doesn’t have HDMI out but it does have Composite video out via 3.5 mm jack at its top. You should read on to know about it.

Software and UI (User Interface)

Nokia C7 is one of the two very first smartphones from Nokia which brought the new Symbian^3 OS inside them. Symbian^3, however, isn’t made up from scratch and was evolved from Symbian platform. But unlike S60/v5 devices, Symbian^3 was surprisingly improved with a lot of new features. But unfortunately it again couldn’t make the people accept it due to the interface.

 

Home Screens, Widgets and Shortcuts

Software and Interface is exactly same in Nokia C7 as in Nokia N8 or other Symbian^3 devices.

What’s new in Symbian^3 was the new three home screens which you can swipe right or left.. You can place widgets and shortcuts on home screens.

The limitation is that you can’t move a widget or shortcut from one screen to another. You have to delete it first from a home screen and then add on the other home screen. There is also a delay between swiping a finger on the screen and a reaction of movement of home screen. This actually was intentional but people didn’t like that. I seriously don’t care about that. It was cool for me being a bit different from other devices. Any ways the new software update Symbian ANNA is bringing the quick swipe able home screens.

 

 

Dialer

Dialer is very simple and easy to use with search number or name functionality right from the number field. I however never used this field to search for a number but I dialed directly a number when I remember it. A contacts shortcut is provided on the dialer to go to contacts and choose a contact to dial.

 

Music Player

In Symbian^3 music player was redesigned fully, seems like from scratch and yes it’s awesome. 3D view of wall containing album titles and pictures when in landscape mode and a simple list when in portrait. Again it’s exactly same as in Nokia N8.

Photos Gallery

Photos Gallery in Symbian^3 provides a very simple view of wall with thumbnails of pictures and videos. Long tap supported for context menu and selection of images.

Same multi-touch support for pinch to zoom feature is available as in Nokia N8 and other Symbian^3 devices

Direct sharing pictures feature provides an option to share your picture on facebook and twitter. As well with an additional plugin “Pixelpipe” (available at Ovi Store free of cost) the selected image can be sent to various social networks in one hit.

FM Radio and FM Transimitter

Not to mention that FM Radio is also there in Nokia C7 but the thing which I would want to mention is the FM Transmitter. Just like Nokia N8, FM Transmitter is one of cute features in Nokia C7 as well. It helps you mostly in your car when you don’t have a connectivity cable. Just play a song you want in your Nokia C7 and turn on the FM Transmitter on specific frequency. Read more about How to use FM Transmitter

Messaging and Email

Text/Multimedia Messaging

Messaging in Symbian^3 has also been improved. However messaging interface is pretty same as of earlier Symbian devices but a new feature added is the Conversations. It’s actually a full new separate app, to which the link is added into Messaging main page as an option.

 

 

There is still no Native QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode so you get only T9 style keyboard with predictive text input. However the landscape mode provides the QWERTY keyboard. There is also an option to install a Swype keyboard which also works in landscape mode only for now.

Attachment button on main composer page makes it easy to add attachment. You don’t need to tell if it’s a simple text message or a multimedia message. Start writing a message, it will be a simple text message (an SMS) until you add an attachment. Once an attachment is added the message will be considered as multimedia (an MMS) and will need a data connection (MMS Settings) to send it over.

 

Swype keyboard is of course awesome in new age smartphones for quick text input. The same you get on Symbian^3 and so in Nokia C7. There are also quick settings for Swype that you can choose and set according to your own need.

Symbian ANNA is also giving a new feature of QWERTY keyboard in Portrait mode.

 

Email Client

Email Client in Symbian^3 devices provides push email supported by Nokia’s own mail services. You can set it on manual interval if you need. The client also supports Mail for Exchange accounts to be configured with ActiveSync technology with real time sync on “soonest” if supported by your email server. For example Gmail Mail for Exchange services do not support sync with “soonest” settings. However you can configure Ovi Mail, Windows Live Mail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail with Nokia Messaging services which support Push Email.

The user interface is again same as in Nokia N8 but I found it much better in terms of smoothness than the one in Nokia N8. I can’t guess what’s the reason behind if both are on Symbian^3 and relatively with almost same apps.

Email Client comes with a widget to put on your C7’s home screen.

 

IM for Nokia

IM for Nokia is the instant messaging chat client released later for Symbian^3 devices including Nokia C7. You get access to chat with your Windows Live contacts, Yahoo and Google Talk friends. Plus you get access to sign in with your My Space account and Ovi account.

You might want to see an earlier post about IM for Nokia in depth.

Contact Management and Social Networking

Well, contact management, syncing and backup/restore operations in Nokia, I always appreciated. Managing/Syncing/Backing up and restoring contacts in Nokia phones have been on top always for me.

