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Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Review

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INTRODUCTION

My Mum’s trusty Nokia 6230i was close to packing up when I had bought her a new phone which was supposed to be her Christmas present. The keypad on her phone had been going for a while, and it looked like it was going to go completely, so I gave the phone to her a month early (November 2009). I’d seen a few touchscreen phones advertised on Ideal World, and realised they had a number of advantages especially as many of them seem to have decent sized keys and a good sized screen.
After having a look at the vast array of touchscreen phones on the Carphone Warehouse website I was drawn to the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic (which I will refer to as the Nokia 5530 from now on) because it was on offer at £99.99 plus a £10 top up, and it had wi-fi on it which meant Mum could surf the internet on her phone using our wireless broadband connection. Mum wanted a pink phone, and this handset happened to feature in the Illuvial Pink Collection, so that is what I bought. This handset retails from £129.99 on pay as you go depending on the network, so I got a bargain. This phone is often free on pay monthly deals depending on the length of the contract. You can also buy a ‘comes with music’ version from the Nokia website which enables you to download as much music as you want for a year, and keep the downloaded files forever.
SMARTER THAN THE AVERAGE MOBILE?

The Nokia 5530 falls into the smartphone category as it runs using the Symbian S60 operating system. I’m not sure that the term ‘smartphone’ is relevant now as mobile phones seem to be able to do everything these days except making the proverbial cup of tea. I also think that the iPhone has raised the bar which has lead to the consumer demanding even more from their phones. Over the past couple of years the marketplace become saturated with what I can only describe as iPhone wannabes, and within an affordable price range. This is exactly what the Nokia 5530 aims to do.
The rest of the main specifications are as follows:

* 3.15 megapixel camera with auto focus and LED flash, video mode recording upto 640×480 30 frames per second
* 2.9 inch widescreen touch screen with 16.7 million colours
* 70 MB internal memory, but has a memory card slot supporting MicroSD HC cards upto 16GB
* Bluetooth
* Wi-fi (b and g standards) and GPRS/EDGE connectivity
* Music player supporting a range of formats including AAC, AAC+, eAAC, M4A, MP3 and WMA
* Battery life (talk time 4 hours 54 minutes, 27 hours music playback, standby time 351 hours)
* 3.5mm headphone/headset port
* Download third party applications that support Symbian S60 fifth edition including Nokia’s Ovi Store
* FM Radio with RDS

The full specification is available on Nokia’s website if you want to know more.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
Along with the phone, charger and the battery the box contained:-

* Instruction manual
* 4GB microSDHC card (Mum’s was already inside the phone)
* USB cable
* Mini CD with handset management software (although you can download the latest version from the Nokia website)
* Headset/earphones
* Wrist strap
* Pouch

HANDSET DESIGN
The phone looks modern and stylish, my Mum’s phone as I said is the Illuvial Pink version and the front of the phone is silver. The back is what I can only describe as pearlised white with pink dots forming a swirly but pretty pattern. The phone is joined together with a hot pink metallic accent. It feels sturdy and well made, and my Mum has dropped it several times and the phone still works no problem. I will say that it feels slimmer in the hand than other touchscreen phones on the market, and I believe that is down to it’s widescreen display and even with my small hands it is comfortable to hold. The phone weighs 107 grammes, and I felt it was lightweight, but not so light that it is going to blow away in the slightest gust of wind. My Mum and I have never felt the need to use the wrist strap except when out for security/safety reasons and when using the camera.

