Try to remember that which local brand has released a non-dual SIM phone recently? Leave it, we don’t even know that when they ‘launch’ their phones as everyday there seems to be a new copy of E71, 5800 or Blackberry look-a-like on the roads in just 3-4k with big list of features and prominently one thing that they claim that you wont find in your long trusted brand, the dual SIM feature. We all know that what quality they offer in their other features and as about dual SIM, yes!! now we have an answer …. Nokia C1 and Nokia C2 have arrived in India by yesterday itself.

After continuous rants from the bloggers, the pressure finally seems to be mounted on Nokia about their India operations. Though Indian Launch of two cheapest phones by Nokia’s Executive Vice President Mary McDowell should not be exactly taken as some big sign about change in preferences as the visit might be more related with ongoing issue of push emails as well. But still we should be happy that some Nokia device is finally launched here in India within three months of announcement.

I was aware of arrival of her, when one of my tweeps told me in morning that she has arrived on Chennai Airport and it was clear from recent device orders arriving to India that its gonna be C1 and C2 for sure. but the announcement was made in New Delhi.

McDowell’s official world were ….

As per our deep consumer insights, entry level consumers need dual SIMs for various reasons including economizing time and costs, improving efficiency and for increased convenience. To address these consumer requirements, Nokia has launched these two devices that offer multiple SIM capabilities with a balanced feature set and ‘relevant innovations’ at affordable price points.

Let’s know more about Nokia C1-00 and Nokia C2 ….

Nokia C1-00: With the very first line, let me be clear, its not a dual SIM phone as many might be confused about. But its sure marks the first ever ‘Double SIM’ phone from Nokia.

Now what a dual SIM and what a double meant to be?

A dual SIM or dual standby as per wiki comes with many kind of adapter and first of entry category was the kind of adapter that allows only one SIM active at a time means even if your phone has two SIMs inside, you can’t receive calls on both of them. One would be main SIM and other will remain as standby (not active unless you make that active manually). So, in actual, if you are looking for receiving calls on both of your SIM, then skip it, its not your choice.

Next spoiler is, its C1-00 that is launched in India, not C1-01 or C1-02, both of which as series 40 devices with better capabilities (C1-02 even has basic camera).

Its a very basic model with a price tag of Rs. 1, 999/- and a color screen, probably its more of targeting the users, who loved Nokia 2600 or Nokia 1400. Some other regions has it in price around 1k-1.2k as well, so you could expect the prices to go down here as well very son.

Now, for people making complaints about the price tag, lets see what are the offering with a brand value, reliability and best of the service from biggest mobile brand of planet.

It might be looking like old phones, got no GPRS\ EDGE means no MMS, just GSM 900 / 1800, No Bluetooth, No Infrared, S30 Interface and no memory card support, but other than Double SIM, it got many more things.

Design, T9 and Flashlight With dimensions of 107.1 x 45 x 15 mm, 63 cc and weight as 72.9g, its not a bad design at all. No one would be expecting metal here, but T9 keypad is as good as it can be and left bottom key works as shortcut for SIM change as well. The power down key is not at top as many might be used to and located under the cancel key. The five way scroll can be used as shortcut for Flash light as well. Scroll up twice,  Flash light on and scroll once, Flash light off.

It would be available in blue, red, light grey and green colors.

Dual SIM Yes! it has no capability to keep both the SIMs active at the same moment, but it has the capability to divert the calls means you can configure it in way that you wont be missing any call on the other number as well.

Display Interesting display of size 128 x 160 pixels, 1.8 inches this beast has. It got 16 bit colors means total of 65k colors like high end Nokia E5 is supposed to have.

FM Radio The cheap phone not only got a FM radio under the hood, but also got it with a 3.5mm jack means you could hook your phone’s FM with your PC’s speakers as well. Unfortunately there is no shortcut key for this radio though and you have to navigate through menu to find it.

Phone Book If I remember right, then older phones from Nokia at this price point never had more than 200 phonebook entries, but this one got 500 along with usual multiple fields\ numbers and image entries. Though call records are still 20 dialed, 20 received and 20 missed calls means very basic.

SMS I am not expecting S40 like smiley’s and icons here, but in place of usual 20 SMS space as we remember about our old phones, we have space for 250 SMS here, if you were discarding it at the first place.

Battery It seriously urges you that you buy this inexpensive one just for its battery. It uses the same Li-Ion 1020 mAh BL-5C batteries as were in its many leading models like Nokia 1100, but call it evolvement of technology, you received ever best battery life out of it.

