Falls short of potential.

As a long time Nokia and Wifi Calling/UMA user, I am very disappointed in the C7 Astound. Now, granted, some of my issues seem to be inherent in most touch screen smart phones. And I do come from almost a decade of using non-touch screen Nokia Communicators and a few that were not Communicators.

Some history for comparison: In May of 2011 I bought an Android TMO MyTouch 3G. The battery life was appalling, the constant "Phone Home" of Google was annoying, and I horribly missed a "real" keyboard, even with the little one in the 3G. After a month I bought a Nokia E90. Well, that Symbian 60 OS was a frickin' bear, but I got it tamed and pretty much liked it.

But I spend time at a place that the E90 had sporadic cellular connections. Ironically, the MT 3G not only had great reception, but the Wifi Calling worked well, too.

So I thought the Astound would give me Wifi Calling at that location and let me rejoin the touchscreen age. What a disappointment. The radio sensitivity of the WLAN circuit is abysmal. Although the 3G and laptops have trouble connecting from within the room I spend time in, the Astound can barely connect and then drops after half a minute. It's frickin' worthless.

So, the MT 3G has MUCH better cellular sensitivity, and MUCH better WLAN sensitivity. Which is ironic, cuz if you got the first, you don't need the latter.

The Nokia maps has only one good thing going for it. You can download the entire USA or other places and use it offline, no data connection needed. However, it is nowhere as intuitive as the Androidn/Google GPS system. For instance in the latter, in Search, you can use contacts in your list. In the Nokia, you have to move from your GPS to Contacts and select one, then use a show on GPS function.

The Nokia "One Touch Calling" is actually many touches, especially compared to the E90 and other dumbphones. Push a key on the front for three seconds, you are dialing. The Nokia phone functions require many more "touches" than the Android, no matter what you are doing. Simple example: Open a contact, Nokia tells you that there are two phone numbers for that contact. In Android, it SHOWS you the two numbers. One more touch.......

Maybe it's my gorilla fingers, but I can NOT use the virtual KB's of either the MT3 or the Astound. A simple text takes me 5, 10 minutes of utter frustration. I'm thinking of going so far as to using a mini Bluetooth KB, keeping it in my belt pouch with the phone.

On the positive, it's slim, it's attractive. Oh, boy. Rather have function.

BTW, I do NOT write in a one block paragraph. I actually use breaks. Sorry if this is hard to read, thank eBay.

The Astound It's the first Symbian^3 phone sold through a US mobile operat

The Astound is a very attractive phone with a broad chrome bezel around the screen that's tastefully engraved with the T-Mobile logo. The phone's back is dominated by a stainless steel battery door and a chrome panel that carries the dual stereo speakers, camera lens and dual LED flash. The main body made from a quality satin silver finished plastic. The top of the phone houses a micro-USB port, 3.5mm headphone jack, and power button. The right side has up and down volume rockers flanking the voice command key along with the lock slider and a dedicated camera button. A couple of these keys do double duty; the voice command key also mutes the microphone when pressed during a call and holding down the lock slider turns on the phone's flashlight (torch). Curiously, the flashlight only works if the phone display is showing the home screen. The left side has the Nokia 2mm charging port (the Astound can also be charged with USB). The bottom of the phone has an eyelet for attaching a strap or charm. The Astound has 256 MB RAM, 512 MB of C: drive phone memory for installing apps, an 8 GB internal SD. A micro-SD card slot under the battery accepts cards up to 32 GB.
The 3.5 inch Super AMOLED screen (same diagonal dimension as the iPhone) has a resolution of 640 x 360 px. Although the C7 doesn't use Nokia's Clear Black technology, I'm very pleased with the way it looks in normal light where it delivers excellent sharpness, contrast and color saturation In bright sunlight the screen washes out a bit but is still generally readable if you shield it a bit with your hand.
The 8 MP camera is an Extended Depth of Field (EDoF) unit. EDoF uses a fixed focus lens together with sophisticated post processing that achieves sharp focus from about 30 inches to infinity. While Nokia's gotten a lot of criticism over the use of EDoF on the flagship E7, I think it's a good choice for an entry level smartphone like the Astound.
I would recommend this Cellphone!!

Great phone

Easy to use now with Symbian Anna is performance is better and beauty .

Pros:
Good processor 680mhz
8MP camera with double flash takes good pics at night
Excellent style and design
Easy to use handly and confortable
WiFi calling for places with week gsm signal
Great battery life better than others smatphones
It really gets 3G
Price $$

Nokia store has good apps, great for going social.

Cont:
Needs more apps to browse the internet I mean more third party apps needs to include nokia in US
Front camera could be a little bit better.
256 of RAM should be more if you wanna play games and play movies
Hasn't software to unlocked it for free like others

Overall is an excellent phone love it

THE C7 ASTOUND IS AWSOME!!!

I ALWAYS WANTED A SMARTPHONE,EVERYONE TOLD ME DONT BUY THE NOKIA C7 ASTOUND IT DOES NOT RUN THE ANDROID OPERATING SYSTEM.BUT GUESS WHAT? I LOVE IT!!NOTE THAT I CANT DOWNLOAD NETFLIX ON IT,IT HAS BILT IN GPS,8GB INTERNAL MEM,8MEGA PIX CAMERA,DUAL CAMERAS.SO MANY MORE FEATURS TO MUCH TO RIGHT DOWN.I LOVE THIS PHONE.

Like an iPhone but just Great! Read on

After reading mixed reviews about Nokia's quality I desided to take a chance with them and so far everything is working fine. I have had this phone for about 3 weeks. At first the battery was a pain. It would last only for roughly 10 hrs. But what people forget the new battery technology needs time for the battery to be recharged to meet peak Power efficiency. Now being several weeks of charging. I find the battery to be fine and normal for this processor and amazing screen quality.

The features it has to offer are great. This phone can do pretty much the same as any other smart phone and more. I have not tested all the perks of this phone, but love the fact that it meets my needs. The camera can take pretty decent photos, but probably would have taken best pictures if it had auto focusing technology. Video is excellent for 720p. Texting can be tricky at times I find it picking the wrong letters at times so its best to text landscape mode with both hands. GPS is a BIG plus to have. Its all free for the lifetime of this phone and that was the main reason I decided to go with this phone. My bill with T-Mobile is under $40 and I have all the benefits as my friends who pay top dollar for unlimited plans. Really stupid of them to throw their money away.

Overall I give this phone 4 STARS. It could have been 5 if Nokia just took the time to make some of the things great. But still a great phone. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for Good camera quality, GPS, APPs(vie Ovi store), Video.

You really need to test it in person to see if its the right phone, but if your going by my review the best comparison is the iPhone which I really wanted but this phone rocks!