Review: Nokia X3

Nokia X3 Review

Phone rating:

In a nutshell: The Nokia X3 is an inexpensive slide-design music phone. It has a good music player, FM radio, memory card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack and stereo speakers. It also comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera and has good battery life, but is let down by a poor quality keypad.
Best buy: *Free* with free line rental from Mobiles.co.uk or free from BuyMobilePhones.net; or £69.90 on PAYG from Mobiles.co.uk.

Review: February 2010.

Here's a secret: at Mobile-phones-uk.org.uk we're not big fans of Nokia's slide phones. They never seem to get them right. First, there's the infamous Nokia wobble, then there's usually a whole load of problems that emerge when you start using them. But let's not get distracted by all that now. Read the review and find out a bit more about the X3 first.

So, the X3. What is it? It's a budget music player with a slide design. Everyone wants touchscreen phones these days, but maybe not everyone. You maybe want a phone with a normal keypad because all that touchy-feely stuff never seems to work properly. That's good. Here's the X3.

So, it's a budget phone. Costs less than £100. It's a music phone. It plays music and has stereo loudspeakers. You can play your music out loud, if you like that kind of thing. If not, it comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack so you can use some proper grown-up headphones. There's an FM radio too, and you can add a microSD memory card up to 16GB and store your whole collection. It's an Xseries phone too, so it has dedicated music keys on the front. That's all good.

What else? Well, it's a slide phone, so it's nice and compact and not too heavy. No 3G, but battery life is good. The screen's average, perhaps a bit below-average. The camera's average for the price too, meaning no autofocus or flash, so don't expect to do a lot with it.

So, why only three stars for this rather unexceptional phone? It's the keyboard, it's just awful. The first one we tested, we actually thought it was broken. So we tried another. It was the same. The keyboard just has a totally non-clicky, flaccid response. And that's just unacceptable.

What a shame, as it could have been a nice inexpensive music phone. The question then, is what to buy instead? There's no obvious answer. You could try the Nokia 6303 Classic, which may not be as stylish, but costs the same and is far superior, or you could even downgrade to the old Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, which has the key advantage of actually working.

Features of the Nokia X3 include:

• 3.2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom
• Video recording at up to 176 x 144 pixels (QCIF) and up to 15 fps
• Display: 262,000 colours, 320 x 240 pixels (2.2 inches)
• Music player
• Stereo FM radio with RDS support
• Stereo loudspeakers
• Ringtones: MP3 & video ringtones, 64-voice polyphonic ringtones, vibration alert
• Voice commands: speaker independent dialling
• Voice recorder
• Integrated handsfree speaker
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Audio messaging
• Internet: GPRS, EDGE, web browser
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate, USB 2.0, 3.5 mm audio jack
• Memory: microSD memory card (up to 16GB)
• Flight mode
• Quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• Size: 96 x 49 x 14 mm
• Weight: 103g
• Talktime: 7.5 hours
• Battery standby: 380 hours
• Music playback: up to 35 hours

Nokia X3 Consumer Reviews

Love your mobile? Hate it? Please share your experiences to help other people choose the phone that's best for them. Please do not review this phone if you have not used it. This is a review site, not a forum, so please don't just ask questions. Please do not use swear words or offensive language, and please, no advertising!

Average rating from 11 reviews:

Reviewed by takudzwa from zimbabwe on 22nd Aug 2010
it is a very good phone with great speaker, fantastic looks & a lovely finish. this is a phone & a half!!!
Rating:

Reviewed by redrose11 from U.A.E on 19th Aug 2010
i dont think x3 is as bad as the others said..it's camera is normal&the slide is not loose...i guess that depends on where it is made but sometimes it doesnt let me open the media player or apply themes and it tells me to delete items from the phone's gallery in spite of that almost all of my data is on the memory card..but i love it anyway
Rating:

Reviewed by Tadiwa from Zimbabwe on 29th Jul 2010
It's a complete humiliation to the Nokia industry. And it's ugly too!
Rating:

Reviewed by derek from uk on 10th Jul 2010
yeah, i had it for about a week and it was just an awful phone. I agree about the keypad but it is also terrible at web browsing
Rating:

Reviewed by mandy from uk on 7th Jul 2010
Bought the x3, thought it was a nice phone... But after about a month, when i was talking on it, it sounded like a tin box, then i couldnt send picture messages or recieve them, when i had been doing the day before.. Took it back to o2 and they sent it of to get repaired, it is as new now... When you take a picture and want to delete it you cant deleted straight away or send it straight away, because it is processing photo grrrr.. Wouldnt recommend any1 buying this phone at all.
Rating:

Reviewed by john from uk on 21st Jun 2010
great phone when i got it, but the misic speaker broke, i asked orange and they got me a replacement phone, then i put it in my pocket and the screen had cracked, i did nit even have anythink in my pocket! cheap but i would rather get a sony erricson w205
Rating:

Reviewed by tina from uk on 18th Jun 2010
hate the nokia x3, its keyboard is all 1 so keys the wrong letters mostly,my lcd screen has cracked bein very delicate and when slide open its very loose, and causes the vibrate to like echo.if u get me, and as for the batter life,mine never even lasts a full day,and not like i listen t music on it much coz i cant due to battery life,
Rating:

Reviewed by rola from lebanon on 14th May 2010
i hate it so much
Rating:

Reviewed by rohit from India on 10th May 2010
camrea quality was not good also keypad is very bad
Rating:

Reviewed by keao15 from uk on 7th May 2010
great phone had to send it back to get camrea fix but over all i love it has all latest applicans email windows msn n email. great for music. and has a wide range of extra apps avilable form the ovi store all maps work. i love it and would recomend it to everyone
Rating:

Reviewed by winter from malaysia on 19th Mar 2010
quite a buy if you are looking for a mid price phone, good interphase, quite resistant to shock and drops, hardly lags when used with a 16gb memory card with full capacity but downside is it collect finger smuges easily, has a mis quality screen and the camera is not really good.
Rating:

You can read more Nokia X3 reviews at RecommendedBuys UK.

Nokia X3 Links

Best Deals

£0.00 Nokia X3 with free line rental       £0.00 Free Nokia X3 Red       £69.90 Nokia X3 PAYG       £79.95 Nokia X3 Black PAYG