Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type puts a touchscreen on your Series 40 featurephone
By Vlad Savov 
posted August 17th 2010 5:26AM
posted August 17th 2010 5:26AM
Update: Nokia has informed us the X3-02 uses a resistive touchscreen, no real surprise given its price.
Nokia debuts 'Touch and Type' design with the latest Nokia X3
In a move to continue driving innovation, Nokia today unveils the super slim Nokia X3 Touch and Type, with a unique combination of a touch screen and traditional 12 button phone keypad. As Nokia's first 'Touch and Type' phone, the Nokia X3 allows people to tap quickly on the bright color touch screen, as well as enjoy the familiarity of the full keypad for quick fire text messages and phone calls. Anticipated to be on sale in the third quarter, the Nokia X3 is expected to retail for approximately EUR 125, excluding taxes and subsidies.
"We continue to push innovation at all price points. The Nokia X3 brings new consumer value with a device that combines a touch screen and a keypad at an affordable price, offering consumers the best of both Worlds." said Mark Loughran, Managing Director, Nokia UK.
The Nokia X3 has a large screen with clear icons, menus and text, as well as critical keys such as the send and end keys, and dedicated function keys for important links like music and text messaging. Touch and type is ideal for SMS and social networking where fast and frequent input is needed, while touch is ideal for functions such as setting alarms, smooth browsing and controlling applications like music and games.
With its sleek and modern design coming in at a very thin 9.6mm – making it one of the slimmest Nokia phones ever – the Nokia X3 slips easily into the purse or the pocket, and looks the part with its brushed aluminum back cover which will come in five vibrant colors designed to suit any mood or wardrobe.
Despite its size, the Nokia X3 is jam-packed with features including 3G, WLAN, a music player and an FM radio.
Lovers of the snapshot and social networkers will enjoy a great 5 megapixel camera with 4X digital zoom that can take both still and video images.
The Nokia X3 also features dedicated music and messaging keys allowing fast access to important Ovi services including social and entertainment applications. In addition to Ovi Mail, people's favorite consumer email and chat accounts can be pushed direct to the phone via Nokia Messaging.
With a gentle glide over the touch screen people can go online and get access to many services including thousands of apps from Ovi Store. In certain markets, the new phone will also be available with Ovi Music Unlimited, enabling the owner to access a virtually limitless range of the latest hit music that can be stored on the available 16GB memory card.
The Nokia X3 – affordable and accessible touch and type which is simple-to-use and beautifully designed. The Nokia X3 Touch and Type sits alongside the Nokia X3-00, a slider with strong music functionality, which was launched in September 2009.
The Nokia Mini Speaker MD-11. Pocket-sized speakers for big sound
Music lovers can boost the Nokia X3's inbuilt speaker with some extra 'oomph' with the new MD-11, a light pocket-size speaker with great audio quality. For even more fun, you can connect two for stereo sound - a great way to get the music out of your phone and enjoy with friends. The MD-11 is estimated to retail for EUR 25 excluding taxes and subsidies.
Touch screens for everyone in your dumbphone, kewl !
It's pretty funky, targeted at specific markets, will surely do well.
@smover
I actually dig this! it's NICE!
They don't beat around the bush either. It's a phone; it's an mp3 player.
@smover I'd actually buy this device! NOT as my main phone, I'll have my N8 for that. But I'll keep this as my secondary device just coz it's SO cool! It actually looked really smooth in the first video of the actual phone. Amd it's a low end phone costing only €125! that's a deal now!
@smover
I remember thinking something like this when I was reading this article about differences between keypads and touchscreens.
Good read if you don't take the headline too seriously...
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/Not_a_Dedicated_Follower_of_Fashion-10_Reasons_Why_Touchscreens_Suck.php
@smover
Could be useful for browsing. These Nokia's can run Opera mini.
9.6mm Nokia phone sounds impressive! Who said that Nokia can't make thin phones? Time for someone to eat their words.
@smover I think it's an awesome idea, s40 is already the top OS for "dumbphones" here in Europe, adding a touch screen will give it yet another advantage over other phones
@notsodumb E71 was about that thin too.............and not to mention, it was THE SEXIEST portrait qwerty smartphone ever!
@fais
Nokia is also releasing (released?) their own Ovi Browser for S40 that will work the same way as Opera Mini, by compressing websites before sending them to the mobile phone.
@junyc85
The black and white one look real sexy.... I'm tempted...
@smover but the whole point of a touchscreen is to get rid of the buttons when you dont need them...this is really pointless
@junyc85 and makes calls unlike some ^^
@smover This is cool Smover its smart business $$$$. RIM are you listening? Bring out one more failure and you are KINNED
@smover
Price may also have been a factor, but the actual reason for the resistive screen is because this cellphone is modelled primarily for the Chinese market (And hence the reason there is a touchscreen in the first place, to allow easy input of Hanzi). Nokia probably decided, hey, why not release this model worldwide, and presto, there you have it.
