Last summer Three UK announced that they were to make 4G available and we can now inform you that those of you on any Three UK mobile plan will be upgraded to the faster service for free, which we are sure will be welcomed by their customers. While we know that LTE is incoming, we still have no specific date as to when the service will go live.

We don’t expect it to be much longer and knowing that you will not have to pay for the faster service is sure to bring new customers in their droves. It will not matter what Three plan you are on because all will include 4G – makes us laugh how the likes of O2 still struggle with 3G coverage.

The chief executive of Three UK said that they did not want to bring the new 4G service out and only make it available to those willing to pay more for the privilege, and it’s this kind of thinking that is making the network customer base grow at an alarming rate.

Having an LTE complaint handset will be a must but this will not be an issue for those about to purchase a new handset, as so many of them support LTE now, as well as several smartphones that already do. One has to wonder how O2 and Vodafone customers will react because they have only recently announced their move to 4G, although this is not expected for quite some time yet?

The new service is being called The Full Monty by the carrier, and will offer users unlimited talk time, data, and SMS messages with no fair use policy that is often used in similar deals. According to SlashGear the offer will begin on February 1st with customers signing up to a year contract, and also includes unlimited tethering.

It will begin at £36 per month that only provides unlimited minutes to other T-Mobile users, but still has 2,000 minutes to other networks. For unlimited calls to any networks the price increases to £41 per month. There is also a number of impressive handsets on offer as well such as the Samsung Galaxy S II, BlackBerry 9900, HTC Sensation XE, and the iPhone 4S.

Some will be available free but others will require an upfront charge costing up to £99 depending on the plan. Users will also get unlimited Wi-Fi access as well via BT Openzone. Previously unlimited meant just that in the UK before some carriers began applying fair use polices to their plans. Rival Three already offers customers the One Plan that provides truly unlimited data use.

Currently we don’t know anything in regards to release date or pricing, but to be honest with you we’re not surprised as the Xperia S has only just been revealed to the world. A recent article of ours suggests that it will become available SIM-free on March 5 for £467.99 (inc VAT) – therefore this gives us some insight as to when it may hit Three and how much it will cost, but nothings been officially announced just yet.

If our previous post’s information is correct we would be surprised if the Xperia S doesn’t become available from Three in March/April of this year. It’s hard to put an exact price on the smartphone as there are many considerations to take into account, but Three quite often give customers high-end smartphones for free when they agree 24 month contracts costing £30-£35 per month.

You can find out why so many people are excited about the Xperia S by checking out the official website, the 12 megapixel camera, dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 4.3-inch 720p display and HSPA+ connectivity are just some of the things that caught our eye, however we would prefer it to launch with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich rather than Android 2.3 Gingerbread (which it currently runs).

Hopefully we will find out more from Three soon, when we do we will be keeping you posted so keep checking Product-Reviews.net for all the latest technology news. Below we have added Three’s promotional video where they roll of a seemingly endless list of desirable specifications – Will you buy a Sony smartphone in 2012? If so, will you choose the Xperia S?

Before we go into detail regarding the mobile data connectivity we will just give you a quick run through of which other iPhone 4S features have impressed us during our testing period. Firstly the 8 megapixel camera on the rear is outstanding, let’s face it the iPhone 4′s 5 megapixel camera was by no means lacking, but this time around photos and videos look sharper than ever, however results in dark conditions could be better and it would be nice to have more manual controls.

Shooting photos and videos does rapidly drain battery life, however ignoring photo/video capture and gaming we were very impressed by the iPhone 4S battery life. This is contrary to many emails we receive daily telling us that the iPhone 4S only delivers 6-8 hours of life from a single charge, during our days of moderate usage (phone calls, texting, checking social networks via apps and web browsing) we could easily get a day’s usage from a single charge, however you do need to charge it each night. During our testing we rarely used WiFi or Bluetooth, both of which have a very negative on battery life. What’s great is the fact that the data speeds you receive using Three’s HSPA+ network are so fast that you won’t ever really want to switch WiFi on (it’s just a shame that iOS forces you to sometimes).

