Ever since Nokia announced its tie up with Microsoft to launch phones running on Windows Phone OS, everyone had started preparing farewell of Symbian which was once the most sought after mobile phone operating system. But it seems that Symbian will not bow without a fight and Nokia 701 is one its proof. The phone runs on Symbian belle OS, whose UI is very much the same elements as that of Android. With Nokia 701, the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer has been trying to resurrect its position in the global smartphone market, but does the phone deliver? Check out our exclusive Nokia 701 review to know what the device has in store for you.

Nokia 701 Looks And Design

The phone measures 117.2 x 56.8 x 11 mm and weighs 131 grams. The rounded edges of the device gives it a pleasant look and the sturdy shell made mostly out of metal gives the phone a premium feel. The rounded design also helps the phone to sit perfectly on ears during conversation and Nokia has used a nice combination of plastic and metal to construct the phone. Since the back cover is made up of metal, it is pretty pleasant to touch. The smartphone feels solid on hands and is feels quite durable, thanks to the scratch resistant glass and metal finish. Overall we were quite impressed with the looks and design of the phone.

Nokia 701 Display

The phone sports a 3.5 inches LED-backlit IPS TFT capacitive touch screen which displays 16M colors of resolution measuring 360×640 pixels. Because of the clear black technology, the reflections are diminished quite to lot. The screen is one of the brightest which you will find in the market which offers brightness of 1000 nits. The colors displayed are quite sharp and crisp.

Viewing angles were also quite decent and because of the super duper screen brightness, we were able to achieve great sunlight legibility. In terms of sunlight legibility, the screen even surpassed the Super AMOLED Plus. The screen sensitivity is quite good and even on slightest of touches, the screen responded brilliantly. The screen is made up of gorilla glass which means that you are very much protected against spills and scratches. Overall we were quite impressed by the screen quality of Nokia 701.

Nokia 701 Apps

Nokia 701 mobile phone comes with several in-built apps such as Facebook, Twitter etc. There are apps for business, maps, email and many more. At Nokia’s Ovi store you can get access to several applications of a broad range ranging from travel to messaging.

Nokia 701 UI

As compared to the previous versions of Symbian, we felt that Symbian Belle is quite fast. We found faster browsing, swiping and scrolling and the interface felt very smooth. Launching of apps was also quick. However, while installing heavy apps, we witnessed a considerable amount of delay. The improved hardware too has improved Belle. The multiple home screens and the individual wallpapers along with widgets of various sizes impressed us. One can sort the icons alphabetically or manually. Users will definitely enjoy the UI of Nokia 701 Belle. We laud Nokia’s effort to come out with a touch screen OS which resembles very much to that of Android and iOS.

Nokia 701 Gallery

The image gallery of the phone is quite a head turner. The images are displayed in grid format and the gallery allows you to zoom by double-tapping. Kinetic scrolling too is available and one automatically switches between landscape and portrait mode. One can send the photographs through MMS, email or over Bluetooth. You can also share them on social network such as Facebook or Twitter. Another feature of the gallery is image tagging. This helps in sorting the images quickly.

Nokia 701 Keyboard

The phone is equipped with a virtual QWERTY keyboard. The letters are flat, round and very well spaced. Because of the well spaced letters, messaging and emailing is a breeze on the device.

Nokia 701 Features

Let us first talk about the software of Nokia 701. The phone runs on Symbian Belle OS which is one of the best Symbian OS we have seen so far. The UI of the software is great and offers several nice features. The 1 GHz processor does a pretty good job and ramps up operations of the machine. With an internal memory storage of about 8GB, one can practically store a large number of data and information. The memory can be increased to 32GB with the help of a microSD card. The availability of Nokia Maps helps you to know what is happening around you and the phone is equipped with a lifetime walk and drive navigation which comprises of turn-by-turn voice guidance.

Nokia 701 Camera

Nokia 701 comes with a 8MP fixed focus camera which shoots images of 3264×2448 pixels. The dual LED flash comes in handy while shooting images in the dark. The camera interface is quite handy and there have been quite a number of changes since Symbian Anna. The shots are quite good and the colors are quite sharp and vibrant. Contrast too was quite decent and the images capture nice details. One thing we felt where the camera could have been improved is the dynamic range. But overall the camera quality of Nokia 701 is pretty good.

Nokia 701 Video

The camera of the phone captures 720p videos@ 30fps. The video interface is very much similar to that of still camera. The videos captured are quite good. The videos are shot in MP4 files and the run is smooth with 30 frames per second. The amount of details captured is also very good. The amount of details captured in each frame is very high.

Nokia 701 Connectivity

The phone has an impressive set of connectivity options. One gets a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and a five-band 3G with HSDPA and HSUPA. For local connectivity, you get Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0. With USB and 3.5mm audio jack, you will not feel the dearth of connectivity with the device. You also get an FM transmitter which allows you to play music on your car stereo. But the real showstopper is the NFC support. You can easily pair two NFC enabled devices.

Nokia 701 Multimedia

Multimedia capabilities are also good with the phone. One gets a stereo FM with RDS and an FM transmitter.  The music player has an updated interface and it keeps a good level of functionality. The loudspeaker is also pretty good but we felt that it could have been better. Though it is quite powerful, yet it is not powerful as that of Nokia N8.

Nokia 701 Accessories

During Nokia 701 unboxing we found the phone to be stuffed with the following accessories

• Nokia 701 Handset
• Wall Charger
• MicroUSB cable
• Stereo Headset with Microphone

Nokia 701 Battery Life

The phone is powered by a standard Li-Ion 1300mAh battery which provides a talk time of around 17 hours when the phone is operated on 2G and around 6 hours on 3G.

Nokia 701 Call Quality

The call quality with Nokia 701 is very good. We got great clarity while receiving calls and at the same time when we called others, they said that they could hear us pretty well.

Nokia 701 Colors

The phone is available in several colors such as

• Steel Dark
• Silver Light
• White
• Amethyst Violet

Nokia 701 Launch Date

The phone has been released sometimes during September 2011.

Nokia 701 Price

Nokia 701 price in India is approximately Rs 19,000.

Nokia 701 is packed with plenty of features which make it a great phone. The new OS, vibrant screen and powerful processor makes the phone pretty cool. The robust specs and features makes Nokia 701 worth try.