Although the design generally looks a tiny bit dated, the phone has a premium feel to it, courtesy of the nicely designed metal backplate which feels very cool to the touch. However, it does have the tendency to pick up dust and fingerprints, much like the front of the phone. Measuring just 10.5mm deep, the handset boasts a slender profile, while the 117.3 x 56.8mm dimensions mean that it is relatively compact, if a little on the long side. Weighing in at 130g, the phone isn't exactly a featherweight but this does make it feel reassuringly robust and you'll certainly notice if it falls out of your pocket - it'll probably survive the fall too.
The C7 is available in a choice of colours including Frosty metal (silver) and Mocha, while our review sample was of the Charcoal black variety. As we've already mentioned, the design looks a little dated when compared to the top-tier smartphones on the market, although the large screen surrounded by a reflective bezel looks fairly slick. Apart from the touchscreen, the front of the phone includes a small menu button under the screen along with Call and End Call keys. There's also a front-facing camera in the top-right hand corner.
The top edge of the handset is home to the power button, along with a 3.5mm port and a Micro-USB connector. On the left-hand edge you'll find the charger connector, while the right-hand edge reveals volume up/zoom in and volume down/zoom out keys, along with a voice key and the familiar Nokia lock switch. There's also a dedicated button for the camera mode.
The
3.5-inch AMOLED screen is well-sized and performs particularly well in brightly lit conditions, partly thanks to the AMOLED technology and partly because of the ambient light detector that automatically adjusts the backlight.
Thankfully,
the handset has a capacitive touchscreen rather than the resistive technology found on older Nokia models. The
C7 does enable you to pinch-zoom your way around the web, but we found this to be a little sluggish and not as responsive as we would have liked.
Although not the highest resolution in the market,
the 640 x 360 pixels offered by the C7 do a perfectly reasonable job of rendering web graphics with vibrant colours. Edges can get a little blurry as you zoom in but generally text is clear and easy to read. Video quality isn't great - pictures tend to look quite pixelated and definition is almost completely lost on darker scenes.
The web browser is functional, if a little clunky and awkward to use. The infuriating alphanumeric keyboard doesn't help things along much either, although you do have the option of turning the phone round into a landscape position which offers up a QWERTY keyboard. However, the keyboard isn't especially easy to use as the buttons are quite small and they're also lined up squarely, rather than the slightly staggered layout that is usually used on QWERTY keyboards. Nokia also has one of the most annoying predictive text systems known to man - we'd advise turning it off.
The
C7 has 8GB of built-in memory which, although not a huge amount, should be enough for most users. If you want to extend the memory capabilities of the phone then you can use a microSD card (up to 32GB), although this isn't supplied so you'll need to splash some more cash to get yourself fully kitted out.
The
C7 features Nokia's Symbian 3 OS, which didn't impress us too much.
