Anyway, as you can see, the Nokia X7 has an excellent 8 megapixel stills, with EDoF, though lack of macro photography will be a problem to some (or most of people, as people are taking more and more close-up photos without even knowing it !) and whatever Nokia says about it, but it remains a cost question after all ! I really respect the iPhone concept in this field, all is just a tap away and it still offer autofocus and auto-macro-mode...users doesn't even know that...anyway

Camera (video) HD (1280 by 720) video is superlative, EDoF produces a huge effective depth of field, from 40cm to infinity, CD-quality 48kHz audio capture, and with Belle update, fps will jump from 25fps to 30fps !

And speaking about video, the video playback experience was very good, better by miles than on the N8 or C7 but less interesting than on the E7, due to the lack of a CBD display...but all in all the 4" screen really does the job and by the way the quality of the sound (in video or Music player) is better than on N8, C7 or E7, more deeper (bass rendering), i had the opportunity to see how it does perform against the Galaxy S2 from Samsung, and guess what ! If the video is launched but being paused or stopped, when playing or resuming the X7 does actually a better job than the GS2 ! but for the rest, the GS2 has more settings for the video playback, has vivid screen (but sometimes it produces unnatural colors) and a larger screen (which is a subject to debate), also what i did like is the way anyone hold the device when watching a video, it's just so natural (like holding a PSP for eg) thanks to it's curved back...but the weird speaker arrangement makes the sound obviously comes out of the right hand side of the smartphone (in landscape video-watching mode)




And by the way, the Symbian Anna update added support for Album artist field/tag to the Music player and if any tracks on an album are missing this information, those tracks are shown individually under separate albums

Ps : all tracks of an album are displayed as separate albums in landscape mode. This issue will be fixed in Symbian Belle.

Also, with the previous Symbian^3 software versions the Photos application showed items from all folders, so you may not be able to view some of your items any more after updating to Symbian Anna if copied to other than the above folders, but now, the Photos application in Symbian Anna will only show the items located in the Images, Videos and DCIM folders (e.g. items captured by the user). If you have saved your pictures in a different folder, they won’t be visible after updating to Symbian Anna. If there are items that should be visible in the Photos application, move them to the Images or Videos folder on the mass memory or memory card.

On another point, the X7 has a good GPS, backed up by Nokia Wi-fi location, with Ovi Maps 3.6 worldwide free voice-guided sat-nav. Maps can be pre-loaded by continent, country or area or loaded over the air but it doesn't include a true digital compass like its cousins and so a lot of augmented reality application just doesn't work !

Symbian Web (webkit-based), revamped for Anna, faster and more responsive but still constrained to a degree by the relatively slow processor, with Flash support (including video) and multi-touch for zooming of course and is more enjoyable on the 4" than on 3.5" of other symbian devices...

What i did like also is the efficiency of the symbian system with the anna update, in facts, it's stable at very low amount of RAM, as an example, when the X7 was running at 20Mb RAM left, is was really stable, no reboots, no freezes no nothing, it reminds me of my N900, and on the other hand, when the non-Anna N8 was running at about 50-40Mb i had a lot of glitches, freezes, hangs and sometimes a reboots, so it's a much welcomed tweak ^^

About battery life, with a "normal" use (3G, some calls, music for 1h, GPS for 20min, and some other general operations) it lasts about 17h ! when 3G is disabled it can last 23-24h :


With the new X7 i see a handset that is very difficult to categorise.

Yes it is a smartphone but not one with jaw dropping specification !

Yes it is stylish but not so drastically different that people will buy on design alone.

It is one of those handsets that will appeal to a certain segment of the market and in this case that segments is the video users and gamers who want a powerful phone that offers HD capabilities.

This high definition quality that i talk off can be achieved thanks to the X7 offering a high quality screen that can display a not very impressive resolution of 640 x 360 pixels with over 16 million colours thrown in to the equation as well. Another big factor behind the quality of the screen is the use of AMOLED technology in this model when many of the phones rivals are opting for LCD.The issue with LCD is that it offers poor viewing angles and viewing in sunlight thanks to its reliance upon a back light.

Actual performance on gaming is as goos as on its cousins with no noticable lag and the 4" touchscreen seeming well responsive.

The Nokia X7 will probably prove a good but not huge hit with a younger audience whilst proving a good option for any other user looking for a middle of the road smartphone with modern looks and great features.

Am i going to buy this device? NO !

As i said on the first part of the X7 review :