Reader reviews: Nokia C3, Apple iPad and HTC HD2

Get Ahead readers Vishal and Saurabh review Nokia C3, HTC HD2 and iPad. Both are self-avowed gadget geeks.

Keep clicking NEXT through this 11-page slideshow to read what Vishal says about Nokia C3 and iPad and Saurabh about HTC HD2.

Welcome to the age (social) empowered networking where information flows at the touch of a button from one place to other within a blink of a second.

Nokia C3 is young and social, simple and reliable. Messaging and social networking are the very heart of this handset.

Description

The Nokia C3 is a social gadget for the young. You will sometimes come across rare gems of phones that will surprise you with their styling and features.

The Nokia C3 is on the compact side of QWERTY messengers at 115.5 x 58.1 x 13.6 mm. The full four-row keyboard and the 2.4" landscape screen just couldn't have been squeezed in lesser space than that.

The phone is still very pocket-friendly and handles with ease.

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Nokia C3 tips the scales at 114 grams, which is probably a bit more than you would expect given the mostly-plastic finish. There is some metal on the C3 -- the large battery cover is entirely made of that.

Nokia C3 has nearly perfect weight and balance for two-handed use. It's a no-frills phone that doesn't look or feel cheap.

The Nokia C3 comes in three flavours -- Slate Grey (which is actually bluish), Golden White, and Hot Pink. It's a small but widely varied selection that seems to reflect the audience demographics.

The landscape 2.4" 256K-color display of 320 x 240 pixel resolution takes half of the front panel. The QVGA resolution is what you'd expect in this price range but the image quality is surprisingly good. So is sunlight legibility.

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The left side of the handset features the microUSB port and the microSD card slot. Both apertures are sealed with plastic lids to hold off dust and keep the contour of the handset intact. USB charging is not enabled on the C3.

There isn't much to see on the right-hand side of the Nokia C3. The phone has no dedicated volume controls and camera key.

Up and Down on the D-pad set volume / zoom levels, and the confirm button is the camera shutter key.

The soft keys and the D-pad are user-configurable too. Up and Down on the Navigation key are best left in charge of the Active Standby homescreen, which provides handy shortcuts and is quite relevant to social networking. All controls are decently sized and quite comfortable to use.

The top of the Nokia C3 features the 2mm charger plug as well as the 3.5mm standard audio jack; the bottom is completely bare.

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Unlike the glossy frame of the front panel, the rear has soft matt plastic top and bottom, and an all-metal battery cover. No fingerprint issues here whatsoever.

On the rear side is a massive hole of the 2 MP camera lens and the loudspeaker grill, the impressively looking lens aside.

Under the aluminum cover is the 1320 mAh Li-Ion BL-5J battery, which powers the Nokia C3.

The battery is quoted to have impressive 800 hours of stand by or up to 7 hours of talk time.

Considering the phone is working on 2G networks only, you can count on solid battery life even with a power-hungry WLAN.

Commendable build quality and neat design are great to have in an entry-level handset. The C3 delivers fine on ergonomics too -- navigation and typing are excellent. There's an easily accessible memory card slot and a 3.5 mm audio jack -- not bad at all for the price you pay.

Key features

QWERTY messenger bar
Quad-band GSM/EDGE
802.11b/g Wi-Fi support
Solid SNS integration on the homescreen with dedicated buttons
2.4" 256K-color QVGA display with excellent sunlight legibility
2 MP fixed-focus camera
QVGA video recording at 15fps (frames per second)
Series 40 UI (user interface), 6th edition
Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual radio
Bluetooth (with A2DP)
Standard micro-USB port
microSD card slot (8GB supported, 2GB included)
3.5mm audio jack
Great audio quality
Reasonable price

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Apple iPad

The iPad, like most of Apple's product line, is a polarising device.

There are those that are going to love it no matter what, and a separate camp that will refuse to even touch one.

I think I fall somewhere in between these two extremes.

I was critical of the device when it was first launched but became increasingly more curious and progressively more optimistic as more information about it was released. So, now that you know my viewpoint, let's get to the review.

The bulk of its surface is taken up by a 9.7-inch, 1024 x 768, capacitive, multitouch LED-backlit display surrounded by a glossy black bezel that some will say is too wide but, in practice, is an important design consideration that prevents the touchscreen from being inadvertently activated when handled.

