Nokia 7200 Review

By Allen Tsai | Tue 3rd, June 2008

Introduction

Nokia has always been at the forefront of cell phones, except when it comes to clamshells. But no more. The 7200 is Nokia's first GSM clamshell. Motorola and Samsung has dominated the flip phone market up until now, however things could change. Although typically the European and Asian markets prefer a block design, the North American market fuels clamshell product releases.

Design

The eye-catching phone strays far from the familiar Nokia phones in many areas. To begin with, its unorthodox look. It doesn't look anything like a phone, and could be easily mistaken for a small booklet or address book. Nokia claims the 7200 is its next fashion phone. And it definitely is fashionable. The exterior of the phone is covered in a new innovative fabric with intricate designs. Each 7200 comes with a Style Pack that includes coordinated covers, soft pouch and wrist strap with matching wallpapers and screensavers. All so you can match every aspect of your phone.

Being rather rectangular, its dimensions are 86 x 50 x 26 mm. Compared to most phones on the market, it's very small and compact. The keypad offers three soft keys and four-way scrolling. User configurable right and left soft keys are on the phone as well.

On the front of the lid is a camera lens. The built-in camera has a maximum resolution of 640 x 480 px. When taking pictures, the internal screen is used as the viewfinder. Three compression options (high, normal, and basic) are available for picture quality and file size. Additionally the camera has extra features such as Portrait Mode, Night Mode, and a 10 second self timer. Also, the handset can record video in SubQCIF - H.263 format, along with integrated video playback and download: .3gp file format (H.263 baseline, MPEG-4 simple profile).

Basic Features

To begin with, the 7200 will be dual-band 900 / 1800 GSM only. Unfortunately these frequency bands are only for European and Asian markets. Hopefully they will release a US version soon. Additionally, the 7200 comes with a 760 mAh Li-Ion battery that has maximum talk and standby times of 5 and 300 hours respectively under optimal conditions.

Screen

An external monochrome 96 x 36 px display is included on the front lid, offering information such as time, missed calls, messages, and caller ID. Additionally, there are animated black-and-white screensavers for the mini display to add to the 7200's look.

The internal screen is a 65,000 color 128 x 128 px TFT display. Up to 5 lines for text can be shown in basic mode with 16-pixel font. TFT, as opposed to STN, has the circuit transistors placed on the glass at the pixel location instead of the need to scan the pixel location. This results in greatly increasing the response time and allows for very fast refresh rates. Up until now, Nokia's new releases have primarily been 4096 colors, and have lagged behind other manufacturers. But the 7200's display is wonderfully bright, crisp, and colorful.

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