Check out the leaked version earlier, you can see the Chinese-centric keypad: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_x302_spotted_in_the_wild_packs_a_24inch_touchscreen-news-1872.php
Also, this is not the first time such a cellphone combination has been released by Nokia:
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_3208c-2920.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_6208c-2621.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_6708-1518.php
@smover Just goes to show you that Nokia is king of compelling hardware. Now, if they could only get their software up to snuff.
@NikAmi
Actually, at this price point, S40 is probably the best OS you can get. It has a really good solid feature set and runs faster than anything else with these specs.
@junyc85 i definitly agree, this new X3 looks like a very well designed, low cost and very user friendly device ! 3G, Wifi, BT, only GPS is missing but for the price and with a 2,4" screen it doesn't really matters.
@Rev This is not a "standard" keypad either. Nokia seems to like to shuffle the basics just to push people's buttons. The "0" on this pad not unlike the spacebar on the N900's 3-row qwerty
@dagetz
My BB begs to disagree
@xinjii
The four-a-row format is not unknown in chinese cellphones, and as I said earlier, this one was made originally for the chinese market, they just maintained the design features while porting it over to the main market.
@xinjii
Like with N900 though, I'm pretty sure people who buy this will learn the layout quickly. I'm a N900 user and the off center space bothered me for about 2 days. I had totally forgotten the whole issue by now.
Actually, if you absolutely have to have a 3 row keyboard, that is most likely the sanest choice. It leaves the alphabet keys to match regular keyboards and the space is easy to find at bottom edge, as long as you remember to use your right thumb.
@smover
Yeah, that's a bit of a pain however if Ovi has Google Maps or Lacago as an option and Skyhook it would do at a pinch.
@fais And that's all I need--a browser that'll allow me to check a few things online. This seems like a great dumbphone.
it's really nice for a low end phone.
@2beers I just realized that is has a 5 MP camera. Cool.
@2beers
for the first time s40 looks nice and elegant..
it will sell like hotcakes
Anyone noticed a change in Nokia's new commercials? They look super cool.
I really like the way they've done away with the navigation buttons on typically button packed candybar phones.
@2beers
also it's got wifi, don't see that every day on a feature phone.
looks like a decent well built feature phone, the kind that most networks give away for free or discounted.
@IMarius Kinda reminds me of the new Camaro and Mustang, Retro looks but modern at the same time.
S40 WTH....
where did that came from :-o
I wud take dat design on S60v3 headset at least
i feel like hes trying to brainwash me into buying it. if you dont get what i mean look at his creepy eyes :S
@keanu096 Dude no kidding right?! He convinced me in those couple min to buy this device! And I will, as a secondary phone of course....coz it's just SO eye-catching!
Err, Series 40 isn't Symbian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_40. So whether you have concerns about Symbian and touchscreens is rather moot seeing as it's a completely different OS.
@nephster
Series 40 is based on Symbian & part of the family.
@Almo but can't run .sis files or multitask. It's part of the family, but only a distant cousin really :)
@Almo
Series 40 does NOT have anything to do with Symbian. S40 is Nokia's proprietary OS for feature phones.
@galois S40 for Nokia is what Bada is for Samsung.
SEXY!!
Hmmmm interesting...
Nokia should switch to ANDROID asap.
@lemonicetea
No.
@lemonicetea
Please, please not this again.
Go look every other Nokia post in the last month for reasons why that would be idiotic.
@lemonicetea Why? To be just a normal "dumb" manufacturer?
With Android 3.0 manufacturers customizations will no longer exist. You can kiss goodbye to MOTOBlur, Touchwiz and so on... If thats the kind of company you want Nokia to turn fine with me, but I want to have more options.
I am not flaming so dont get me wrong, Android is a fine operating system but I really want another option that is not Google eating all my data and Apple biting on my credit card.
@Mr w00t
Another option? Have you ever tried WebOS?
@trekrema Sadly I have not. But I heard very good things about it even though the adoption was so low and development to it (at least the bit i searched) seemed kinda clunky.
But on that note, I really would like HP to jump on board of MeeGo. Seems to me like a logic idea: MeeGo could provide the core and HP could develop webOS interface on top of it. Much less redundancy dont you think?
@Mr w00t
I've hoped the same thing for HP/Palm. Ditch the old WebOS UI interface, and replicate it using the Qt UI toolkit provided just for this purpose. If HP DOESN'T do it within two years, I'd be shocked.
@lemonicetea I just remembered Topolsky's interview with one of nokia's man when he asked about Android possibility in noika phones and the nokia's person replied that android have some of its own issues and its destiny is not in nokia's hands, and when i heard Oracle suing google i just laughed, Oracle for sure will not go after chinese android fake manufacturers but for nokia its a critical issue, cause oracle sure would like to see them in court too. ALSO MeeGo is way better than android, in every aspect