Frankly, Context Menu in Symbian^3 caused a lot more of improvements. “Long Tap” on a contact made it really easy to dial a number in just one hit. But this is limited only to the contacts having a single number in that contact. If a contact has more than one number, long tapping and choosing “Call” will prompt you with a list of numbers and you need to tap once again to initiate call. But you can always set default number amongst those numbers which can again give you a quick access to call that number when you click Call from the context menu.

Dialing a contact with single number stored in it.

Dialing a contact with multiple numbers stored in it.

Social Networking

Nokia C7 has a built-in Social App which works with your facebook account and twitter account. The app itself is not that awesome but it’s good in it. There will be an update for the app waiting to be delivered on your device when you first connect with Ovi Suite on PC or run an in-built Software Updater client in Nokia C7. You must update your device with the latest softwares available.

Social App gives you a live widget on your home screen which receives and shows updates from your live news feed and timeline from facebook and twitter respectively.

The good thing is that the latest Social App is integrated with the Native Contacts list. Means that your Social contacts can be integrated with the contacts in your Nokia C7 or of course other Symbian^3 devices.

IM Client Integration

The more on it is that you even can integrate your contacts with the new IM for Nokia chat client. As quickly as open the chat client, sign in to your favorite IM service(s) and choose a chat contact to integrate with your phone contact. And see an immediate chat status icon with your phone contact.

 

Connectivity

Simply what in Symbian^3 was good, you’ll have in Nokia C7. Connectivity improvements in Symbian^3 and new features were the ones I liked.

WiFi Connectivity

Very first one is the WiFi connectivity. Now a Nokia smartphone has got intelligent enough to decide when to prompt and when to connect automatically. I always hated the fact in previous Nokia phones which always asks me what to connect with?

Whatever but it’s not like what in Android or iOS. But I guess it’s rather good in its own way. WiFi connection stay alive if in use or any live service is open even from widgets. e.g. if you don’t have any live widgets on home screen or you have set home screen connections to “offline” or you have not set up a mail client or even set up with any option other than “Soonest”, in sense you don’t have any app or service running in background, the connection will go idle.

There are as well priorities which connection is to use preferably.

You have notification status to show and connect quickly

 

Data Connection

Data Connections e.g. GPRS/EDGE are preferred later than WiFi. However where a data connection is required e.g. for positioning services if Assisted-GPS is turned on, then it will attempt to establish a data connection according to your settings.

 

Bluetooth 3.0

Bluetooth 3.0 is of course a latest Bluetooth version in current smartphones and has a high speed data transfer rate provided that the connected device is also equipped with Bluetooth 3.0

As well stereo audio is supported via Bluetooth.

 

Nokia AV Connector with TV-Out

Nokia Audio Video support via 3.5mm jack for audio head set and composite video out.

Unlike N8, Nokia C7 doesn’t have HDMI out. But while the device can play a lot of video formats in HD, there is an option for you to get the visuals out to your home TV, Any TV, whether it’s High Definition or Standard Definition, if has a support of Composite/AV line-in then you can directly connect Nokia C7 with your TV via Nokia Video-Out Cable CA-75U. Read more about TV-Out feature in Nokia C7

 

USB On-The-Go (OTG)

Nokia C7 however doesn’t come bundled with USB OTG Adapter Cable, unlike Nokia N8, but it does support the feature just like it does in N8. USB On-The-Go is one of the very usable features in a smartphone that you can connect any Plug & Play USB device very quickly. e.g. the most commonly used device is USB Flash Drive or USB Memory Stick. Also a USB memory card reader can be connected via USB OTG in Nokia C7.

Not only  USB supported Flash or Mass Memory Drive but you can also conncet a USB Mouse and USB Keyboard with it. We have put a demonstration on it with Nokia N8 earlier, same is supposed to

We’ve posted about USB On-The-Go feature in Nokia N8 with Mouse and Keyboard, that goes same for Nokia C7. Check it out.

Store and Applications/Games

Symbian^3 OS also got a new Ovi Store very different and cool than older versions. Navigation is way easy to search through applications and games. Interface is smoother enough to be appreciated. Payment and purchases in Ovi Store is also very easy and quick.

 

There is moderate range of awesome apps in Ovi Store for Symbian^3 and so for Nokia C7. Nokia C7 came with the following two pre-installed games. These are quite simple but good.

There is also a wide range of games e.g. Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja etc. available in Ovi Store for Nokia C7.

There are a few 3D games given to Nokia N8 users which however are not free for Nokia C7 but are available from Ovi Store only for a few rupees. Want to check Best Games on Nokia N8 post?

Camera and Photos

This is the most different thing in Nokia C7 from of Nokia N8. Well every other smartphone now comes with a camera and I guess most of them are different from Nokia N8. Here we are supposed to show the camera in Nokia C7 so here we go.

Actually we have posted another dedicated review for the camera in Nokia C7. You might want to check the review.

