Jun 21, 2010 08:26 PM
3659 Views
(Updated Jun 12, 2012 12:51 AM)
Kindly support with comments as it my first ever review.
“The affordable clamshell” was the tag line used for this phone launched in Black, Pink, Bronze and Silver outfits. It arrived in India in the mid 2007 and was tagged around Rs 5500, suitably for the upper middle class of the cell phone market as well as the buyer strata. However, when I bought this machine in Nov 2007, I was already a fan of the reliability and durability of Nokia phones. Less surprisingly, it stood the test of time, and my ultra-irresponsible treatment meted out to it.
To me, frankly there are two fronts in mobile users…one the Nokia fan and the other the non-Nokia fan. Thus to anyone used to with Nokia phones will find this phone too, good or better than earlier versions of Symbian-40 phones with increased options per menu and user friendliness. Say for example one can actually send 20 contacts via SMS very easily by selecting them in the sending field, cutting and pasting in the text field and texting it to up to 20 contacts of your choice! Or clicking your own pic with the fold closed! Sounds cool? Then it must be your first encounter with Nokia (as pro Nokians are used to such out-of-the-box add-ons).
It had a strong stiff-up with Nokia 3110(a blockbuster by all standards) and Nokia 3500(the phone with a 2MP camera with kinda VGA or poorer pics!!!) which were relatively costlier (Rs 5500 and Rs 6000 respectively) when I bought this for 4750 bucks. And for this amount, what would you like to get? I can bet not all of this and more…
The specifications say…
VGA camera (480X640 for pics & 176X144 for videos), mounted on the flap luckily to justify it being a camera phone too! Don’t expect too much and you’d get good enough pics in day or bright light. The video mode is a letdown.
The Dual display with 64K color display for the main display while the outer LED lit blue display for essential notifications
(Song details, missed calls, network, battery, time, EDGE/GPRS availability and more) is more than value for money. So you don’t have to fold more for less!
The In-Built MP3 Player with equalizer (5 presets+2 personal styles), and mono-speaker has loud enough sound, offers easy access to songs, shuffle, play via Bluetooth functions.There is also a Media Player with Streaming enabled, according to the settings in your region.
The External Memory Card Slot (MicroSD) is an add-on in case switching on-off the phone time and again pisses you off!Expandability is up to 2GB (practically, hassle-free and smooth running up to 1.6-1.7 GB of memory).
Bluetooth 2.0 is extremely efficient in terms of power consumption and transfer speed, against the word that goes. Infrared is not there. Who cares?
There’s EDGE, GPRS and WAP. I’m using Opera Mini 4.2 and it gives me too good a speed to do all my browsing and social networking be it FB, Orkut, Twitter and of course Google to reach to any and every thing on the web in virtually no time! The phone’s browser is a dud. But the E-mail feature linked to popGmail is what you cannot expect in any phone of this genre.
The Keypad is a bit noisy but the distinct and distant keys make it fun for the SMS savvy! You can type without even looking at it once you are used to the conventions, which is more or less the same as older Nokia cells or even advanced.
The four navigation keys along with thetwo soft keys can be customized to various options and menus. Same old Nokia one may say, but lets not forget the extremes of usability and flexibility it offers.
The good-old BL-5C to handle some good hours of music play and stand-by. However keeping in mind it is NOT a music or High End Multimedia Device and of course the price bracket, it is descent.
Java applications can be downloaded or installed separately to enhance the usability as per one’s needs.
On the outside, it gives you the three Wonder keys, which are absent in so many costly phones too-.
The +/- Volume keys and a Camera access key (which obviously also clicks for you). You even have the option to either get back to stand by automatically when you close fold or keep it running (seriously handy if you are in the middle of a text or something on the net, and you want to pretend asleep while your dad or spouse walks in! Simply close the flap without losing anything!
The data cable is not provided but isn’t hard to find one, as it uses the same one as that of N70/72/73. The Earphones provided with are certainly below par, but again, if you are buying this as a music phone, don’t do it. Rather select Nokia 5130ME. In all a great performer and till date I’m happy texting with it as it is one of the better keypads I’ve used to date.
