Give your teen a sleek, new handset, and what do you think are the two things that he/she will always be doing? Ears plugged in to music and fingers typing so fast you can barely see them! The Nokia X-series initially had music-oriented features as its USP. This, however, is changing with Gen-Z SMSing and IMing away like there's no tomorrow! Targeted at this clique of users, Nokia has launched the X2-01, which we've been hooked on to for a couple of weeks.

Out of the box

The build quality is better than you would expect in a budget handset. The 2.4-inch QVGA screen takes up half of the fascia. Below the display are sleek click buttons to receive/end calls, two navigation keys, a pair of shortcut buttons to launch the Media Player and type in a quick SMS. Nestled between all these is the D-pad with a click button at the centre to activate functions depending on the app you are using.

With the USP of the handset being efficient ‘messaging' you have a dedicated button to type a quick text. You can also tweak it to launch your preferred choice of communicating, for example, reading e-mails or logging into your IM client.

You have the familiar unified email client (Nokia Messaging 3.0) that also supports Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail among others. The same goes with the integrated IM client that supports Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger and a handful of other IM clients.

OS issues

No surprises when it comes to the OS; same old S 40 series which you'd expect in a budget smartphone by Nokia. The sole home screen can be customised to display three bars and you can select each to be shortcuts to various apps and functions.

The convenient cluster of social networking sites is grouped in ‘Communities' as has been the case with a handful of current models from Nokia's stable.

The QWERTY keyboard on the X2-01 is one of the most comfortable ones you'll find in the market. The keys are almost the same as the ones in the Nokia E62 handsets but have been laid out much more ergonomically in the X2-01.

The inbuilt browser was quick to load pages over a GPRS connection and scrolling through the web pages wasn't as slow and painful as we thought it would be.

When you click on ‘Home' the browser opens the Google home page by default, but if you directly want to do a ‘Web Search' when you log on to the internet, Bing pops up on the screen as the only option provided on the Nokia X2-01.

Gripes

While fishing for a budget handset, one has to be ready to make a couple of compromises in the build quality or features that come bundled with it. In case of the Nokia X2-01, there are some essential functions that have been left out, to produce an affordable messaging-focused handset. The handset doesn't offer you Wi-Fi connectivity. Bluetooth and an USB data cable are the only connectivity options available to transfer data to or from the handset. However, you can't charge the handset with the USB cable. Needless to add, the budget smartphone isn't 3G-ready.

Dropped calls were a major issue with the Nokia X2-01. Regardless of the network availability, calls got cut off incessantly especially while we were on the move.

When it comes to multimedia options offered by the Nokia X2-01, you'll have to make do with just a VGA camera that gives you extremely grainy photographs. You also have video recording but the results are, unsurprisingly, far from impressive.

The inbuilt memory is quite insignificant but you can bulk it up to 8GB with an external memory card.

When we were on voice calls, the sound came through quite loud and clear. The battery lasts about two days on a full charge.

Our verdict

The Nokia X2-01 has nothing new to offer as a smartphone apart from the fact that it has an ultra-comfy keyboard which might be a boon for those of you who are addicted to texting and ‘IM'ing. What also helps the case is the fact that the Nokia X2-01 has a sturdy build and a bold design that makes it appear like a slightly higher-end phone than it actually is.

Apart from this, the Nokia X2-01 is the same ol' tricks in a new bag. But, the biggest draw with this Nokia handset will clearly be the extremely affordable price tag, apart from its wannabe business-phone looks.

Ratings

Aesthetics : 4/5

User Interface: 3/5

Features: 2/5

Value For Money: 4/5

Rs 4,459

mahananda@thehindu.co.in