Talk time for 13h straight and a standby like of Up to 1152h or around 7 weeks feels like some kind of dream. Think you will find your phone on after some summer trip, if you forgot that back home.

So, if you thought this is just a useless another double SIM phone, then think again.

Nokia C2-00: In a price tag of Rs. 2, 500/-, C2-00 actually stands as first ever real Dual SIM Nokia, not just that unique to Nokia, the second SIM is ‘hot-swappable’ means it could be changed/ removed while keeping the phone on. Note that its with only one SIM as the other one will be situated under the battery. So, obviously you got very good reason to spend some more than buying Nokia C1-00.

Let’s know what more it offers ..

Design and T9 Keypad Its plastic, but definitely much impressive looks wise than Nokia C1-00. Dimensions are a little slimmer with 108 x 45 x 14.65 mm and 67.9 cc, while the weight is slightly higher at 74 g. As you can see that keys are divided in four row with no separation in individual keys in a row. Must be a class experience to type on this grid key design.

Same way, the left bottom key serves as selection key for SIMs, while the right bottom one provide the convenience of mute button and shortcut to radio or Music player. The location of power key is again below the cancel key.

It will be available in grey, black, magenta, dark blue or white. I guess, white would be nice in hands.

Dual SIM As I already explained in first para, we got both the SIMs active here for calls, SMS, MMS or GPRS usages and very unique to Nokia, for the first time we got option of hot swappable SIM as well. I am really looking for knowing that how Nokia software will handle two SIMs together on a S40 interface as the Chinese ones and even Samsung ones freak me out sometimes.

Display The same display of size 128 x 160 pixels, 1.8 inches with 16 bit colors is included in the package, though I think a little higher resolution would have make better use of S40 interface, but anyway same 65k colors are here.

FM Radio Yes! it got Stereo FM RDS Radio with 3.5mm jack and nice to hear that it comes with Radio recording feature. You can say Hurray!!!

Multimedia You get a VGA Camera here with 4x digital zoom and ordinary 10fps video recording. Camera Image format would be JPEG, though the software will support viewing BMP, GIF87a, GIF89a, JPEG, OTA, PNG and WBMP. Impressive for the price range.

Video recording resolution will be 128 x 96 and format H.263, while the device will be capable of playing 3GPP formats (H.263), ASF, MPEG-4 and WMV.

Same time, you could think this as complete music package with support for almost all common music formats like AAC, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AWB, M4A, MIDI Tones (poly 24), Mobile XMF, MP3, SP-MIDI, WAV and WMA.

Memory It sure surprises you with the support of MicroSD card up to 32 Gb that too with hot swap feature. Maximum User Storage of 10 MB, SDRAM Memory 16 MB and NOR memory 64 MB must not be very less for such a device.

Connectivity It has not Wi-Fi or 3G, but it got GSM 900 / 1800 with GPRS\ EDGE support for both the SIMs. Bluetooth 2.1 is here for transferring your media files with ease, though I wonder if anyone will also think of connecting Bluetooth headset with it, but it supports.

Though USB charging is not here, but it has a microUSB as well.

Phonebook, SMS, MMS, Email, Chat and other features With the support of memory card, obviously the phonebook will be unlimited and SMS and MMS expected to do well with same ease as other S40 devices do. What real surprise here is inclusion of Nokia messaging Service v1.3  and Nokia Email Client means you can have Ovi Mail, Gmail etc and also chat options via Gtalk, MSN, Yahoo and Ovi Chat.

As a surprise, Ovi Contacts are not here, but this device supports  FOTA Firmware over the Air, Nokia Life Tools, Nokia Money and Themes.

Battery Don’t know what to say, but this part is a real let down for this otherwise amazing device for its price. We got the same BL-5C 3.7V 1020mAh here, but its told to provide only 4 hours of talk time that is not a very bad one, but still considering the performance of C1-00, people must have expected more from it. Standby time is also not a very higher side with 16 days only.

I wont say a disappointment here, but will say that expectations were raised by C1-00, which C2-00 misses.

We have a 2mm charger here as MicroUSB wont charge the phone.

So, this is all about Nokia C1-00 and C2-00 that would be available in India in 2k and 2.5k. Please remind me, if I missed something you might wanna know and also tell, are you buying anyone of these?

Nitish Kumar

http://nitishkumar.net

http://scifireviews.wordpress.com