As you probably already know in terms of physical design and display the 4S is identical to the iPhone 4, the build quality is second to none and the form-factor is great, however recently we have been testing out many Android smartphones and can’t help but feel that Apple could get away with giving its next smartphone a larger display – perhaps 4-inches? Also at times it was hard to get used to the fact that there is only one button, it just goes to show how accustomed we have gotten to the Android setup. We do at times think that the iPhone 4S would be better with a back button, but this isn’t Apple’s way and there is no real harm in that.

iOS 5 is great and we don’t have a bad word to say about it, however the UI in comparison to Android is massively different. The new notifications centre is a great improvement and we loved the customization offered, also Siri despite being in its beta stages is tremendous and only going to get better. What impressed us the most was super-fast web browsing which is a result of fast internal hardware, a newer version of Safari and Three HSPA+ network, we also liked the Twitter integration which seamlessly ties into iOS 5.

There are some things which we think could enhance the iOS 5 experience, firstly the official Facebook application is poor and there is no real integration into the OS, which means you can’t share media to Facebook as easily as you can on rival devices. Also we think that widgets could be a great addition as the standard icon layout is becoming a little dated, this is obviously something which is a matter of preference, so not everyone will agree. Finally we think that when using the iPhone 4S you don’t quite feel as socially-connected as you do when using Android or WP7, we love the way everything integrates in WP7, so if you check out your contacts you can see their Facebook account, Facebook profile pic, Twitter feed and much more. We aren’t saying that Apple’s developers need to bring this level of social networking integration to iOS 5, but even the smallest changes could make a huge difference.

OK, now that we have spoken about most aspects of the iPhone 4S we will concentrate on what this review is all about, Three UK’s HSPA+ network, it makes sense to start with a speed test so you get an idea of just how fast it really is. I live in the UK and my home broadband usually deliver speeds of around 10Mbps down and 0.85Mbps up (which is pretty good for where I live). When I installed the SpeedTest app on the iPhone 4S and ran speed tests whilst connected to Three’s HSPA+ network the results varied depending on the time of day it was and where I was, I don’t live an area where I get full HSPA+ connectivity, but despite this results averaged at around 3.5Mbps down and 1.55Mbps up, during testing in my area speeds peaked at 5.81Mbps down and 1.61Mbps up, which is great and far faster than any other carrier in my area. You can see some SpeetTest results below. The bottom result this was connected to WiFi using my home broadband connection, as you can see the upload speeds are almost a third of Three’s mobile network, which means for example that uploading videos to YouTube is faster using the iPhone 4S than it is my PC connected to home broadband.

The biggest problem that I see is that Three UK offer an “All-you-can-eat data”, which is great, but it really seems as if the iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S is restricting this, here’s why. Firstly if you check out this page you will see that Three’s AYCE data plan does not come with a fair use policy, so there is no limit, unlike so-called “unlimited” data plans which other carriers offer with a fair use policy which nullifies the word ‘unlimited’. All this means is that Three will let you use the HSPA+ network for as much data usage as you want, however if you go to download an app at the App Store which is 20MB or larger you will have to connect via WiFi, there is no way round this without jailbreaking your iPhone – it seems mad. A 20MB download with the speeds that I received during the SpeedTest would take less than a minute, but no you will have to be connected to WiFi, likewise lots of apps are the same, one example of this is 4oD Catch Up by Channel 4, to stream videos to your iPhone you have to be connected via WiFi, despite knowing that the HSPA+ network is up to the job. There are lots of instances of this sort of thing which can be very frustrating, but we are sure that app developers and Apple will soon make the necessary changes to resolve such annoyances.

During our time with the iPhone 4S on Three we never experienced major signal loss and call quality was great, which means that if you were unimpressed by the iPhone 4 antennagate saga you can buy the iPhone 4S and rest assured that you will be able to make and take phone calls without it dropping. You can buy the iPhone 4S from Three here, there are lots of different price plans available, however we recommend you choose ‘The One Plan’, for £40 per month you can get the 4S for £49 (upfront) and this gives you 2000 any network minutes, 5000 texts, 5000 Three-to-Three minutes and All-you-can-eat Data – check out this image for a full breakdown of pricing options.

