New Nokia 2012

Nokia C3-01 Gold Edition,Given the name, it is unsurprising that this new variant of the C3-01 is gold in colour, and actually has 18 carat gold plating. The Gold Edition was launched at about the same time that Nokia changed their naming convention, so this is most likely the swansong of the C-series of handsets and others.

The gold case is complemented by a “ceramic feel” keypad, and the phone’s on-screen theme matches the physical look of the device. Gold plated devices such as this are not to everyone’s taste, but we must say that we think it looks rather good.One interesting development is under the hood. The Nokia C3-01 Gold Edition packs a 1GHz ARM-based CPU, which is awfully fast for a basic phone such as this. Yes, faster is always good, but the C3-01 is really only suited for basic use so there’s not much point putting a very fast CPU in it. We understand that some models of the normal C3-01 (labelled C3-01.5 and RM-766 on the identification label) are also running 1GHz processors.

Nokia C3-01 Gold Edition at a glance

Available: Q3 2011

Network: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 + UMTS 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100

Data: GPRS + EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSPA + WiFi

Screen: 2.4″ 240 x 320 pixels, 262k colours

Camera: 5 megapixels

Size: Medium monoblock 111 x 48 x 11mm / 100 grams

Bluetooth: Yes

Memory card: MicroSD

Infra-red: No

Polyphonic: Yes

Java: Yes

GPS: No

OS: Series 40

Battery life: 4 hours talk / 18 days standby