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Review of GSM-handset Nokia 7210 SupernovaLive photos of Nokia 7210 Supernova
Table of contents:
Sales package:
PositioningApparently Nokia is marching towards the low-end of the market as every new collection it has churned out so far comes with a couple of budget solutions. The only exception in this sense is the 8000 series, which has retained its original focus. On the other hand, the manufacturer’s latest and greatest affordable line-up, the Supernova, starts with the Nokia 7210 – a 120 Euro phone with a very unsophisticated sales package and focus on women (although one of its trims will fit men too).  Looking to create an inexpensive phone that could rival a slew of other offerings out there, Nokia turned to its 5310 (actually the same applies to the Nokia 7310 Supernova as well) and copied all features and abilities of the latter (including the music department), bar dedicated music controls. By and large the 7210 Supernova is an affordable solution for those who is in for market for their first phones (students), or young girls (who need no bells and whistles in their handsets) and some men too (they’ll make up to 20 percent of all sales) who couldn’t resist the 7210’s design. That said, the 7210 Supernova should become one of the market’s most popular offerings and its price will be one of the contributing factors. Since it lacks exchangeable covers, the 7210 seems to be a tad less appealing than the Nokia 7310 Supernova, but not in terms functionality, obviously. Back to the table of contents >>> Design, size, controlsThe 7210 Supernova comes in bubble gum pink and vivid blue. The former trim is aimed at women; make no mistake about that – who else these pink inserts are supposed to appeal to otherwise? They are made of rubber and sometimes seem like a bunch of keys, but in fact all buttons are housed right next to then. The second color scheme is not so gaudy and is more of a versatile solution.  The handset measures up at 106x45x10.6 mm and tips our scales at 69.8 grams, which makes it a very svelte, pocket-friendly and lightweight device.    The left-hand side houses the charger socket (2mm), whereas the top end of the phone hosts the rest of its ports and connectors, including the 3.5mm audio jack, USB slot and the power button. The volume rocker is perched on the right; there is no dedicated camera button, although the 7210 Supernova does have a 2 Mpix camera on the back. It also has a lanyard eyelet onboard.   The ambient light sensor that adjusts the backlight of both the keypad and display is mounted on an unusual place – right next to the earpiece. The microphone’s pinhole can be found on the front to the right of the keypad.  Back to the table of contents >>> DisplayThe 7210’s display sports 2-inch diagonal and a resolution of 240x320 pixels (31x41 mm), showing up to 262K colors. Compared to the Nokia 5310 and Nokia 7310, this phone carries a cheaper screen, which still manages to output a bright and vivid picture (although senior models easily trump the 7210 on this front) The display remains readable in the sun (TFT), which is mainly due to the tinted protective layer. However, even this screen starts glaring heavy on some occasions, so you will need to find the right angle. Regrettably, given the display’s relatively tiny diagonal, it is not very convenient to use outdoors, which is also true of other phones with 2-inch screens onboard.  The display accommodates up to 9 text and 3 services lines. The font size won’t give you any trouble, furthermore, you can manually adjust its size for some modes and applications. Back to the table of contents >>> KeypadThe 7210 houses a generic keypad for slim phones. It’s a flat metallic slab, pretty average as far as ergonomics goes, but we have no serious gripes with it; nor does it have any real advantages over other units of this breed. All keys are lit in an unobtrusive white.   Back to the table of contents >>> BatteryThe handset comes with a new battery type – the BL-4CT, which is a 860 mAh Li-Ion cell. As the maker claims, it is good for up to 2 hours of talk time and 250 hours of standby. In Moscow, our 7210 lasted around 3 days with 2 hours of music, 1,5 hours of calls and very few SMS. So most users may expect it to stay online about 2-3 days with their usage patterns. The longest music playback time we managed to squeeze out of it (native headphones, max volume settings was 18 hours 50 minutes (radio module enabled). It takes the 7210 1 hour and 40 minutes to charge from empty to full. Back to the table of contents >>> Memory, memory cardsThe handset ships with around 29 Mb of storage that can be managed by the user. The microSD memory expansion slot is housed under the battery compartment cover, and on top of that, it allows you to swap cards on the fly. The maximum memory card size supported by the device is unlimited – we plugged in our 8 Gb unit and experience absolutely no problems with it. Back to the table of contents >>> PerformanceJAR-file size limit – 1 Mb, heap size – up to 2 Mb. The 7210 is no different from its platform’s average results performance wise.    Back to the table of contents >>> USB, BluetoothUSB. The Nokia 7210 comes with the microUSB socket, housed on the top edge of the phone. This socket is used for plugging in a data cable (the phone starts charging up), headset or charger. The vendor says that the handset supports USB 2.0, and it does indeed, in USB Mass Storage mode the connection via USB cable puts up medium data transfer speed which makes up about 500-600 Kb/s. This is slower than the Motorola RAZR2 V8, which also comes installed with microUSB-socket. Upon successful connection you can pick one of the following modes: USB Mass Storage, PC Studio, or modem mode. The 7210 also supports the MTP mode. Bluetooth. The handset comes with EDR-enabled Bluetooth 2.0. The following profiles are supported:
The Bluetooth implementation is, as always though, nothing to complain about, we encountered no issues with handling this type of connections. The stereo-headset also worked fine. The 7210’s Bluetooth speed tops out at around 170-180 Kb/s. Back to the table of contents >>> CameraThis handset has 2mpx camera (CMOS) which is not that much by today’s standards, but it is still pretty much sufficient for a mid-tier offering. Nokia has decided not to bet on the camera part, it is more of an optional feature here. This is why camera’s module picked for 7210 is one of the cheapest units out there, and provides average quality. The following resolutions are supported:
Two lower resolutions were added for creating photos that would fit as wallpapers for display. Three JPEG compression types are supported: basic, normal, high. Considering the fact that photos do not blow your imagination away, it is better to go for the top quality, it won’t get any worse after all. The shutter sound can be disabled, also there is a 8x digital zoom, but there is no reason to use it. You can save photos in the internal memory or on the memory card. Some effects can be applied to the already made photos, should they be used initially – it is up to you to decide. Such effects as False Colours, Greyscale, Sepia, Negative, Solarize are available.
For those who love to shoot a lot of photos at once, there is special mode for you – camera makes up to 3 shots at a time, all settings remain similar to those selected for the single shot mode, including the resolution. There is an auto-timer for self-shots. Video. The handset allows recording video in 3GP format, available resolution – 128x96 pixels, or 176x144 pixels. There are three recording quality settings available. You can limit a recording’s length, but it also can be unlimited, so you will keep recording until the memory runs out (memory card or internal memory). Effects can be applied for video just as they can be applied for photos, they are all the same. Video sample (3gp, 145 kb) >>> Back to the table of contents >>> Menu, themes, applications, gamesThe handset boasts a number of themes that substantially vary its looks, seem to be well-elaborated, meshing with the handset’s overall image.
The 7210 also offers a couple of Supernova-styled themes, but they are nothing out of this world.
The handset comes preinstalled with an array of games – Snake III, Bounce Tales, Sea Sweeper, Sudoku.
The Applications section includes such standard functions like World Time, Converter, Widgets installer, and Nokia’s catalogue for uploading new apps. Also the 7210 ships with Nokia Search that allows searching information and images on the web (custom search engines for every region). Opera Mini needs no introductions; it comes preinstalled on most S40-based phones. Nokia Sensor will certain appeal to the youth.
Also there are two more applications – Yahoo! Go and Flikr.
Back to the table of contents >>> ImpressionsThe 7210 Supernova isn’t a particularly loud phone, but it doesn’t differ from the Nokia 5310 on this front in any significant way - in many situations you will find its alert volume insufficient, which is our main gripe with this phone. In terms of reception quality it does just fine; the vibro alert is average strength-wise, but it won’t let you down. The Nokia 5310 entered the market last October at the price point of 180 Euro. September 2008 will see the Nokia 7210 with a price tag of 120 Euro, while the 5310’s price will float down to the level of 140 Euro by then. While their designs are different, all things considered, the Nokia 7210 Supernova is a replica of the Nokia 5310. The only difference is that the newcomer is somewhat sluggish and doesn’t load applications as fast as the 5310. Although our Java performance tests don’t indicate any major shift on this front, a bit of sluggishness is definitely there. It seems that Nokia has decided to cut costs a little and halved the 7210 Supernova’s RAM size. On the other hand, it’s still quite passable – perhaps not blazing fast at times, but nothing you won’t be able to put up with. Consumers seem to love Nokia’s affordable phones, and the 7210 Supernova won’t be an exception for sure. However its list of rivals is pretty massive – there is an horde of other relatively cheap solutions that have rolled down to this price bracket at the end of their life cycles. In other words, there are a lot of phones to choose from apart from the 7210 Supernova. Related links:
Back to the table of contents >>> Eldar Murtazin ([email protected]) Published — 15 July 2008 Have something to add?! Write us... [email protected]
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