Here are some more images from our hands on:

In the UK it is hard to find a mobile broadband solution which delivers fast and reliable service, therefore most people opt for home broadband via their telephone line, could Huawei’s E586 MiFi and Three’s network team up to change this once and for all? Here’s our review.

Opening up the packaging reveals the MiFi unit and its battery, a mains plug with a USB port, two USB cables (1 x 17cm and 1 x 1.2m), a dock / cradle, the SIM card and all the paper work. The first thing we realised was just how small and light the E586 is, in fact you could keep it in your pocket without realising it is even in there. In terms of design the face of the MiFi unit is glossy, whilst the back and sides have a matte finish, also there is a small display which shows you signal strength etc and a microSD memory card slot for storage.

The first thing to do is insert the SIM card, simply pop off the back cover and remove the battery, here the SIM card slot is located. Once you have reinserted the battery and put the back cover back on you are ready to go, simply press the power button down for approximately 3 seconds and wait a few seconds and the MiFi will start up and automatically connect to Three’s network.

You can now connect your device(s) wirelessly to the MiFi, pressing the key button on the side of the MiFi reveals the SSID and WPA key. If you wish to change this you can, however during our tests we left the default WPA key and SSID. The Huawei E586 allows for up to 5 simultaneous connections and we had no problems connecting to the MiFi at any point, it is also worth knowing that you can also change many other settings by logging in to the MiFi via your web browser, however the standard settings are fine.

On the MiFi’s small display you can see lots of useful information, this includes battery level, connection status / strength, how much data you have used and how long you have been connected. During testing it took me over a day to use up 1GB of data, this is despite accessing YouTube, Spotify and other data-intensive websites / services. For £18.99 per month Three will give you a 15GB allowance, I think that this will be more than enough for the majority of consumers.

I tried out the MiFi at different times of day and in different locations within a 5 mile radius of my home, I did find that in the evenings connection speeds decreased, but most of the time I managed to experience 5 Mbps download speeds and 1.5 Mbps upload speeds. HSPA+ is said to support speeds of over three times this (21.6 Mbps down, 5.76 Mbps up) and I don’t doubt that in other areas Three’s network delivers speeds closer to this. My current home broadband provider only delivers 12 Mbps down and 0.8 Mbps up, therefore in a year or so we may see that mobile broadband is a better option that home broadband in certain areas.

One great thing about the Huawei E586 is the fact that it can deliver an internet connection to computers which don’t have WiFi connectivity, all of the required software is located on the MiFi unit, so simply plug it in via USB and run the installer, you will then have a new shortcut on your desktop which is your new portal to the worldwide web.

The E568 is said to 100 hours standby time, but we were more interested to see how much usage you could get from a single charge. I decided to turn off my home broadband for the day and instead only use the MiFi unit, during testing I constantly accessed the web on my laptop and also also connected my iPhone and BlackBerry to the network and used those for social networking etc, it lasted 5 and a half hours before the battery ran out, which I think is very impressive. The battery life isn’t greatly important to everyone as the MiFi can be charged over USB or via the mains, but it at least means that if for some reason you are without a power source it should last you pretty much a whole working day.

When using the Huawei E586 at home simply sit it in its dock and it will keep fully charged, it sits at an angle which allows you to easily see the display and doesn’t clutter up your desk. If you are going to use the MiFi unit when you are out and about it comes with a handy 17cm USB cable meaning that it can be easily charged by any computer with a USB port.

Throughout our tests we almost forgot that we were using mobile broadband, in fact during a few days of usage it only ever failed us once, for some reason it lost connectivity to the network, however turning it off and back on resolved the issue in a matter of seconds.

