The Nokia C3 is a messaging phone built specially for social networking and heavy texting. Its social networking features aptly coupled with a QWERTY keypad with dedicated messaging and contact keys. An overall observation of the handset might give you a mixed feeling, but it would be wrong to say that this phone is avoidable.
Impressive Looks
If you judge a phone by its cover, you’ll judge this one fair. At first glance, the Nokia C3 definitely would make anyone think that it is an upscale handset. It resembles the Blackberry (hence, the upscale impression) with its aluminum backplate. The metallic look and feel of the backplate adds to the overall design of the handset a solid depth. In the front, a 2.4 inch display landscape screen is mounted on the full QWERTY keyboard that appears well matched. Its 115.5 x 58.1 x 13.6 mm dimension holds every thing in place – not making them appear too stuffy or sparse nor too bulky from the side with its 63.2 cc volume. It fits well in your palm and pocket for a bar handset with full QWERTY keyboard.
Great messaging
C3’s Ovi Chat and Ovi Mail are other major attractions. The Ovi Mail lets you create email account quite easily right on the device itself, while Ovi Chat allows you to stay in touch with your friends all the time. It also features the conversational SMS chat, for a chat style text messages with a quick and easy location of your favourite contacts right on the homescreen. In addition, the featured Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Windows Live, Hotmail and other popular POP/IMAP services with Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk make mailing and messaging a breeze on this phone.
Web browsing and Connectivity
This handset gives you a browsing experience of real web pages through its Nokia OSS web browser. It uses the Opera Mini browser for web page optimization. However, a web page being displayed on a 2.4 inch space is obviously pretty crammed up. C3 sadly does not support 3G! and it has no GPS too. These are the compromises you will have to make with this phone. So while browsing on the go, you only have the speed of GPRS. To compensate, there is Wi-fi and bluetooth support you can use around a wireless connectivity available areas. A USB 2.0 for data transfer and a 3.5 mm AV connector for headphones are incorporated as well.
Small screen
The 2.4 inch display, which is TFT, with just 320 x 240 pixels of resolution, is not what will stun you amidst the AMOLED (Samsung Galaxy) and retina displays (iPhone 4) in the market. However, before you conclude, the 320 x 240 pixels resolution is pretty decent for a display of 2.4 inch. Yes! It is a little small for web browsing, but the graphics for the phone’s own menus and apps is good enough.
Operating system
The Nokia C3 is powered by Nokia’s Series 40 operating system which is not the latest of operating systems (quite dated to be honest) or the most sensitive. To make up, there is the three panel homescreen with each one for your favourite contacts, social network updates and apps short cuts. It runs the handset efficiently, so apart from being not the latest OS, there is no problem.
Entertainment and memory
C3 can play MP3, WMA, AAC, eAAC and eAAC+ audio formats. Its 3.5 mm AV connector comes in handy for use with any regular headphones or sub woofers. You can set mp3, aac, 64-tone polyphonic ringtones. It also has a Stereo FM radio to add to your musical needs. Games included in this handset are regular ones like the Bounce, Sudoku, Block’d and Diamond Rush – not the best ones.
The camera, used for both grabbing still images and recording videos, has a disappointing 2 megapixels. The still images are captured with a 1600 x 1200 pixels and saved in the standard JPEG format. It has a 4x digital zoom, self timer, a fullscreen viewfinder with effects like sepia, greyscale and negative. The captured images understandably do not look so sharp after you transfer it to your computer, though it is good enough on the phone screen.
The same 2 megapixel camera records video in MPEG-4 format with a maximum resolution of 320 x 240. It can store H.263, H.264, AVI, MPEG-4 (stored as .mpg or .3gp files) and WMV file formats. The recordable clip length depends on the availability of space.
The internal memory is just 55 MB which is very small for any phone today. This limits you from doing or storing a lot of things. You can store less, very less, songs and capture very short length video clips. However, maximum expandable memory size is to up to 8 GB using a microSD card, you can expect a few GB extra space for your needs.
Other information
Nokia C3 is available in three different colors – Slate Grey, Hot Pink and Golden White. It uses a BL-5J 1320 mAh Li-Ion battery that gives a talktime of up to 7 hours and a standby time of up to 800 hours. This phone can also play music up to an impressive 30 hours.
Price
Now, if you have been thinking that there are less reasons to buy this handset, consider this; the Nokia C3 is available for less than just Rs. 6000! This is one major spot where it scores, the low price. So, how would you rate it again? Rs. 6000/- for a handset with that upscale design and decent features.
The verdict
The Nokia C3 admittedly has some weak features like the lack of 3G and GPS etc, a low megapixel camera, a dated operating system and so on. However, it has its strengths too, including, a great design, social networking tools, keyboard, good battery life and efficiently operates whatever it incorporates. So keeping these in mind with the low price, if you look at this phone again, it offers genuine value for every rupee you invest.