Camera
First thing first, the camera. I love a good camera and that is what attracted me to this phone. I have a five year old at home and a new baby due in about 13 days. I wanted to have a good camera phone so we could take pictures of the baby and put them on-line, send them to family and continue to text our parents pictures of our son Logan. The number one thing that attracted me to the Nokia Astound was the fact that it came with a 8MP camera with flash. Not only did it have an awesome camera, it has a front facing camera as well that we can use to video chat with one of the apps from the Ovi Market. I can’t begin to say how the pictures turn out. The HD 8MP camera records in HD and takes crystal clear HD pictures. It even has a cool picture editor that you can edit pictures, add captions, draw, create 3D, sketch and so much more. Definitely an A+++ for the camera on this phone.
Platform
The platform the phone runs on is the Symbian platform. It’s not Android, but it still runs smooth, has great apps to choose from in the Ovi Marketplace, and seems (at least for me) not to bog down as much as when I had an Android phone. I can run several apps at once and it still runs fine. I like the fact that I can be in a phone call, go on the internet to look something up, and still be in that phone call. I work from home and can actually log into my web app work page and take a phone call at the same time. I love it!
Screen
The screen size is fantastic! At 3.5 inches, this screen is bright, crisp and shown in a resolution of 16:9 HD. Sometimes depending on how bright it is outside, I do have to put the screen at the maximum brightness to see the screen, but that was never an issue for me. I just switch the brightness level and I’m happy. The screen size makes it easy to view the internet and rarely do I have to scroll all over a page like I had to with smaller screen phones.
Sound
The sound is alright on this phone. It’s not as loud as I would like it to be (I’m a bit hard of hearing) but my husband says he has a hard time hearing on the phone as well. The speaker phone is really not that loud either; however, if you have a wireless blue-tooth in the car to play the phone through the speakers, it works better than just the regular speaker phone. Playing music when you have earphones on is fine as well. It just seems to be an issue with the actual speakers on the phone itself.
Email and Social Networking
Another thing I love about this phone is you can have more than one email account and more than one social network set up. I have both of my Facebook accounts (personal and business) set up on my phone. I have all 5 of my email addresses set up and never have an issue retrieving my email or updating Facebook. If you’re a socialite you can add your Twitter account(s), Yahoo! Messenger, work email, personal email like Yahoo!, Ymail, Gmail, even Cox and AT T; email addresses and so much more. I never miss a moment now that I have it all on my phone. If your friends add their birthdays on Facebook, you can even add them to your phone calendar with the tap of one single button. How cool is that? Now I won’t forget anyone’s birthday, and believe me, I forget everyone’s.
Web Browsing and Connectivity
Browsing the internet with this phone is a breeze. It is very simple and easy to use. You can add your bookmarks with the tough of the screen and again with only one touch you can bring up all your bookmarks. You can also set your home screen to what you like and choose who your search provider is. Since this phone supports two finger touch as well, it is very simple to zoom in and out to view larger text or make the text smaller. Turn the phone sideways and you can pretty much get an entire webpage and you won’t have to scroll all over just to read or look for something.
Texting and Swipe Feature
What I love about this phone is the Swipe keyboard. I love that I can just slide my finger around on the virtual QWERTY key pad and type in what I want. The predictive text is pretty much dead on for me. My fingers are not fat, but not small either, and I can text quickly and easily. You can use the Swipe to email, type in the internet, text and so on. What I also love is the fact that the more you text or use the Swipe application, the more words that you use get’s stored in the phones memory. Therefore, it will automatically predict what you want to say and bring it up for you. All you need to do is press a button and it inserts the word for you.
Battery Life
When I first got my phone I let the battery drain all the way till it was dead and the phone shut down, then charged it to 100 percent. I again let it drain till dead and then charged to 100 percent. I have not had a problem with the battery. I hear of people complaining about the battery life, so maybe they did not let the battery drain and then charge. With Lithium batteries to make the most of them you should let it drain completely and then charge it. This is what I do every day, and I never have a problem. I use it all day, let my son play games on it and it will last anywhere from 9 to 12 hours with heavy use. At night it usually almost drained, so I just let it power off on it’s own then charge it overnight. This also lets the phone reset it’s internal memory, just like you shut down your computer and restart it. Doing this will help save the battery life and phone memory.
Overview
All in all this is a great phone. I am in my mid 30’s and I love it. It’s really easy to use and set up. I love the screen size and color it has. There are some really great apps and games. My son is addicted to the Angry Birds game, and plays it on my phone all the time. This phone is so easy to use, that literally, my five year old can pick it up, unlock it, scroll to his home screen, and select the game he wants to play. One really cool feature I did not mention above it this flashlight on the camera. The flash can be used as a flashlight. So all those times that your power went out and you couldn’t find a candle or flashlight…..Well on this phone all you do is hold down the side slide button and the flash becomes a powerful flashlight! If I had to give my Symbian powered Nokia Astound a star rating I would give it 4.5 stars, only because of the sound issue not being loud enough for my ears.
