Symbian's not dead yet. Check out CNET's hands-on photos of the Nokia Astound for T-Mobile.
Bonnie Cha
Bonnie Cha was a former chief correspondent for CNET Crave, covering every kind of tech toy imaginable (with a special obsession for robots and Star Wars-related stuff). When she's not scoping out stories, you can find her checking out live music or surfing in the chilly waters of Northern California.
The Nokia Astound is basically a rebranded version of the Nokia C7. It will be available from T-Mobile on April 6 for an affordable $79.99 with a two-year contract. Data plans for the smartphone will start at $10 per month.
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Symbian 3
Though Nokia will move to Windows Phone as its main operating system in the near feature, the handset manufacturer is still committed to Symbian. The Astound runs Symbian 3, which includes multiple home screens and a widget manager.
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Home screens
The Astound offers three customizable home screen. Each one can be personalized with different widgets and shortcuts. This screen features the phone's various multimedia features. It's easy enough to customize and looks nice on the smartphone's 3.5-inch AMOLED touch screen.
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Landscape mode
The home screen in landscape view.
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Sleek design
Nokia has always made great hardware, and the Astound is no exception. It's made of high-quality material and is sleek and compact. Shown here is the right spine, which features a volume rocker, a lock switch, and a camera button.
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Navigation controls
Below the display, you get talk and end buttons and a menu key.
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Top view
A 3.5mm headphone jack, a power button, and a Micro-USB port are located on top of the phone.
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Camera
The Nokia Astound is equipped with an 8-megapixel camera with a dual-LED flash. It's also capable of recording 720p HD video.
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Picture sample
This is an example of a photo taken with the Astound's camera. Sample photos looked extremely sharp with vibrant colors.
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Portrait keyboard
Unlike the Nokia N8, the Astound adds a keyboard in portrait mode and it comes with Swype as well.
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Wireless radios
In addition to the usual wireless radios, the Nokia Astound also has an NFC chip and supports Wi-Fi calling.
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Features
The Nokia Astound comes preloaded with Nokia Maps and the Ovi App Store with support for carrier billing. In addition, the smartphone comes with several extra apps, including Fruit Ninja and Slacker Radio.
Overall, we found the affordable price tag and attractive design to be compelling, but we have to wonder how many people are willing to buy a phone with a dying OS and in the wake of the AT&T-T-Mobile news.
