Introduction
Another package has arrived from XXL GSM. As no one has been struggling to get it, I took a look at it. I’ve managed to produce a 7100 Supernova out of the rather small pack. As I didn’t have any urgent device to test, and it didn’t look ugly either, I took it home. It has been a mistake. No matter the high-class marketing crap mentioning it like an exciting phone, it’s still rather dull, I had a hard time starting to write my experiences.
The Finnish guys started pumping up design a long time ago, they have a couple of model series that are made to attract customers with their external design. Supernovas are also dedicated to this noble cause. Unfortunately they used the well-known recipe: a Nokia can look good, or have lots of features or it costs so much that the average customer doesn’t even consider it, while teenagers just want it and express this on all kinds of forums. Supernova, however, doesn’t have very much to it, I think those phones are included in this series that have first been postponed.
Although there’s no target group of users on the manufacturer’s website, but the emphasized features (it looks good, it has a radio and MP3 and a camera) made us think that 7100 is made for the teenagers, as a handset having satisfactory features at an accessible price. It’s not exactly for kids, like Samsung Tobi, but Nokia managed to omit even those few extras that Samsung has used.
Exterior
7100 is not a dedicated ladies’ phone anymore. Neither the black, and probably nor the blue, suggests a highly metrosexual look for a guy. Keeping in mind that this is a cheap model, I’ve been prepared that no premium quality materials will be used. Add Nokia’s legendarily low-quality materials and we have Nokia 7100. Just like other low-end models, it’s made of cheap, Comecon-plastics. Of course it shows more than it is in fact: on front the call handling- and the softkeys are united and look metallic. Well, that’s all the quality feeling we’ll have. The positive thing is that at least the handset won’t crack under pressure.
We hold a completely average slider in our hand, the cover has the display, the d-pad and the previously mentioned metallic-looking keys on it. When opened we get to see a classical keyboard, which is good as usual for a Nokia, the buttons are well separated and the pressure point is all right. Which is not all right is the sliding mechanism. The Finnish guys have managed to create a good opening mechanism. But what’s awful is that the whole handset blabs and wobbles. I don’t understand why couldn’t they seduce an engineer from Samsung or at least take a Korean phone apart. This wobbling reduces user experience to zero.
On the left there are no buttons at all, we can only see a “Nokia” logo, but that’s no key. It’s like the dummy buttons on cars with a basic setup – it’s good to create a feeling that something’s missing. On the right there is the connector we’ve seen on 2680, I still consider this a mean thing. Underneath we can see the camera’s shoot key.
On the back there are two things we can discover: the camera’s silver frame and the speaker. This latter is rather large and it’s basically quite loud, and the camera’s frame tries to look serious, but we can see no flash or mirror near the lens. There is nothing on the bottom, while on top there’s a key with a spring – this is used to take the back off. The hook of the neckband is also here on top. The overall image is rather nice, even in spite of the lot of plastic, until we open the phone and the wobbling starts.
Menu, basic functions
After turning on the phone the user is greeted by a nice surprise, the screen resolution is 320 x 240 pixels, while the diagonal is 2”. This would all be nice and fine if we wouldn’t see the plain Series40 platform running on it. I somehow felt that they’ve tried to fill out the space on the screen, but they didn’t manage to. Instead of this menu with nine icons, it would be more logical to see twelve, but given the phone’s features there would be other problems then. I am very happy that a rather good screen is used in this category, but the system is somehow not complete, I feel that something’s missing.
A positive aspect is speed, fortunately they’ve used some hardware that can handle the job. Of course this job is not too complicated, but we again have to mention 2680, where they didn’t manage to solve this.
The phonebook can store the usual number of 1000 contacts. I can’t report of anything special, the structure is the usual: a contact can have many information, like photo, ringtone, email address and anything that could even make the phone a mid-range handset. The handset basically prefers the internal memory rather than the SIM card, but it can display the contents of the two memories at the same time, so we can get rid of the obligatory copying (this is an especially noble gesture for us, testers). The system is very mature, lots of manufacturers can be envious of Nokia for putting this together.
Messaging is also complete, we have everything we might need. SMS, MMS, e-mail are all supported. It’s a great thing that when editing messages we first start out with an SMS, and as soon as we attach an image, a sound or a video clip, it switches to MMS. The size limit for multimedia messages is 300 KB. T9 is here to help typing, I’ve always preferred the Motorola way, but unfortunately the American company is currently in a very bad situation, so I don’t think that their system could take over T9 anytime soon. Of course there’s no problem with T9 either, the software can learn quickly and it’s easy to use. The e-mail client is rather basic, but it supports SMTP servers with authentication and we can use attachments too, although we might have problems with the low amount of memory.
PIM functions, applications
We won’t see anything special at the organizer features either. The calendar has month and week views for the recorded events, may that be a meeting, a to-do, an anniversary or a birthday. This is perfectly enough, not only in this category, but even one category above. The alarm of course works even when the phone is turned off, but it can handle only a single alarm time.
We can also find a to-do list, a calculator, a timer and a stopwatch too, so this part is okay.