Following pictures was taken with Nokia C7

About 100 feet far away (view full sized original image)

 

About 70 feet far away (view full sized original image)

 

Do you think that they are bad? Download and view the original images and I guess they are excellent between its range of competitive devices.

Following are the pictures taken with closer distance to object.

LEFT – Without Flash, about 1 foot (download original) – RIGHT – With Flash, about 1 foot (Right download original)

I really liked the pictures taken outdoor but the pictures taken indoor of closed objects are bad. Yes they were supposed to be. So if you love to take pictures outside when on picnic, on trip, on journey or whatever but outside in full light and you don’t bother to take pictures all the time of your nearer objects and don’t normally shoot macros. never will like to take pictures of flowers very near to you then the camera in Nokia C7 is awesome outside.

Head over to pictures gallery and photos taken with Nokia C7 and Nokia N8 – A Camera Comparison

Internet and Browsing

Internet is actually a shared utility on device that every other application can use it according to its need. And about connectivity we’ve had a big discussion in Connectivity section. Here I can give you a little hint about Browsing in Nokia C7.

Experience with the native web browser in Nokia C7 is just same as in the Nokia N8. Of course both does have the same OS and UI and so the browser as well. I’m not gonna give a detail about its browser but in short still there is a new Symbian software update yet about to come. The Symbian ANNA has already been shown into Nokia Astound (the American edition of Nokia C7), Which is in fact cooler than the one we have in Nokia C7 yet so far.

Currently in Nokia C7 we have same browser with big buttons around. No tabbed browsing. Read more about Symbian^3 Web browser in our Nokia N8 review post

 

Battery and Power Management

When it comes to Nokia the battery and power is always preferred over all the other elements. Not forgetting the voice quality and voice features. Nokia is always ahead of these elements in its devices. Of course whatever you add in it, after all its main purpose is to connect people and don’t let them disappointed while they are in talk. Yes they prefer to give better voice quality and power backup.

Charging: Nokia C7 can be charged via USB as well as via 2mm charger connector the same as Nokia N8 and I really liked that fact in N8 so why won’t I do with C7? It’s great having two options to charge your phone.

Let’s say I want to connect Nokia C7 via USB with some external device and at the same time I want to charge it up?

Also you get multiple options to charge your Nokia C7 when on travel and forgot to take charger along. Someone in people around will surely have a charger of your need.

Battery Capacity in Nokia C7 has been a long debated talk now. Even earlier Nokia E52 E72 were with 1500mAh battery capacity and they live much longer. While all new Symbian^3 devices came with 1200mAh battery capacity even with AMOLED touch screens and with extra stuff in it. That’s however only are the questions. Practically this 1200mAh battery capacity in new Symbian^3 devices is really surprising. It lasts pretty nice.

For official battery specifications of Nokia C7 visit Device Specs. I’ll not tell a lie which is that I didn’t use it being a machine and tested all the specified criteria because I am human and can’t test them all individually in just 2 weeks.

But practically the way I used it was under a GSM network, having calls in a normal routine e.g.  5 to 10 calls a day, texting for an hour in total a day. WiFi stayed connected all the time with an Email Push account with “Soonest” delivery and a couple of Check-ins with GPS/AGPS. And yes at the day end played games like Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja for an hour or a half an hour. It’s pretty good to have the device lived up to 12 hours and then charge it for the next day.

An additional very cute thing is its Power Saving which automatically prompts you on 10% of the battery remaining. You can turn the power saving on or just leave it to end. Power Saving is like a Power Scheme in Windows which disables some fancy functions on the device to make it possible for your device to last even longer when you need. I liked that.

 

Our Opinion

Nokia C7 being a Symbian^3 smartphone has really lot of stuff in it. Bundled with the features like USB-OTG and Video Out. Power management is perfect for normal use. However a bigger capacity battery could have impressed us a lot but sure there isn’t any problem with 1200mAh also.

Today’s most of the common video codecs are fully supported in it. This is not lesser than awesome.

Design wise it’s perfect in hand. Looks really sexy with no doubt. Widgets and Shortcuts on home screens is a plus, however managing them isn’t that user friendly. Sharing pictures right from the Photo Gallery is really a time saving. It’s quick.

Email Client is good but really needs to be improved. Too lag in scrolling but much better than the one in Nokia N8. Surprised what makes it different while both are having same software.

Messaging however involves typing, so it’s not that feasible for every one typing on a T9 keypad under a touch screen.The keyboards are not split screens that’s annoying. But many people out there still love typing on T9 keypad on touch screens so make your own decision.

Features wise, I’ll say, it’s one of the top devices. But the user interface really needed attention. So let’s wait for the new updates to see what Nokia is doing about it.

If you have any plan to buy Nokia C7 and are confused about it, I hope this post may have helped you to choose it or not to choose it.

 

Nokia C7 – Pictures