Conclusion

Before testing out the Huawei E586 MiFi on Three’s HSPA+ network I was a little sceptical as to whether it could really deliver a good enough service to suit a self-confessed technology geek, well I have to say that it delivered far beyond my expectations. Sites like YouTube worked fine and buffering wasn’t an issue, also the connection is reliable enough to assure you that you have a fast web connection with you no-matter where you go (97% national coverage), the only thing that I would say is that you have to be careful not to go over your monthly allowance as you will get charged 10.2p per MB used, this makes it unsuitable for online gaming etc. As Three’s network grows stronger we are sure that speeds should get faster and the decrease in connection speed during peak times should be less noticeable, if you are looking for cheap, fast and reliable mobile broadband you can’t go wrong with the Huawei E586 MiFi on Three.

You can head over to Three’s website to buy yourself the Huawei E586 MiFi here, there are lots of different pricing options available to suit different types of users and the unit is available in either white or black.

Below we have added some more photos from our hands-on review:

Three announced that the Lumia 800 was coming to its network on the Three Blog here, at the end of this post we have embedded a video where a Three representative gives you a quick overview of what this new smartphone has to offer, he also reveals that Three UK will be offering the black model and the cyan variant.

So how about pricing? Well unlike Vodafone UK, Three’s price structure is much simpler and they offer unlimited data plans. The option which we would recommend costs you £33 per month and you get the handset completely free – in terms of allowance you get unlimited data, 500 talk time minutes and 5000 texts, however if this does not suit your needs the other two options might (see below).

Currently no release date has been set, therefore we will have to keep you posted as we hear more on the matter, we can’t remember the last time that so many carriers were so interested in a Nokia smartphone, therefore it already seems as if the Lumia 800 will be a success – the question is: Will you buy it?

If you check out yesterday’s post you will see how it shapes up against the iPhone 4S in terms of size and battery life, also you can see most of the interesting information regarding tech specs here, with a 1.4GHz processor, WP7 Mango, an 8 megapixel camera and a 3.7-inch display we really think this could be a huge step in the right direction for Nokia, do you?

A recent blog post over at the Three Media Centre has confirmed that Galaxy Nexus will be coming to the UK carrier Three, sadly pricing and release date details are unknown, but if you want super-fast HSPA+ connectivity in the UK you should consider Three’s award-winning HSPA+ enabled network.

You can see full Galaxy Nexus specs here, Three’s all-you-can-eat data plans will suit such a well-connected smartphone, but if you check out this article you can see that this is not a necessity as Ice Cream Sandwich allows you to investigate and control mobile data usage, if necessary you can even stop certain applications from using your mobile data in the background.

While we are here we might as well give you a quick run through of the most exciting technical specifications, firstly the slightly curved design features a massive 4.65-inch display which outputs at 720p (1280 x 720), also you have a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, NFC and a 5 megapixel camera. As for Android 4.0 ICS there’s lots of new innovative improvements, in fact the OS has been completely overhauled – we will talk about the new platform in more details soon.

As and when we hear more about the Three UK Samsung Galaxy Nexus release we will keep you posted, will you overlook the iPhone 4S and buy this instead?

The iPhone 4S features HSPA+ connectivity and Three UK has already began rolling out its HSPA+ network, this means if you want fast data connectivity you will not find a better faster network in the UK. HSPA+ is regarded as 4G and speeds of up to 21Mbps speeds are said to be possible, which is faster than most people’s home broadband connections, we really think Three UK could be onto a winner with this one.

Currently there are 15 different pricing options available to you, 5 for each capacity (16GB, 32GB and 64GB), the cheaper monthly prices will require an upfront cost, however if you agree a price of £40+ per month, upfront costs are far lower. Below we have embedded an image which shows all the pricing options, click on the image for a larger view.

The only option which doesn’t require any upfront cost is the 16GB model when you agree a contract which costs you £43 per month, this gets you 900 minutes, 5000 texts and 1GB of data. We prefer the unlimited data options, so instead you should look at the options on “The One Plan”, these give you 2000 minutes, 5000 texts and all-you-can-eat data, however you do have to pay some upfront cost (ranging from £49 to £279) – all of the deals on The One Plan will cost you either £35 or £45 per month.

We doubt that any UK carrier will undercut these prices by a lot, however when we hear prices from Orange, O2, Vodafone etc we will keep you posted.

