When it was announcement of Nokia C3, C6 and E5 from Nokia, then out of other things, what made me more curious was the home screens of Nokia C3 and Nokia E5. The favorite contact bar, which we were introduced with Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 was always denied the share of the same citing memory limits. I always wondered that how much tempting it would be for people to hold their fingers not touching the big contacts picture icons like they did with Nokia N97, X6 and others?

Then there was a debate started from Nokia Conversations over buttons and touch, where I even replied quite many a comments (should have got some clue right then) and when Blackberry launched its torch, then it was obvious to boil up the conversions that when Nokia coming up something like one handed touch with HW-Keypad?

So, here is the day, August 17, 2010, in contrast of expectations of some E6 with QWERTY and touch in shape of E72, Nokia sure given a new innovation to mobile world with a T9 with touch screen and that too in price of just 7.5k and the name was strangely Nokia X3-02 (probably people will call it by name of X3 touch to avoid confusion).

As Nokia says, it takes something so familiar and makes it new again.

The simple but slim looks like old T9 and S40 phones, but with a 3 row keypad rather than usual 4 rows, we grown up using and a very welcome large 2.4 screen like Nokia E52.

Read till the end, I bet you will know many more things about Nokia X3-02, which you don’t know about it at least till this point.

Special features slowly get disclosed in front of your eyes like favorite contacts bar on the home screen (photo calling available) and cool Date and time bar (we will be see in video later). It got dedicated message key, dedicated music key and a rather larger speaker at the bottom and if that’s not enough then it got brushed aluminum body. Not only this, but this only 9.6 mm thick and 78 gm device also got Wi-Fi, 3G, HSDPA Cat9 10.2 Mbps, HSUPA Cat5 2.0 Mbps and a 5 MP Camera and let me mention it again, the price is 7.5k.

When we moved into more details as Nokia’s official forum page says over Nokia X3-02, then its surprising that most of the blog got it wrong or someone correct me, when I say that this might be the first S40 device to support up to 32 GB microSD card.

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Till it don’t get right on high end devices, since the announcement C3, C6 and E5, its already clear that Nokia is betting big on cheaper devices now. Sure, the consumers are what on the profit side. First was the very capable, E52 like C5 in around 8k and now another under 8k device feature quad band and 3G.

Let’s go by the features now

Operating System: When we geeks hear about S40 devices, then what pushes us back is lack of multi-tasking like we seen in earlier iPhones. Only bit of multi-tasking here might be music/ radio app running behind.

But with the launch of Nokia X3-02, we also got updated Forum Nokia page about S40 platform, which talk about availability of even gesture related controls now (remember spiral zoom feature on Nokia N900?). Though not big on multi-tasking, but you will get a revamped media player, integration of Facebook and Twitter in contacts and updates on home screen, conversation view within the contacts and also chat featuring MSN, Gtalk, Yahoo and Ovi.

So, even Dumb phones got sexier now.

Design: I read somewhere some Eldar saying that its bullshit that Nokia experimenting with design material and came up with brushed aluminum and I swear nothing could be more bullshit than that line. Brushed aluminum doesn’t only make the build solid but saves it from scratches as well and in the way lengthening the life of the product. NO more scare of breaking it while opening the back cover to remove the batter.

Technically the dimensions are 106.2 x 48.4 x 9.6 mm, 45.2 cc and weight 78 gm, so finally we are getting Nokia making really slim devices and sure you could hope one day they will give something slim like iPhone or Galaxy and that too with all typical Nokia features, not some stripped bluetooth that don’t let you transfer the files between phones over Bluetooth (read Apple).

Like the tradition has began, Nokia started offering their device in many colors (may be on footprint of Dell Studio) and Nokia X3-02 is expected to arrive in Q3 means latest by September 2010 in five colors: White Silver, Petrol Blue, Lilac, Pink and Dark Metal. So, which color would you prefer?

Display: People already not expecting big from a cheap touch and type device that is first of its kind to showcase a 2.4” touch screen. Not on higher side of resolution, it just fare with a 240×320 screen, which has a color depth of 16 bit means 256k colors.

