Nokia's Blue and Silver X3 Phone Goes SIM Free

The Nokia X3 has now been released in a new colour variant, the original red on black edition X3 was originally released back in mid December as a SIM Free phone followed by launches on T-Mobile and Orange in late January but this sleek sliding music phone has now had a new makeover.

The Nokia X3 Blue is the second colour variant in the series and exchanges the outer casing colours from red and black to a sleek silver with blue accents, the key features remain unchanged as does the overall design of the phone.

This new Nokia X-Series music phone has been initially released as a SIM Free handset, this means that the user can insert their own SIM card whether that be on the pay as you go or contract scheme and retain their existing mobile number as well as any contact that they have saved to their SIM card.

The Blue Nokia X3 is the only current sliding music phone from the new X-range, this new model joins the existing Nokia X6 in the series offering slightly cut down features for a smaller price tag. The Nokia X6 has been available for a couple of months in its blue colour format with the red on black edition being released recently.

The Nokia X6 has also now been made available in a new 16GB edition, this is half the memory capacity of the original 32GB models and also Nokia have left out their 'Comes with Music' service found on the previous models which entitled the user to 12 months of music downloads for free.

The new Nokia X6 16GB is also available in a different colour scheme to the other two 32GB models, the first to be released is finished in a matt balck finish on Virgin Mobile whilst a planned pink, silver and white edition are yet to make it to market.

Getting back to the Nokia X3, this compact slider offers the same great music playing abilities and a 3.5mm audio jack for using standard headphones, other features include a 3.2 mega pixel camera, dedicated music keys, up to 16GB of memory using MicroSD cards, Nokia Maps for navigation and access to the Ovi Store for downloading new applications and mobile content.

There is no word currently as to when this blue edition of the X3 will be released by any of the network operators but we expect this to follow pretty soon.

Competitors to the Nokia X3 are pretty thin on the ground, dedicated music phones are few and far between but LG have just released a budget phone with built in stereo, bass tuned speakers called the LG GM205 whilst Samsung has their Beat DJ phone which includes unique scratch pads to interact with your music like a DJ.

Sony Ericsson's Walkman range is probably the closest competitor to Nokia's X-Range, the Sony Ericsson W995 is still the highest specification Walkman device available whilst the new Sony Ericsson Aino is a new all round multimedia phone with a good music player and large screen for watching videos.

When it comes to the manufacturers own models the Nokia X6 is an obvious contender but slightly more expensive whilst the new Nokia 5230 is a mid range touch screen music phone from the previous XpressMusic range which may well appeal.