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There's only Apple's signature 'home' button to interact with, and the back of the device is a dutifully simple piece of curved aluminium.

Like most Apple products, it's a beauty to behold, but it's not exactly notable for design flourishes; simply put, it's good looking but not terribly exciting.

The iPad packs Apple's custom, PA semi-designed 1GHz A4 system-on-a-chip -- a single Cortex A8 core coupled with a PowerVR SGX GPU. RAM on the iPad hasn't been revealed, but I suspect there's 512MB (at least) inside here -- we'll know more once iFixit or someone else puts the pad under the knife.

Also onboard are 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, a digital compass, an accelerometer, microphone, and ambient light sensor. The 3G model that ships at the end of the month will add UMTS / HSDPA data along with an AGPS chip.

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You can purchase the device in capacities of 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB. I had the 16GB version for this review.

I rely on the mobile web to help me work and play and that has become sort of a crutch in recent years. For the iPad to be even remotely useful, it had to have a good web browser, and wow did Apple nail this one.

Browsing on the iPad is an unbelievable experience, far better than any similarly sized netbook I've used. Its interface is intuitive, simple, and just plain works.

The lack of Flash is certainly an annoyance, but not having it is a reality I've grown used to with the iPhone.

Apple is forcing many sites to convert to their preferred HTML5 format, so lack of Flash will be less of a problem as time progresses.

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Browsing the web on the iPad is one of those things you just need to experience for yourself to understand. No amount of videos watched will actually convey how good an experience it is.

If you can get to an Apple store, or retailer, and just hold one you'll be glad you did.

The iPad has been lauded as just a big iPod Touch, and in many ways it is, but that's not a bad thing.

The extra screen real estate lends itself to way more application utility. The included Mail app now has preview panes and lists, YouTube can offer multiple grid lines, newspapers and magazines can be almost life-sized, and most importantly, you can have a proper keyboard.

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Saurabh's review of HTC HD2

Let's just get this out of the way: In terms of hardware, the HTC HD2 is the nicest phone in the world.

It's ostentatiously huge and amazingly slim; it's business-savvy and utterly beautiful. But hardware like this deserves better.

From the outset, the HD2 is a tragic creature, built from the finest pieces imaginable and burdened with a categorically disappointing OS.

To recap, this behemoth is the first Windows Mobile phone to have a capacitive touchscreen and packs a monster Qualcomm Snapdragon 1Ghz processor.

Aside from the 'dragon', the device sports 512MB of ROM, 448MB of RAM, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, an auto-focusing 5-megapixel camera with dual LED flash, a microSD slot (supporting up to 32GB), a 3.5mm headphone jack, plus an accelerometer, proximity sensor, and light sensor on-board.

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To say its stacked is an understatement; hardware-wise, the HD2 joins the ranks of devices like the Motorola Droid, N900, and Liquid in the new class of high-end Smartphones.

Just a word of warning, this is the European version, which does not support US 3G bands.

The rumour mill seems to believe that this will land stateside sometime in earlier 2010. Nothing has been officially announced, but it is thought that T-Mobile will be the carrier. Is this enough to make you ditch your iPhone?

But it's not suitable for most business users, as it creates a conflict between the existing collection of WinMo business apps that are built for using with a stylus pen interface, and the HD2 hardware with a capacitive touch interface.

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It can become unbearable using these apps in Windows Mobile on the HTC HD2. HTC has done their best to hide the HD2's shame, but it's not quite enough.

One of the benefits of Windows Mobile not having changed much in the last few years is that it's easy to compare new hardware to old, and let's be clear about the HD2: It's unbelievably fast.

Applications open almost instantly and close without the slightest hesitation, and over Wi-Fi, web pages render in Opera Mobile as if you're browsing on a laptop, not a cell phone.

This near-magical experience is spread throughout the HD2: Calls answer and end without the expected delay, the camera, a decent 5-megapixel number, with a blinding flash and VGA video capabilities wakes up as fast as you can point its lens, and tapping the home button, no matter how many apps you've got toiling in the background, always results in a satisfyingly clean and snappy return to HTC's mind-blowing home screen.

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