The last Symbian device which we spent a lot of time with was the Nokia N96 and it was clear that Nokia needed a rethink, so we were excited to see how a 2011 Nokia smartphone compared to some of today’s more popular Android devices etc. Also as Nokia recently announced that they were scrapping Symbian devices in North America we were keen to see why this decision had been made.

Unboxing and Design

You can usually tell a lot about a product by its packaging and the feel of the device when you pick it up, in terms of retail packaging the X7 could not be faulted and inside the box you get the Nokia X7, a hands free kit, mains charger, USB cable, an 8GB microSD memory card and the paper work you tend to get with any smartphone (safety guide and a brief user guide). All of the cables etc were high quality and the controls on the hands free kit gave the X7 a premium feel, rather than cheap and cheerful “plasticky” accessories.

When you first pick up the Nokia X7 it has a very solid and weighty feel, it feels balanced in your hand and the single button on the front of the smartphone makes it quite iPhone-esque. On the right hand side there are volume rockers and a dedicated camera button and on the top there is a power button, microUSB port and 3.5mm headphone jack finally on the left hand side there are two trays which you must use to slot in your memory card and SIM card.

The two trays mentioned in the previous paragraph can be seen below, as you can see this is a pretty unique way of doing things and despite being pretty fiddly we quite liked it. This does mean that the back cover is not removable (not easily anyway), so let’s hope you won’t have to remove the battery. We liked the flush finish these trays left when slotted in.

The back of the X7 is pretty nice and premium-looking, you can clearly see an 8 megapixel sensor (no sign of Carl Zeiss optics) and a dual-LED flash. The physical design is dominated by a curved metal cover which wraps around the back of the device, despite the curved back edge it sits nicely on a flat surface and doesn’t wobble. As for the front of the X7 it is dominated by a massive 4-inch display and speakers at each corner, we like the design and the black bezel compliments the silver metal finish nicely. One design imperfection in our opinion is the fact that the volume rockers and camera button are situated on the tapered edge of the X7, this means that sometimes your finger slips rather press the button you wanted, this is especially annoying if you need to quickly take a photo.

Software first impressions

When you first turn on the Nokia X7 you have to carry out the standard “set up your phone” procedure and then you are welcomed by a UI which boasts three home screens, you can swipe left to right or right to left to see all three home screens, or press a button to scroll through each home screen. No matter what home screen you are viewing there is a “Call” button and an “Options” button, the physical button situated below the display opens up the phone’s menu. The display itself is bright, but suffers in outdoor conditions (like most touchscreen smartphones), compared to the Sensation the resolution was a little lacking, but that said there was not a moment where fonts on websites weren’t easily viewable. If you hold the X7 horizontally the UI automatically adjusts accordingly. One thing which annoyed us as soon as we begun using the Nokia X7 is the touch screen vibrating setting which is turned on by default, it is just awful and to us sounds like the noise a blown speaker makes, it is easy to change this setting, but it annoys us that Nokia think this is something everyone wants on.

As standard Nokia covers your home screen with all sorts of shortcuts and widgets, we didn’t like the hectic look and because a lot of the widgets were live we found that at times the smartphone slowed down when updating these – if you press options you can switch widgets to offline mode, this saves battery life, but somewhat makes some of the widgets redundant. We decided to clear all of the home screen and completely configure them from scratch to suit our needs. To do this touch and hold any shortcut / widget and select remove to clear it, then once they are all gone touch and hold the home screen and you have 6 areas on the home screen which you can customize, unlike Android these areas have a set size and do not spread across more than one area – this means that widgets have a very small area to work with (approx 43mm x 10mm), we see this as a major limitation.

It took us a while to configure the Nokia X7′s UI and once we had we tried out some of the many applications and widgets, Three UK’s 3G network ensured that services such as BBC iPlayer ran smoothly, however as you would expect loading times and buffering improved when connected via WiFi, we also tried out an app called Movie Teasers which allows you watch trailers and find out about films in an intuitive manner, videos were clear and so was the sound and streaming the videos worked well over 3G.

