Can Nokia’s Android offering compete with more established players?

Fresh from today’s official launch is Nokia’s latest and greatest smartphone, the X. Nokia was gracious enough to give all the attendees of today’s event a smartphone to bring home, so today we’ll be unboxing Nokia’s first ever Android smartphone, and see if the X has what it takes to compete with the big boys.

Nokia X specs

• 1Ghz 8225 Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core Processor
• 512MB RAM
• 4GB internal storage, expandable via microSD up to 32GB
• 4 – inch capacitive LCD display, 800 x 480 pixels
• 3-megapixel fixed focus camera
• 3G, HSPA
• Dual-SIM
• WiFi, Bluetooth
• 1500mAh battery
• Php 5990

Packaging and contents

The Nokia X comes in the company’s typical packaging for their low end line of devices. The box is small and has the photo of the device printed on the front and the sides. The back of the carton lists the specs of the device, which include the 4-inch display, 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm 8225 processor and WLAN/3G connectivity.

Opening the box, you’ll see the device itself, which comes in several colors (in our case, white).

The contents of the box isn’t as plentiful as other devices though, as you only get a (colorful) pair of headphones, a charger, manuals and a warranty card. No USB cable in sight, sadly.

Initial Impressions: Attractive body but needs more powerful hardware

One thing that’s always impressed us with Nokia phones is just how well built their devices are, even ones meant for the low-end of the market. The X is typical of Nokia’s attention to detail when it comes to making smartphones. It feels solid and has a definite heft to it.

The polycarbonate shell that surrounds the X is solid and feels great to the hand. The controls of the device are mostly located on the right side, with the volume rocker and the power button clustered together. The 3.5mm jack is on top, while the USB slot is on the bottom of the device.

On the bottom of the bezel sits the lone navigation key, a stark contrast to what Android users are used to. The 3-megapixel camera sits on the back of the device.

What’s nice about the polycarbonate shell of the X is that it can be swapped out and replaced with another color if you don’t like the one that came with your device. Taking apart the polycarbonate shell is also the way you get into the back of the X to place your SIM cards (micro-SIMs in this case) and the microSD slot.

While the X technically uses the Android OS, Nokia’s made sure that the overall user experience is more akin to Windows Phone than Google’s OS. It’s not surprising – Nokia has publicly said that the X line of devices are designed to function as feeder for the company’s more expensive Windows devices, getting users hooked on Microsoft’s services that will hopefully make them upgrade to the more expensive Lumia line of devices.

As a result, navigating through the X’s menus may be a bit confusing at first for Android veterans, though it should look familiar to people who’ve used Windows Phone or are coming from Nokia’s Asha line of devices. Tapping on the back button brings you back one screen, tapping and holding on it brings you to the home screen. Press the button again while on the home screen and you’re brought to Nokia’s Fast Lane, a timeline of sorts for all the things that’s been happening on your device.

As far as user experience is concerned, the Nokia X managed to deliver an okay experience so far, but we’ve encountered a fair bit of lag while navigating through the different screens. That’s probably the result of the hardware combination on the X, but we’ll have to spend more time with it to be sure.

That’s it for now folks, we’ll be publishing our full review next week once we finish our tests with it.