Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type review: Slim and sharp

Connectivity: the whole package, save for GPS

The Nokia X3-02 offers quad-band GSM and UMTS support. There is also HSPA support, download speed potentially reaching 10.2 Mbps, and up speed as good as 2 Mbps.

Bluetooth is version 2.1 and A2DP is of course enabled. The Nokia X3-02 uses a microUSB port for both data connections and charging.

The bigger treat though is USB On-the-go. The Nokia X3-02 can access USB flash drives and even other phones. Of all the USB flash drives we tested, the X3-02 only failed with one (card readers don’t work either). Non-Nokia-made handsets generally refused to share their memory too.

An interesting questioned occurred to us – what happens when you connect two USB on-the-go devices – which opens which? It seems it depends on which end the USB on-the-go cable is. By the way, a special USB-OTG-enabled cable like the one that came with the Nokia N8, is not included in the X3-02 Touch and Type’s box. You’ll have to buy one separately.

Anyway, the X3-02 successfully browsed the N8’s memory drive but, when we turned the connection the other way around, something odd happened. Both devices started flashing “Device not supported” warnings. So, your mileage may vary when using USB on-the-go to connect to other phones (both S40 and Symbian devices worked).

Wi-Fi connectivity is also at hand. In fact, the Wi-Fi is one of the key features of the Nokia X3-02 – it is one of the cheaper Wi-Fi enabled phones on the market.

The Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type also comes complete with a memory card slot. Coupled with a card reader it can usually give you the fastest data transfer rates.

And finally, there's the standard 3.5mm audio jack, which allows you to use your own headphones, but doesn't have TV-out functionality.

Solid web skills: Wi-Fi, 3G and a (small) touchscreen

Browsing the internet on the Nokia X3-02 is a pleasant experience. Even the most elaborate pages are rendered well and finding your way around is reasonably comfortable on the touch-enabled display.

The touch-enabled S40 web browser

As you might guess the virtual cursor is no more, but there is some familiar touch controls borrowed from Symbian S60 – the full screen switch and the zoom key. There is kinetic scrolling too, which works well enough.

The dedicated zoom key is the only zooming option – neither double tap nor the volume rocker works.

Despite the Adobe Flash Lite 3.0 support, Nokia X3-02 web browser doesn’t support Flash. If you want to watch some YouTube stuff you’ll have to rely on the mobile version of the website. Anyway, the lack of Flash is not a big deal, especially for that small screen and the hardware specs.

Like most other S40 phones, the Nokia X3-02 has the Opera Mini 5 browser preinstalled.

The Opera Mini web browser is available too

Organizer and apps

The organizer on the Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type is well stocked as usual and things have been touch optimized.

The Calendar starts off with the month view – when you press and hold, a bigger number will pop up just above your finger so you can aim easier.

When there’s an event on that date, the event description will pop up instead (it’s not visible otherwise, just like on the old S40 version).

Day view is also available, but strangely, week view has gone missing. You have various kinds of events available – reminder, meeting call, birthday, anniversary and memo.

Calendar month and day view modes • setting up an event

The alarm app is brand new too – the big, touchable numbers make it easy to set and you can make it ring only on specific days. You can customize the snooze time too, but there’s only one alarm available.

Setting up an alarm

The other organizing functions available include a voice recorder with a 60-minute limit, a stopwatch and a countdown timer. They have been touch optimized as well, though we wish the countdown timer used the same big numbers as the Alarm clock.

Countdown timer and stopwatch are available

The Nokia X3-02 calculator offers two versions - basic and advanced. In addition, a loan calculator is also available. It’s now easier to use as you can directly tap the functions instead of having to scroll and select them with the D-pad.

The calculator: basic and scientific • voice recorder

The X3-02 comes with two converters – one for general measurements and one for clothes. The first one is excellent – it has a long list of supported conversions and you can add your own. The Size converter for clothes is essential for shopping abroad but it’s not quite as optimized for the platform. You have to enter a size then tap OK, then tap the result to see the info – too many taps considering the flexibility a touchscreen offers. Anyway, it’s an application specific issue.

The unit converter is quite good • the size converter is great for shopping abroad

The Search application offers Google Search or Bing Search initially, though other search engines might be available depending on your country and region. Searching launches the web browser – you’d probably be better off using the Opera Mini 5 search bar.

The World clock can tell the time in up to four cities. It offers a long list of cities, but there’s no search (so you have to scroll a lot for, say, Washington) and you can’t just tap on the map either.

World clock applications is well familiar

The last preinstalled app is Shazam – a music recognition service. Unfortunately, you only get a 30-day trial version.

Shazam music recognition app is just a trial version

Google Maps was not preinstalled, but we tried it anyway. It installed just fine, but it expected keyboard controls, which we couldn’t use – the Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type has neither D-pad nor softkeys. We tried cheating and downloaded the touch version for the Samsung S8000 Jet off getjar.com, but that got us nowhere either.