Music playback was great, the sound quality was crisp and the music app was responsive, however despite the X7 looking like it has four speakers spread out around the display sound only comes from the two situated near the bottom of the display, if you use the headphones which Nokia supply with the X7 you can easily skip tracks and play / pause media via the controls, but there are no volume controls on the headphones. What bemuses us is the fact that the X7 comes with just 350MB internal storage, obviously you get an 8GB microSD card, but we would have thought Nokia would have given the X7 at least 1GB of internal storage.

Camera

As previously mentioned the Nokia X7 features a physical button to help you take photos quickly, easily and comfortably – however as previously mentioned the tapered edge on the side of the X7 can make this a little difficult, that said in terms of layout and functionality the camera app is great. When taking photos it is easy to zoom in and out, adjust the flash and switch to camcorder mode, also if you press options you can further configure your settings. We loved how easy it was to choose different scenes, colour tones, sharpness and white balance etc (see image below), and also loved the fact that you could customize photos once taken, it’s really easy to crop images, remove red eye, add clip art to images and much more, if you capture video you can add images to the video and text or perhaps chop down videos to make them shorter – all of this functionality was available with no third-party apps installed and you can share media you capture to social networking services quickly and easily, but the software would not allow me to tag friends in photos for some reason.

Stills were all pretty good, however close-ups weren’t that crisp and the flash was sometimes over powering. For general day-to-day photos of landscapes, pets and people etc the results rarely disappointed and the colors captured look spot on. The video capture was not the greatest we have seen from an 8 megapixel camera, video playback was smooth, however the X7 picked up a lot of noise from fairly calm winds and there were often grainy areas of color, don’t get me wrong videos were great at times, but we have seen better results from the 8 megapixel sensor which the HTC Sensation possesses, so we have to compare the two side-by-side.

Symbian

Well as you probably know Nokia has pledged to concentrate on Windows Phone 7 in the future, and we have to agree with their decision, why? Well if you used the Nokia X7 for an hour and compare it to a similar Android-based device you would probably end up saying that the Nokia X7 would be amazing if it ran Android, that said the processor is a little on the slow side. When using Symbian we found that all thinks Ovi took time, the structure of the Ovi Store is impressive and purchasing, download and installing apps is commendable, but at times it seems as if the OS and applications need some time to catch up with your actions, which means that you don’t get the fluid experience which we expect from competing devices – also as social networking is so popular these days we were frustrated to see that there were no official Facebook or Twitter applications, instead it all came under something called Ovi Social, this creates one stream for both Facebook and Twitter and it’s not all that bad, but it takes time to open up and scrolling through the news feed is by no means smooth. We have to say that the virtual keyboard which Symbian allows you to use is pretty good, but the layout takes a little of getting used to and we preferred using it in landscape, also unlike Android there doesn’t seem to be much support for voice recognition (excluding the Vingo app) – but in my experience such functionality is usually flaky at best.

The default web browser is pretty fast and easy to use, but tabbed browsing seemed clunky and there was no easy way to share things such as links socially, we installed Opera and it ran perfectly offering a much more intuitive user experience than the default browser, but if you just want to check out a few web sites here and there Nokia’s solution is adequate – it supports pinch to zoom, but this is not always as smooth as you would hope.

Our biggest gripe with Symbian is the fact that quite often apps just wouldn’t launch or things would slow down to a halt, the multitasking functionality is there and you can easily see what apps are running, but at times you go to open something up and it just won’t load, you check open applications and there is no sign of your app. General menu navigation isn’t affected by this, and quite often apps open up just fine, but sometimes things just don’t work – why? Your guess is as good as ours. Intensive apps such as Angry Birds run ok, but you can pretty much guarantee that you will experience slow down at times, also the lack of a menu button means that if things freeze you quite often have to come out of an app by pressing the handset’s only front-facing button – which gets very annoying.

