Review: Nokia C3-00

Competition makes marketing more fun. With all the super sleek and technically attractive features from new releases of smartphone  Samsung, LG and Blackberry, can this low-end unit be at partially reasonable?

First things first; The price.

I bought the pink one last Monday and I got it for only 6,450 pesos. No memory card included. Just yesterday, I went to the mall and other shops are selling it for 6,600 – 6,750 aaaand… no memory card included too.

I’m not saying that the price went up. I’m just lucky, I was around Abenson while they were on sale.

This is going to be the first time I’m going to make a critique over a phone. I’m not familiar with gadget write-ups, so please pardon me if it’s going to be a bit odd than the usual tech review.

So here’s my side:

Texting on QWERTY – since I’m a keyboard user(since zeus knows when), the QWERTY is such a breeze compared to, me as a touch screen user (ohgoodlord god bless my fingertips). My friends can easily identify if my tweets/plurks are from a touch screen unit (all the typo errors in the world baby!). So I’m really at home to this one.

Another thing I like about the keypad is it doesn’t have that clickity-click-click-stoptextingyoureinthemoviehousegawddamnit!-buttons. It’s so silent and my fingers snug right on it perfectly (okay, that didnt sound too well.. anyways.)

Although, I think the keypad is plastic made, it’s not ideal for ladies(and “ladies”) with long, posh nails. You guys might end up looking at a computer’s keyboard to check on coz the letters on your phone is already scratched. The only thing that is metal here is (of course) the internal parts, and the battery cover.

Fonts here are bigger. Like kindergarten bigger. Blue-Red-Blue bigger. Good for people who squints on reading small letters. Yet, for some, they prefer the typical thin smaller fonts because its much uhmm smaller(?) riiiight…

The only time you’ll get the very small fonts is when you browse the internet and open a message in your SMS. For everything else, you’ll get the “bigger small” fonts.

Home Screen – so just like other Nokia phones, you know very well how the home screen works. It’s like widgets for your picked tasks or favorites. This goes well for those who keeps on missing on some important things to do or hates wandering around if “where can I find that what again” in your phone folders.

Camera – 2.0 megapixel. Captures good with well lit area. No flash. ‘nuf said.

Back Speakers – uhmm hi! its not a walkman dude. But it’s pretty loud enough. I suggest, don’t go to much on the volume. This unit is not built to blow off your eardrums (and that’s me exaggerating).

On using WLan – Wifi for 6k? not bad at all! As some people say, this thing is meant for those who wants to stay connected and keep up with whatevs latest online! It uses Opera Mini for browsing (again, thank you freeware… and oh btw, opera mini just upgraded. Check out their site).

Community – they say, if you buy your unit from Smart, it comes with not just the Facebook and Twitter but with the YM, MSN, Nokia Messaging (which is the OVI) and other stuff for the “community” function too (please confirm this)

Now correct me if I’m wrong c3 users; with this unit, you can’t have YM/MSN/Gtalk as your default chat. OVI will be the main chat system for this one. (but who’s on OVI?!)

Also, take note that this feature is not for free! You can loose your cellphone credit on this if you did not set up your internet config properly. To avoid that, you might want to set your WLAN and internet config. The key thing here is switching. If you’re network provider is Globe, switch your web setting account to Smart, and vice versa. Set up your config to “ask always”. As you know, every minute and kb counts in our world of telecommunication here in the Philippines. If you accidentally surfed the internet using the opera and the community, though you are connected to a wifi, the community will select the EDGE/GPRS. And if you are “switched” of course there is no way that you can get connected to their service. No connection. No pay.

To check if your setup is correct, connect to wifi. Use Opera mini to surf. You should not see a letter G or letter E on the upper left. With this config you don’t have to keep on disconnecting your profile on the Communities. (well, by all means, this suggestion is the “tipid-value-meal” If you are subscribed to unlimited internet, you don’t have to do all of these)

There is also a suggestion I read; change your profile to “Flight”. Without a doubt, you won’t get connected to any at all with that setting.

Geeky stuff goes here – Alrighty, then. The OS is JUST an s40. No advance apps here, silly. Unlike the s60, of course. S60 units can run almost all apps that can run in Java. So therefore, if this unit only runs in s40, the “processor” of this phone is not as fast as the usual SmartPhones out in the market. It can only run j2me. So don’t expect that the games you can put on this thing is as cool and sophisticated as what you can have on your iphones.

But don’t falter too soon, my dear. Granted that s60 is much used, there are still good apps and games that you can download on this unit. And despite the fact that you cannot have an Adobe reader on C3, you can still download a freeware from umnet.com for your ebooks! (Insert silent “Yay!” here)

Other details you need to know –Internal memory is 55mb and it can handle upto 8gb memcard. Big enough. The screen is at 320×240 res. Battery life on stand-by is up to 800hours, talk time upto 7hours. Bluetooth? Check. Radio? Check. Cigarette lighter? No.

Very well, all in all, you get what you pay for. If you think this unit can’t satisfy your thirst for more fascinating features and specs, save lotsa money and get something much expensive than this.

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