Get to know that Nokia XL is available for sell in KL & Selangor area, anybody got in hand of one?

699? I thought is 599

Nokia X2 2015
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_x2_with_impr...e-news-8573.php

Proud owner of Nokia XL.

A brief write up on Nokia XL from my standpoint.

For more details and professional review/write up, please visit http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_xl_dual_sim-review-1072.php

As a user from Nokia N95 to Nokia XL, this phone has almost all the spec upgrades from my old phone, but half the price of my old phone.
For me, this phone provides me a new user experience because of new operating system and new input method that I am dealing with.

1. Physical Appearance
The first time I saw this Nokia XL phone and I was like "This phone is so big, can I grab it within my hand?".
I actually can, and not too bad at all. With just one hand, my thumb still can reach most of the screen.

The cover of the phone impresses me as it looks rigid and solid to me, now I remembered why I like Nokia so much.
Although the screen does not have any protection again shatter and scratch, this makes me wanted to take more care on the screen.

Most Android phones has two or three touch buttons, but Nokia X phones has only one touch button, which simplifies things a lot.
With only one touch button, which is the back button, you do not have to think on which button does what function.
Tips: By touch and hold the back button, it will bring you back to the home screen directly.


2. The Operating System
So what makes me likes about Android is that this operating system is highly customizable, and hence more personalized.



Since this is an Android phone, you can install most of the Android application or APK file.
Nokia claims that around 80% of Android applications works with Nokia X software platform, and I kind of agree with that statement.

Nokia XL comes with its own store application, where you can download the apps that you want.
If you feel that the apps on the store is limited, you can download "1mobile market" and continue explore from there.
You can have many ways to get APK file into your phone, Bluetooth or SDCard or USB.

I did not root my Nokia XL, and there is no need for me to do so, because so far I can install and use the apps I want.
Here is the list of apps that I am having now:



3. The User Interface
Just like other Nokia X family phone, Nokia XL has Windows phone like live tile home screen and fastlane, which is simple enough for new user like me.
Instead of swiping left and right to find your apps, Nokia XL has up and down, which I kind of like it because of its simplicity.
If you still prefer the left and right swiping style from Samsung or Apple, you can get "Go Launcher" from "1mobile market".

Navigating from page to page does not give user a sense of lag or hang, although Nokia XL equipped with only 786MB of RAM with older generation processor.
This shows that Nokia did a good job customizing and optimizing the Android for Nokia X platform.

However, your phone might lag or hang for few seconds shortly after you powered up the phone, but after that, the phone is smooth as always.
Who actually power down and power up their phone that often nowadays?

Continue from my previous review on Nokia XL...

4. Connectivity
Equipped with 3G (SIM 1 only), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and micro USB.

I recently subscribed to data plan because I know that I will be using internet with Nokia XL.
The 3G speed is alright for normal web surfing and social apps, I did not perform any speed test through 3G.

Both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi works flawlessly.
However, if both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are used simultaneously, they might not perform well.
This is because both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are using the same 2.4 GHz spectrum range, which prone to interfere each other.

For micro USB, you can connect your Nokia XL to computer and mount both internal storage and SD Card as removable drive.
The micro USB cable does not come together with the purchase of your phone, you will have to get your own.
With Nokia X driver installed, tweak in Android SDK and USB debugging enabled on phone, you can use "ADB" tool.


5. Sound System
Nokia XL comes with a mono speaker, but a powerful one.
At half of the volume, your favorite song can be heard across the living room.
Avoid max out the volume as the clipping effect can be heard and the sound quality will decrease.
With such powerful speaker, speakerphone, ringtone and alarm tone are never a problem getting heard.

The 3.5mm audio & microphone connector gave you a freedom to plug in the earphone of your like.
The stock earphone with mic is just average. Invest in a high quality in-ear earphone to enjoy the high quality music from Nokia XL.



6. The eyes
The main 5MP auto-focus camera with a front 2MP camera are just sufficient to fulfill my need.
Nothing much fancy about the main camera as it does not have the Pureview technology, nor any special lens.
Photo tense to blur easily especially if your hand shakes.
Macro mode photographing makes easy with its auto-focus feature, capturing a clear photo for an object as close as 6cm is not a problem.
The camera flash is not bad either, when used as a torchlight, it illuminate pretty well in a dark place.

My email will check once I connected to wither 3G or Wi-Fi, but I never set to check periodically.

Some words for Nokia XL battery and charger.

This phone can get me around 2 days of battery on average usage, I surf more than talk.
During the first few days after getting this phone, because of intensively Wi-Fi usage and phone interaction, it can only give me about a day of battery.

My current phone profile:
- Vibrate
- No sound when touch.
- No keypad tones
- No lock screen sound.
- No vibrate on touch.
- Manual brightness, set to around 15%.
- Screen sleep after 1 minute.
- No glance screen.
- Wi-Fi, 3G and Bluetooth turn on when on demand.
- Does not switch to airplane mode when sleeping.
- Location always turn on.


A 750mA charger comes together with your purchase of Nokia XL, and it can full charge your phone in around or less than 5 hours. I did not really count the time for it to full charge, just an estimation. The charging time depends on the current phone usage while charging.

Note/Warning on battery and charger for Nokia XL:
================================
When your phone gave you the final warning on low battery, which is the 4% mark, you have to be better to feed it soon.
Why I say so is because Nokia XL checks the battery voltage to indicate if the battery is healthy. Normally if a battery has voltage that lower than their defined threshold, then the battery is considered dead.
Nokia XL will refuse to charge a battery which is considered dead, or has voltage lower than the expected limit.

So when you still continue to use your phone when the battery level is at or below 4% mark, your phone might switch it off itself after sometimes. If you insist to turn your phone back on, you might be able to do so for one or two times.
After that, due to the battery voltage lower than the expected limit, your phone won't turn on and refuse to charge.

If you happened to get into this scenario, be calm first. Take out your battery and let it rest for a few minutes, over time the chemical inside the battery will slowly raise the battery voltage when the battery is not using.

When you feel the time is right, plug in your battery again and then quickly connect your charger to see if your phone able to get charged again. If yes, thanks to Jesus or Allah or Buddha. If still no sign of charging, repeat take out battery, wait, put back and charge. If still not happening, then you might have to use manual charging.

I personally face this problem where my phone refuse to charge the battery even after a few hours of resting, because of the voltage went down so low that even the chemical inside won't help.
So what I did was I took out my camera desktop charger, which label 4.2V DC output, connect + to +, - to - terminal using crocodile clips and charge for few minutes. After the voltage rose to certain level, my phone finally able to get charged again after I put back my battery into the phone.
I seriously would not recommend this way because it involved some electrical skills, therefore I advise to charge your phone when the battery is low, to prevent the battery from over discharge.

One last thing is always use a charger which can give equal or more than 750mA of DC current at 5V, especially when you are using the phone while charging. If not you will face the same problem as I have above, then you might have to perform manual charging. 500mA is just not enough to charge the phone while the phone is in use, which is why the charger came together with your phone is rated at 750mA. Laptop and PC USB mostly giving 500mA, so becareful with it.

On my normal usage:

Just updated my Nokia XL to 1.2.3.1 today.
After the update, some of my apps not showing on the home screen, but they did shown in the "Manage Apps" list.
So what I did to "fix" them is to uninstall those affected apps and re-install them again.

Before update:


After update: