Nokia X3. Smarter than the average nonsmartphone

A-GPS access to the amazing Nokia Maps. Geo-tagging your photos and uploading them direct to Flickr or Facebook. Sign-up for the truly unlimited music Comes With Music Service. Instant access to all the apps and features of Ovi. High quality video recording… all of these features and options (and more, as you’ll find in this Nokia X3 review) are not, as you might expect them to be, to be found on a new high-end / smartphoney kind of Nokia. Far from it, in fact. As all these are to be found on the series 40 Nokia X3. A phone that is rocking into our worlds for the base price of… wait for it… 115 Euros. Yup, you heard, 115 Euros. Which in the mobile phone world these days is about the equivalent of what you’d expect to pay for a shoelace and some chewing gum.

So cheap in price it is, but cheap in, well, the other use of the word, it most definitely is not. The Nokia X3, in fact, is about as good a value phone as we think we’ve ever seen. Basic / cheapo phones are normally just that: some robust plastic wrapped around some bare bones technology that does your basic calling / texting / some calculatoring action if you’re lucky, but little else. Not the case here. Not by a long stretch. In fact, this is one of those phones that, when you see the Nokia X3 deals on offer, is going to make you stop and think about whether you really need a ‘proper’ smartphone at all. Do you really, for example, need a 12MP camera as opposed to this thing’s 3.2MP? Do you really need 4+ inches of screen? Do you really need anything, in fact, that this thing hasn’t got?

An interesting question indeed. And one that gives us the sneaking suspicion this is going to be one of the biggest hits of the coming months. Don’t forget, you heard it here first. And don’t be distracted by the terrible video below, either.