Apparently, love can these days be had in the shape of a mirror-toting, 2-Megapixel handset with iPod-esque scroll wheel navigation. Does Sindre Lia have a crush on Nokia's 7380?
Review summary of the Nokia 7380:
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 The Nokia 7380 bears no resemblence to an ordinary mobile phone, providing an Apple iPod-style scroll wheel for navigation and text input as opposed to a keypad. On the upside, it’s smaller than most phones and also sports a widescreen display, but its mediocre battery life and virtually unusable text input hamper use to the extent that it cannot be recommended as a daily-use handset. Using it to show off, however, is another matter altogether. Release: February 2006. Price: $550.
Pros:
Cons:
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Mediocre |
56%
GOOD |
Very good |
Excellent |
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Full Nokia 7380 Review:
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Ah, L'Amour. Don't worry, we're not waxing romantic on you, dear reader, but it's certainly refreshing to see Nokia make another stab at a collection of slightly-unusual fashion phones with its 7360, 7370 and 7380 models - dubbed their L'Amour collection. Sindre Lia gets acquainted with the purportedly lavish 7380 top model, but alas it doesn't quite seem to be a match made in heaven.
Have we met before?
Shaped along the lines of a lipstick tube in a bid to stand out from the increasing crowd of fashion handsets, the 7380 weighs in at 80 g and measures 114 x 30 x 20 mm. The front of the fashion handset is comprised of a glass mirror in need of constant polishing, with a small and sharp 65K colour widescreen with a resolution of 104 x 208 pixels concealed beneath, as well as an Apple iPod-style scroll wheel replacing the keypad for text input and navigation on top of it.
Representing a major step up from its predecessor, the Nokia 7280, the 7380's camera has not only been bumped up to 2 Megapixels but als enjoys a new position on the back cover surrounded by leather-inspired materials in a tan colour. Offering good image quality, an intuitive user interface and 52 MB of onboard memory holding a little more than hundred still pictures in high quality, the camera's overall performance was only held back by the handset's small screen and subsequently small viewfinder. We also missed the ability to transfer pictures and received messages to the computer via an USB cable, as the Nokia 7380 only offers Bluetooth as an out-of-box connectivity option.
Lacking key(pad) feature
Using the iPod-esque scroll wheel of the 7380 for navigating its Series 40 menu proved to be simple and straightforward, however using it for text input is an entirely different matter. Despite guessing letter by letter fairly well when writing SMS messages in English, composing longer messages proved to be an excercise in patience. In fact, we found ourselves calling people more often than usual during the test period, as opposed to replying by SMS; choosing the path of least resistance, so to speak.
Fortunately, the 7380 shines in regards to basic mobile phone functionality, supporting tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz networks as well as GPRS for data connectivity. Nokia has also found place for voice dialling, a handsfree speaker and support for SMS and MMS messaging. The bundled earphones double as an antenna for the well-performing FM stereo radio, while the integrated music player does a better job playing supported MP3 and polyphonic ringtones than real music. A WAP 2.0 browser is also present, but remains mostly unusable due to the handset's small screen.
Reception and voice quality for the Nokia 7380 proved excellent, while the phone offered approximately 1.5 hours of talk time and 3 days of standby time during our test period as opposed to Nokia's claim of 3 hours and 10 days, respectively.
Availability
The Nokia 7380 is at the time of writing available in Europe and the US, selling for €500 EUR and $600 USD without subscription, respectively.
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