The C3-01 Touch and Type first showed its face at Nokia World a few months ago, and is now officially for sale on the Nokia Online Shop, SIM-free for £159.
It’s a cute little stainless steel device that offers a numeric keyboard and basic touchscreen functionality. It runs on Symbian Series 40, so it’s likely to be very basic, but you’re probably not expecting the pinch-and-zoom quality of an iPhone here anyway. It looks a bit like the older Nokia 6700 and 6300 devices, and can be used with just one hand — ideal for you multitaskers.
The Touch and Type carries 3G, Wi-Fi and a 5-megapixel camera with flash. Storage-wise, it supports microSD memory cards of up to 32GB. There’s also a music player and FM radio. It sounds like it packs in a fair amount of features for something that looks so small and simple. That steel chassis could also make it more durable than you might expect.
The C3-01 sounds like a more expensive version of the C2-01 we saw yesterday, but with a better camera, touchscreen and connectivity. You’ll have to pay more, of course, but that functionality may prove worthy of your cash. Having Wi-Fi and 3G, for example, means surfing the Internet and browsing the Ovi Store will be a much smoother experience.
If you don’t want to stump up the £159, there are a range of contract deals available with Vodafone, T-Mobile and O2 on two-year and 18-month plans. Line-rental costs range from £10 to £25, depending on what type of contract you go for and how much you are willing to pay for the handset up front.
Like any C-series phone, this isn’t going to change the world, but it’ll do the job. If you’re looking for something reasonably inexpensive that takes pictures, calls, texts and plays music without all the smart-phone frills, it could be ideal for you.