Nokia 603

Available now
13th October 2011

The Nokia 603 is a compact but quite powerful smartphone that aims to provide very good value for money.

This is a Symbian Belle device, running Nokia's latest in-house operating system. Symbian Belle is a much more usable and visually pleasing OS than its predecessors, and Nokia fans with older handsets may well enjoy this latest offering. However, Nokia is moving away from Symbian and will be concentrating on Windows more in the future, which seems a bit of a shame.

On the front is a medium sized 3.5" 360 x 640 pixel capacitive touchsreen display, on the back is a 5 megapixel camera capable of 720p HD video capture. Inside is a 1 GHz processor plus 2GB of internal flash memory and a microSD slot.

As with most modern smartphones, the Nokia 603 supports GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and has 3.5G connectivity. One key feature with the 603 is NFC support, here extended to allow single-tap pairing with a compatible Bluetooth headset, although NFC applications are still in their infancy.

The Nokia 603 also has a multimedia player, FM radio, social networking support, a pre-loaded copy of Angry Birds, a web browser and all the usual applications plus a large variety of applications available for download from the Nokia Store.

This handset weighs 110 grams and measures 114 x 57 x 12.7mm. The BP-3L battery is quoted as giving up to 7 hours talktime and 20 days standby time on 3G. The Nokia 603 is available in either black or white on the front with interchangeable coloured covers for the back in black, white, fuchsia, green, yellow and blue.

Perhaps the best bit about the Nokia 603 is the price, just €200 before tax and subsidy. Although the 603 isn't the most powerful smartphone on the market, it certainly offers a lot of features for the money.

Overall, this is a nice handset at an attractive price. Loyal Nokia fans will probably be pleased by this combination, and at this price it would also make an ideal first smartphone. Nokia say that the 603 should be available by the end of the year.