General Use

The Nokia X7 does not disappoint when it comes to calling, texting and emailing – calls sounded loud and clear and people on the other end never complained about my mic, in terms of texting and emailing the software was pretty solid, but we didn’t like the way that you could view SMS messages both independently or in a conversation view, surely these days the conversation view is just fine? We experienced some difficulties sending picture messages and were often told that sending the message had failed, but no reason was given which was frustrating to say the least. We do think that the Android and iOS ways of doing things are a lot less cluttered, perhaps Symbian devs should sometimes think less is more as half the time people only want to carry out basic functionality. In terms of battery life it depends heavily on how you use it, we would confidently charge it every other night as general usage does not take its toll, but if you start running demanding apps this will soon change, especially the navigation application.

Pre-installed Software

As previously mentioned the Nokia X7 gives you a lot out of the box, we were particularly impressed by the aforementioned photo and video editing apps also the maps app is just great. We used it as a sat nav in the car and can safely say that it will get you to your destination just fine, sometimes local road knowledge is missing so you won’t take the shortest route, also the narration isn’t as clear as a TomTom, but let’s face it this has been chucked in for free and it is actually pretty good. The Calendar application is a bit strange, for some reason it would not stay in a monthly view for us, which was annoying, but in terms of adding events and appointments you can’t fault it, that said there is no social network integration, which means birthdays and events from Facebook don’t sync, we were very disappointed by this. It was not just the Calendar that didn’t sync, when testing out the Nokia X7 there seemed to be no way to sync your contacts from your social networking websites, which means manual entry of everyone’s details, along with manually linking contacts with photos, social networking profiles etc – this is pretty basic functionality for smartphones these days and the Nokia X7 fails miserably.

Summary

This has been one of the hardest reviews I have ever had to write, the trouble is the Symbian operating system, it just lacks the intuitivity of modern mobile operating systems and sometimes has you wondering whether you lost signal, didn’t touch an icon correctly etc when really the OS is what was at fault – if the Nokia X7 ran Android or WP7 we are sure that this review would have been much more positive, Symbian just delivers a slow and predictable user experience which won’t cut it in today’s high-end market, at times you are delighted by the X7 especially when you see what some of the pre-installed apps can do, but at times your are left thinking “why is this so difficult” and that’s pretty much the bottom line. The Nokia X7 summarizes why Nokia has axed Symbian in North America, you can’t fault Nokia’s design team as it look great, feels solid and sets a strong foundation for the OS to thrive, but it is clear that the OS cannot run well on the hardware provided, is it because the processor speed is relatively slow? Not entirely, as this has nothing to do with menu structure, navigation, poor social networking functionality and extremely limited home screen customization – we just think it has been proved that the future of Symbian in the mid to high-end market is not very promising – and we really didn’t want to have to say that.

You can check out and perhaps buy the Nokia X7 over at Three.co.uk, we have heard that Symbian Belle is coming to the X7 and it sounds like it will improve things massively.

Currently we do not how much this smartphone will cost or when it will arrive, however we can confirm that it is slimmer and sleeker than its predecessor and in terms of tech specs it features an 800MHz processor, a 5 megapixel camera, a great physical QWERTY keyboard, and a “high-density” 2.8-inch display. We can also confirm that it boasts NFC and runs RIM’s BlackBerry 7 operating system.

This is a great device for social networking and we think that it will be one of Three’s cheaper offerings, therefore we expect it to become pretty popular – especially for youngsters who like using BBM, Facebook and Twitter etc, the 5 megapixel camera is far superior to the 9300′s 2MP sensor and on the whole the handset should run a lot faster and smoother.

Despite the fact that the new Curve is more advanced than its predecessor it has shaved off 2.9mm in terms of thickness and 5 grams in weight, other measurements look pretty much identical, which means that the physical QWERTY keyboard should be well-spaced and easy to use.

Given the fact that the other smartphones mentioned in the first paragraph of this post feature touchscreen displays and 1.2GHz processors the 9360 will be seen as a mid-end device, you can find out even more details about it over at BlackBerry.com.

Below we have embedded Three UK’s promotional video where they talk about the Curve 9360 in some detail, will you buy the new Curve? We must admit we like the look of it, but have heard that a touch-only Curve is on its way!