Its a transmissive LCD that would be glossy for sure, but I am not getting mention of its being scratch resistant anywhere, so better be careful about that, they are expecting light touching not gaming kind of.

Camera: Earlier Nokia X3 offered a 3.2 MP camera, but Nokia X3-02, which we call Nokia X3 touch now, is much more generous to offer a 5MP camera. But its not one of the greatest for sure.

As expected, there is no flash, not a single LED. The 5MP has a resolution of 2592 x 1944 and aperture f2.4, but the camera focus range just starts from 50 cm and goes to infinity means nothing like Macro mode. It got 4x digital zoom and Picture format is JPEG only.

But you get video recording that is on 640×480, but got better frame rate of 18 fps, which could record in two formats H.263 and MPEG-4. Not bad for a device in this segment.

Memory: Series 40 device never known much demanding over memory due to non-multi-tasking nature, but still it got adequate specs. Maximum User Storage of 50 MB, NAND Memory of 128 MB and SDRAM Memory on 64 MB. Impressive for a S40.

And while most of the blog seems to mentioning that it supports up to 16 GB microSD card, office specs says it supports up to 32 GB, which makes it first S40 to support 32 GB I guess.

Connectivity: That’s something so so special about this device. People already overwhelmed over its looks and touch, but its bigger underneath. You are getting Quad band support here means GSM 1800, GSM 1900, GSM 850, GSM 900, WCDMA Band I (2100), WCDMA Band II (1900), WCDMA Band V (850), WCDMA Band VIII (900) and much more than average HSDPA Cat9 10.2 Mbps, HSUPA Cat5 2.0 Mbps. Even my Nokia N82 didn’t got such support. Not only this, but you have Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) available that supports WEP, WPA, WPA2 (AES/TKIP).

Now hold your breaths, although not advertised, but their official page says that it got USB-OTG 1.3. Is it the same, I am thinking? Nokia N8 has the same OTG profile, so??? Should we be prepared for some upcoming video displaying the same feature? Will they ship the cable together?

I am sure even Geeks could find it an affordable alternative to keep with them as a 3G modem and storage device, isn’t it?

Messaging: With support of around 600 kb size of messages, S40 devices been center of attraction for messaging only and this one sure has no reason to disappoint. You are getting Nokia Messaging 3.0 here and with the integration of twitter/ facebook, you also have the leading IMs in pocket. Social media is in reach of everyone now.

It supports IMAP4, POP3, SMTP, but asking for PUSH will be sure a joke on this price point.

Browsing: If some device supporting connections at a speed of 10 mbps, then browsing capabilities becomes a must. Nokia X3-02 comes with WebKit Open Source Browser and Opera Mini that will support Flash Lite 3.0. So even if not much big expectations, you could find it doing all the tasks at a satisfactory level for sure.

I am yet to see if the browser will support spiral zoom like Nokia N900 here with resistive touch.

Ovi Services: Though things could be region specific, but as much their official page says, it will support not only FOTA, but also Nokia Music Store, Ovi Music, Ovi Store, Ovi Sync, PictBridge, Themes and VoIP.

Isn’t that exciting for a sweet little device?

Battery: No one expected a bigger battery in a S40 device, when such device already known for much better power management due to lack of multi-tasking basically. It has a BL-4S 3.7V 860mAh battery that supports 5.3 hours talk time on 2G and 3.5 hours talk time on 3G. It has a music playback of big 28 hours and video playback of 6 hours. Average for music series, I guess, but there is a great news too.

Nokia X3-02 not only supports regular 2.0mm Charger Connector, but also supports charging over USB.

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It will initially be offered in China, Ireland & UK, Russia, Australia & New Zealand, Singapore, Germany, Spain & Portugal, France, Mexico and Saudi & Yemen. Other markets will follow later.

This was all about next coming Nokia X3-02. So, if you were thinking that its about only some specific people, which will say “hurray” when their dumb S40 devices sudden get magic of touch, then think again… isn’t USB-OTG and an up to 10 mbps 3G modem could lure the Geek inside you?

So, this was Layman’s take on Nokia X3-02, what you think, let me know.. I am all ears for you.