Those of you who have followed Nokia's smartphone efforts since the beginning will know that the design of some earlier models - and particularly those aimed at the mass market - was somewhat, er, unfortunate. Having finally rid itself of keypad experimentation and gaudy designs, the maker will soon begin shipping its first affordable smartphone that not only has a solid feature set but also looks pretty good.
Admittedly, the version pictured in this article doesn't sport the best colour scheme, but several versions will be available - among which the matte black and silver is my personal favourite. Most of the handset's front is taken up by the large screen, which is absolutely stunning compared with previous models in this range of the market; its 176 x 208 pixel resolution should be a giveaway to the continued use of the Symbian OS based Series 60 platform.
Boasting tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support for 900/1800/1900 MHz networks, the 3230 also includes a Megapixel camera which has only been found in a few previous Nokia smartphones thus far, including the 7610, 6670 and 6680. This offers both video recording and editing in addition to picture taking, letting users add special effects such as music, text, colours or images to videos.
Also, courtesy of pre-installed software and the 3230's support for Bluetooth, users will be able to print pictures to compatible Bluetooth kiosks, or upload them to online picture albums.
Memory expansion is ensured by a hot-swappable MMC Card slot, and the 3230 will also come bundled with a 32 MB card in the sales package; at least, Nokia hasn't opted for a more obscure version of the MMC format. Further on the topic of connectivity, the 3230 also offers an integrated FM radio with Nokia's own Visual Radio software, designed to facilitate an interactive connection between FM broadcasters and their listeners; a concept I unfortunately wasn't able to investigate at CeBIT.
Other software includes Wireless Village-based instant messaging and presence-enhanced contacts, as well as the usual compliment of Series 60 PIM applications, an XHTML compatible microbrowser and Push-To-Talk support. The Nokia 3230 also offers new games, including the Agent V reality which draws on the camera viewer and motion sensor of the phone to let the player move the objects appearing in the game - extremely addictive, and not at all recommended if you're, say, on any sort of schedule to cover other products at CeBIT.
Weighing 110 grams and measuring in at 109 x 49 x 19 mm, the 3230 offered a pleasantly responsive user experience in the short amount of time I spent with it, but did also exhibit one annoying flaw: the location of the keypad on the very lower end of the device, which causes unnecessary muscle strain as the weight tilts the 3230 forward. This aside, the 3230 has one of the best keypads Nokia has ever placed in a Series 60 handset.
According to Nokia, the 3230 will offer up to 4 hours of talktime and up to 230 hours of standby time, and is expected to hit stores shortly in Europe and Asia with an estimated retail price of approximately 350 EUR.
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