As for other applications, we might mention Ovi, which is Nokia’s proprietary photo sharing service, this is where we can upload pictures taken with the phone, but we should have a kind of mobile internet package subscription.
We won’t be surprised by the list of games either, this handset also has the well-known set. Snake III, Citybloxx, Backgammon and Sudoku, so it can offer some happy moments for the thinkers and the dumb too.
Multimedia
The camera on the back has a resolution of 1.3 megapixels and fix focus, there is no flash to help it work and there’s no mirror either – thus disappointing egomaniacs. When launching the camera the phone prefers to be held horizontally. I still can’t forgive Nokia that the default setting is the video camera. I know it can be changed, but most users will use it to take pictures – the video recording is not that good you know.
When pressing the shoot key the picture is taken immediately, due to the fix focus – well, yeah, there’s no focusing I mean. But there is waiting, a couple of seconds pass after pressing the key, while the “exposure” is done. Unfortunately the images are still not very good, you can see a couple of them below. We can record videos at 176 x 144 pixels at 15 fps, so we will have some stuttering.
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The musical part could be really good. There is even a headset in the box, but of course if we consider that it has a 2.5 mm jack we can get a bit annoyed. I don’t know why this is still a must in 2009. The player is ll right, it can theoretically display album covers as well, but I didn’t manage to do this. But I could sort tracks by ID3 tags – and here we can face the ugliest thing the Nokia engineers could do: the internal memory size is 4!!! megabytes. This would be no problem, but there’s no memory card slot. Well, considering this, the music player doesn’t really have any more meaning; we can stick to the FM radio. No matter the Bluetooth support and no matter that it supports stereo sound transfer, as the radio will require a wired headset to be connected, as this is the antenna. Hooray.
We can play music through the handsfree speaker as well, the large speaker (which is not that large, only the grating is so big) is rather loud and has a low quality.
Data transfer, battery
7100 is no world champion in data transfer either, EDGE is the fastest technology supported. Still, they’ve managed to install an Opera Mini on the phone, but we should avoid surfing on the web at such a speed if we don’t want our hair to fall out. There is no WiFi, and I’ve already mentioned Bluetooth (v2.0 with stereo sound).
We can theoretically connect it to a computer if we obtain the proprietary data connector, but we might be better off with Bluetooth. Nokia PC Suite is of course required, the phone won’t communicate with the computer without the software. Knowing the target users I would have installed some kind of standard connector, like a USB port.
Battery power peaks at 860 mAh, according to Nokia this will be enough for 430 hours of standby. The sad truth is that it went offline after two days of medium usage. The phone can provide musical tunes for 12 hours, but I have to mention the 4 MB of memory again, so let’s stick to the radio, as it would be a bit boring to listen to the same two tracks for 12 hours.
Summary: I’ve liked the phone’s design, the fact that Nokia used a QVGA display, even though it can display only 65 thousand colors and S40 didn’t really make use of it. I think the non-expandable memory is a serious punishment, just like the proprietary data connector, the 2.5 mm headset jack and the wobbling of the phone. I’ve been missing a minimal amount of innovation. Something that would at least made it unique or interesting for the target users. This is unfortunately missing. Considering all these I think that it’s a powerful contestant in this price range, but we should rather buy a phone with expandable memory for our teenager child.
Gubro
Translated by Szaszati
Nokia 7100 Supernova has been provided by XXL GSM.
The handset can be purchased at:
Budapest VI. Jókai tér 6.
Specifications
| Nokia 7100 Supernova | ||
 | General | |
| Technology | GSM | |
| Size | 98 x 48 x 15 mm | |
| Weight | 103.5 grams | |
| Available colors | blue, red, black | |
| Display | ||
| Display diagonal | 2” | |
| Display resolution | 240 x 320 pixels | |
| Display type | TFT | |
| Number of colors | 65 thousand | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | 1000 entries | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | na / 300 KB | |
| Internal memory | 4 MB | |
| Memory expandability | none | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | 850/900/1800/1900 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | Class 10 (4+1/3+2) / Class 6 42/177 kbits/s (UL/DL) | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | none / none | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | none / 2.0 (A2DP too) | |
| WiFi | none | |
| USB | Easy Flash II | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | none / none | |
| GPS receiver | none | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | present | |
| Vibra function | present | |
| Built-in handsfree | present | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | present / none | |
| Sound recorder | present | |
| Alarm clock | present, also when turned off | |
| Predictive text entry | T9 | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | Series40 | |
| WAP / HTML browser | 2.0 / present | |
| E-mail client | present (POP3, IMAP4, authenticated) | |
| Java | present, MIDP 2.0 | |
| Games | 4 | |
| Currency converter | present | |
| Extra software | Ovi, Sensor, Converter | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | 1.3 megapixels, fix focus | |
| Secondary camera | none | |
| Video recording | present (MPEG4 format, 176x144, 15fps) | |
| Music player | present, can run in background | |
| Equalizer | present | |
| FM radio | present - RDS | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | 860 mAh Li-Ion | |
| Standby time | 430 hours | |
| Talk time | 8 hours | |
| Other | ||
| none | ||
