If you can imagine a BlackBerry in shocking pink, you’ll have a fair idea of what to expect when you pick up Nokia’s funky C3 messaging phone. Nowhere near as staid and dour as the company’s business-orientated E series, the C3 still boasts a full QWERTY keypad below the 2.4 inch landscape display and, even though its price tag places it towards the cheap mobile phones category, it feels pleasingly solid to hold. And lurid pink isn’t its only outfit – it also comes in graceful grey and Liberace-like gold, too.
Despite the slightly Las Vegas Lothario costume, the glossy plastic casing looks expensive, and the aluminium battery cover lends a distinctly up-market appearance to the handset.
Even though the phone doesn’t have a touch screen, the keyboard has the same elegant, concaved keys as the considerably more expensive E series, which makes it a real pleasure to use. There’s a generous space bar and the most commonly used punctuation marks have their own dedicated keys. The home screen features three panels displaying contacts, shortcuts to apps (like the camera, web browser, and email client) and updates from Facebook and Twitter, respectively.
To keep the price reasonable, Nokia have not included 3G on the phone, opting instead for GPRS, but you will get both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The music player’s not at all bad and there’s a standard 3.5 mm jack for conventional headphones. You can pick it up for £80 on Vodaphone’s pay as you go deal (which also adds a 2 GB micro-SD card to boost the handset’s rather paltry 55 MB memory), or SIM-free for about £130.
