Nokia 7370 review: Oh L’Amour

Stereo speakers

When Nokia 7370 is closed it is almost unusable. The only functions available are: adjustment of the volume level, activation of the camera application, taking a picture, changing the activated profile by pressing the main switch on/off button, and a complete switch-off of the entire device. And that's it, nothing more. So, let's swivel. When the upper part of Nokia 7370 rotates, the display rotates too. It has a proper page orientation even when the phone is on a stand-by mode. The only detail I consider as a drawback here is the small size of the time and date info bar and the incoming message icon, which are quite difficult to see.

Display rotates together with phone's upper part

Nokia 7370 can be setup to play a relevant sound when opening and closing it, different for each direction. The image rotation is fast and thus has no impact on the speed of phone's applications. You may have to wait for approximately a second if an active theme with animation is used, but that's all. When you open the phone, below its curve you will see two thick silver grids that cover the speakers. The phone is equipped with stereo speakers. In addition, the menu offers an option called "Stereo extension", which does make a difference - it opens the space and significantly improves the sound.

 
One grid on each side of the phone

Stereo widening

Ringing is modified through the use of special profiles. Nokia 7370 offers 5 ringing profiles, which imply melody changes, sound alerts as well as profile's expiry time settings. The phone plays 64 voices, but I suppose you would rather go for a MP3 file of your own for both calls and incoming messages.

The keypad is made of gentle creamy plastics. The main control button is surrounded by a golden frame. The central confirm key is in orange. All four ways of the control button are large and comfortable. In order to maintain the elegancy of the design the manufacturer has ignored standard green and red colors and has elaborated the receivers in the creamy color, typical for the entire device. They do not swell out even when backlighted.

   
Keypad details

The "5" and "8" numeric keys are slightly raised up. You can see it in the pictures above, but your thumb will hardly recognize the difference. Having in mind the fact that the most serious inconvenience of all phones with standard distribution of alpha-numeric keys is the hard-to-access location of the bottom part of the keypad, Nokia 7370's ergonomics and keypad functioning are worthy of compliment.

Keypad backlighting

Active stand-by display is no more a privilege of smartphones

Nokia 7370's display is a top-class one. A decisive quality factor here is the resolution of 240 x 320 pixels distributed on a surface of 31 x 41 mm. Icons are extremely fine; background and font are depicted to the very detail. The grid pattern is invisible to the naked eye.

 
Display in the dark

The menu interface is an improved version of S40 (Series 40). This is why it may happen that the stand-by display welcomes you with either wallpaper, or the so called "active stand-by display". The latter appeared for the first time in a phone without an OS in Nokia 6111. However, it started to catch up with active stand-by displays of smart phones with the Nokia 7370.

Active stand-by display • browsing inside its options

The active stand-by display shows all urgent events, so you no longer have to check your calendar daily. Dates can be searched straight from the stand-by mode. In its upper part you will see tiny icons, which take you to selected menu items. You can organize these icons according to your will or even replace the top banner with a completely different option. Nokia 7370 offers a total number of four fields, a music player, a FM radio, a counting indicator, and the above mentioned calendar notes, as well as standard network cell and battery indicators. The space reserved for all this information can also be left unused. To sum up, Nokia does deserve a compliment for equipping a common phone with an active stand-by display.

The left context key has a standard function - it opens the "Go to" option, but it can also be assigned to any of the menu items. All four ways of the control button are adjustable too. Nevertheless, I would recommend you to reserve both the up and down options, or at least one of them, for accessing the active stand-by display.

  
Selecting functions of the context key • option "Go to" • setting up the keys for accessing the active stand-by display • control key options

I like the idea of inserting variety of font colors to be used, when the phone is in a stand-by mode, because it's sure that white will always be visible on dark wallpaper... However, it's a pity, that this improvement is not possible to apply in the entire menu. In the majority of cases, a color theme with dark wallpaper goes together with menu interface with dark color nuance too. I was disappointed to find that a stylish phone like Nokia 7370 has a single color theme, which corresponds to phone's flower patterns and tunes with its entire outlook. The alternative option is a standard blue theme, used in all common "boring" mobiles, which I consider absolutely inappropriate. All menu items can be marked and relocated. When an icon is selected, it gets wrapped up in green and can be moved around.

 
Relocating folders in the menu

Menu's view options have been extended too. Apart from the standard matrix with legends and the common vertical list with items, Nokia 7370 offers a function called "Tabs" where items are in the top banner with their content displayed below. Besides, you can set up this banner in a way that a "details list", a "simple list" or a "pattern" appear in the subfolders, all that separately from the rest of the menu. As a result, if you enter the Gallery, for example, you can work in an interface, different from the Applications one.

 
Moz(ne' viza'z(e nabi'dky: Different menu interfaces: Grid with labels • without labels • tabs

 
Independent outlooks of other levels: Details list • simple lists • basic pattern