This review is written totally from my experience as an End User. If you want to know more then visit GSMArena or Nokia official site.
Ergonomics & Build Quality:
Very nice looking(i am using Silver color and it is absolutely gorgeous) fone and has nice build quality with metal battery cover. Top has On/Off button, 3.5 mm jack and USB port(supports USB charging). Left side has only Charging Port and in the right there is Camera Shutter, Fone Lock Button and Volume Rocker with Voice Control Button in the middle. In the back there is Loudspeaker Grill, Camera Lens(8 MP without autofocus) and a Flash unit. The fone is a true pleasure to hold. Above the 3.5 inch Gorilla Glass IPS panel Screen there are Front camera, Proximity Sensor etc. Earpiece is well designed and bottom has lanyard strap. And of course there are physical Call Accept, Menu and Reject button.
Basic Features:
Signal reception quality is typical Nokia, i.e, very good. Loudspeaker is not that loud so do use a really loud ringtone or you may miss some calls in noisier environment. In Call clarity is not up to the mark at least in my case. It is inferior to N8, C6-01 or any other E Series fones. Display is fantastic and has unbelievable Sunlight legibility. Brightness level is brilliant but Color saturation is inferior to N8. Capacitive Touchscreen is of top notch quality. Fone has 512MB RAM and 1Ghz Processor. It is faster than previous touchscreens of Nokia. And.it never hanged till now! Battery life is reasonably well and it can stand for 1.5 days with 35-40 minutes call, 1 hr music, 25-30 minutes GPRS, a few shots with cam, a few sms, 15-20 minutes gaming etc. Be sure it is way better than any Android fone till date. It has 8 GB built-in storage apart from External Memory Card support.
Symbian Belle:
It is a fresh O.S with Android like look. There are 6 removable Home Screens with Widgets and Shortcuts. Menu style is like Android with all things listed in one page. Creating folder is supported. Bottom of the screen(in Menu) has 3 touch buttons - Back, Search and Options. There is a File Manager too. Contacts and Messaging are similar to Anna O.S. System font is new and good looking. Alpha-neumeric keyboard is brilliant and Qwerty is moderate. The O. S with refined hardware feels butter-smooth, no hang & restart at all till date. There is a Pull-Down Notification Bar like Android and it is very eye-catching. It supports NFC i.e a new technology for easily pairing devices wireless-ly. Connectivity wise it has GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth, Wi-fi, 3G, GPS etc.
Multimedia:
Music Player has Cover Flow. All popular song formats are supported. And also features sorting by Playlist, Album, Genre, Artist etc. Equaliser presets are there but not configurable. Audio quality is excellent with 3rd party earplugs like Creative EP630. FM Radio scanned 8-9 stations in Kolkata and sound quality is too good though reception is not always best. It has FM Transmitter too. Video supports 720p, mp4, 3gp etc and looks stunning on the display. Camera interface improved and features are easier to access. White Balance, ISO, Color Tones, Face Detection, Exposure etc are there. Daylight fotos are nice. Flash is also strong but not best. Absence of autofocus means Macro shots are impossible. Video recording in 720p is crisp and jerk free.
Other Features:
Organizer is great with Calculator, Alarm, Notes, Zip, Adobe Reader, Vlingo, Calendar, E-Mail, Recorder, Msg Reader(Unit Converter not there but can be downloaded from OVI) etc. You can view Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. Photo and Video Editor exist too. Web browsing experience and OVI downloads are moderate with Vodafone GPRS. Bluetooth, Wi-fi and OVI Maps worked flawlessly. I could not try 3G. You can go social with Facebook, Orkut or Twitter. Ovi Store now includes sufficient Games and useful Applications for this phone. So dont cry for Android market(though I personally like it a lot).
Bundle:
Handset, Charger, Handsfree, Data Cable and User Guides etc.
Verdict:
Symbian Belle is a Fresh Air. Powerful hardware made it even better. Nokia 701 is joy to use. Now it costs Rs. 16500/-. Very reasonable and total value for money. Trust me it is better in many aspects than Samsung Galaxy Ace, Motorola Defy or Nokia X6(in a price range 14-17K approx). It has many strong points to overcome the cons. I am loving it. I bet you will.
Are you an Android? Then u may try to become a Human. It does worth.
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