Nokia 7100 Supernova review

Like all major handset manufacturers, Nokia aims for all segments of the market. The 7100 Supernova is largely targeted at users who don't want high-end features but who do want a bit of bling about their person. We found it available online SIM free for £85 inc VAT at the Nokia online store.

The design may be distinctive, but we can't really say the same about the rest of this handset, which is held back particularly by a poor camera and lack of memory expansion.

Design and handling

On the design front, this slider handset comes in three different colour schemes. There is a mostly-black version with a frame of turquoise blue around the navi pad, a version with a turquoise belt and back, and one where the belt and back are 'jelly red'. It is a very pinky red indeed.

That belt of colour sits beneath the screen, housing the softkeys and Call and End buttons. The buttons are slightly raised from the flat panel of colour, and so are easy to press. Between them, an oversized navi key presented us with no usability problems at all.

Open the slider and you'll find Nokia has also done well with the design of the number pad. It is a reasonable size and each key has a raised centre so that hitting what you want spot-on is easy. There's nothing flashy about any of this, but great usability prevails.

This phone feels light in the hand, though it just tips over the 100g mark at 103.5g. It is 98mm tall, 48.4mm wide and 15mm thick, making it a little chunkier than we'd like, but not overly so. The slide mechanism is smooth and nicely spring loaded.

The screen is a bit of a let-down because of its small size. At just 2.0 inches across diagonal corners it seems a little small in the casing. If only Nokia could have stretched it a little further towards the left and right edges we'd have been happier.

Features

If you are on the hunt for a top-notch music or camera phone then this might be a good time to avert your eyes, as the 7100 Supernova is not ideal for either job.

On the camera front, the maximum resolution of 1.3 megapixels is, on paper, hardly a draw. And in real life, the flash-lacking, auto-focus lacking camera really doesn't do a great job. We found outdoor colour to be often overexposed and indoor shots to be generally quite dark. Also, the camera lens sits on the back of the casing rather than being protected from scratches under the slide. Oh, and there is a side button that launches the camera - but only when you are on the handset's main screen.

There are some redeeming features, such as an image sequence mode and auto setting for shooting at night- and we didn't notice any real shutter lag. In short the camera is probably good for fun photography but not for anything you'll want to keep long term.

Moving on to another thing a lot of people find their mobile handy for- music. The 7100 Supernova's loudpeaker offers decent volume levels and we like the presence of an FM radio, though its mere 7 presents seems a little mean.

We aren't huge fans of the 2.5mm headset connector, preferring a 3.5mm one at all times, and the lack of a flash memory card slot for expanding the somewhat mean 4MB of built in memory similarly frown-inducing. Suffice to say you won't be able to store many tunes on the phone.

There's no PC sync cable provided, so it is Bluetooth or over the air download if you want to get any tunes on board.

We've already noted the small screen, which, coupled with the lack of 3G support might lead you to think this phone is not good for Web browsing. Well, actually, it isn't too bad. Opera Mini comes into its own on the 7100 Supernova, providing useful full page views and zooming as well as wide-screen orientation. While clearly not made for browsing, the handset copes surprisingly well.

The S40 operating system isn't exactly brimming over with additional software, but there is a good array of staples here including an alarm, voice recorder, stopwatch, to do list, calendar, calculator, timer, and mobile email support.

Performance

Call quality was fine, and with little going on to really trouble the battery we managed two day runs between charges with ease. Nokia suggests the phone will run to up to 454 hours on standby and deliver up to 8 and a half hours of talk time.

Summary

There's something rather snazzy about the look of this mobile phone, but the camera is disappointing. As is the lack of expandable memory. We'd have liked a little more bang for our buck.