The front of the phone features the all important touch screen, and it also includes three touch sensitive buttons for answering and ending phone calls and accessing the menu. The camera and LED flash and video light are located on the back, but it doesn’t have a mirror for taking self portraits. The back of the phone pulls off, and I found it took a bit of practice before I got the hang of it, but I am still wary of breaking it.
On the left hand side of the phone you’ll find the memory card and SIM card slot and also the stylus. I like the idea that the memory card slot is on the side of the phone which makes it easy to change it for a bigger one if I want to. I admit I’ve never come across a slide type SIM card holder before, and simplifies the process of inserting the SIM. If I need to remove it (say if Mum changed networks) then I simply remove the back cover, pop out the battery and slide out the SIM with a pen (opening the slot cover of course!). The stylus looks to me like the a thinner version of the ones you get with the Nintendo DS family of consoles. It pulls out easily, but you do need to have fingernails to get hold of it and when you’ve finished with it it’s just a matter of sliding it back in and once it’s in place there’s a reassuring click so it’s not going to fall out of the phone.

On the right hand side there’s the volume control buttons, the phone lock slider and the camera key. I really like the design of the phone lock slider as it really reduces the chance of the phone unlocking in your bag or pocket and accidently phoning someone or connecting to the internet. Mum hasn’t experienced any problems with it, and neither have I when I’ve borrowed her phone while mine is on charge. The camera key enables quick and easy access to the camera and a more natural way of taking photos (or video if using that mode). Just underneath is the slot to put a wrist strap and or a charm, but the phone back has to be removed to insert it.
As with most Nokia phones, and certainly those I’ve had in the past the power button is located on the top. I felt that the pressing power was just right, a good firm press switches the phone on or off, and if the the phone is on, a gentler press brings up a menu enabling you to change profile, lock the screen, or turn the phone off. This also means that the phone won’t turn itself on or off while in a bag and so on, which in my opinion is good as there are many places which require a mobile phone to be switched off. I really like this as it makes it a doddle to change the phone to the offline mode if you want to listen to music in a place where you can’t use mobile phones such as on a plane, or you don’t want to be disturbed by phonecalls or message alerts.

The bottom on the phone features the USB connection, charger port and the headset port and everything is easy to connect. I really like the way that Nokia has used a 3.5 mm port for the headset as it also means you can use standard earphones rather than a dedicated headphones/headset which is specific to the phone which is just as well as I don’t like the earphones/headset which comes with the phone as it’s those that go right inside the ears. As I am someone who can fall asleep listening to soothing music, I would be wary of using these incase the earpieces broke off.
THE SCREEN
The screen is bright and clear, and displays photos and videos beautifully thanks to the 16.7 million colour display. I would say that it seems smaller when compared to its rivals although it is 2.9 inches, but I think it’s because it’s widescreen and I thought the same when I bought my first widescreen laptop.

I think Nokia have made excellent use of the accelerometer technology in being able to read messages and navigate the main menu in landscape mode by turning the handset.
On the whole the screen is very responsive when using the keypad and accessing menu options and the vast majority of using and navigating the phone can be done using my fingers. I find that I need to use the stylus when browsing the internet in order to tap on links successfully or if I want to use handwriting recognition.

The one thing I would say is the screen is difficult to see in bright sunlight, but that seems to be the case for a lot of touchscreen phones.
As with most Nokia phones my Mum and I have owned, the Nokia 5530 is on the whole easy to navigate. The menus are well laid out and clearly labeled, and I soon found my way around the phone. My Mum doesn’t like complicated technology, and she finds the phone easy to use. If she was writing this review, she’d say that if she can use it then anyone can.
PERSONALISATION

One of the things I love about this phone is how customisable it is. Along with the usual settings such as wallpaper ringtones and message alerts, I can also set up the home screen to give me quick and easy access to the functions and applications that I use the most. Options include a scrollable contacts bar, email indicator and search function. The only disadvantage is that the phone’s wallpaper is obscured, and Mum prefers her screen to be uncluttered so she can see her wallpaper. I think the best feature is the shortcuts bar which can be set up to use the four favourite items. What I love about this is that you can create a shortcut button for most things including 3rd party applications and bookmarks.
In addition to the home screen, you can customise your phone’s wallpaper, ringtone and message alerts. The selection of built in ringtones isn’t very exciting in my opinion, but you can download your own sounds and music using the USB cable or by Bluetooth, or get them from various websites which sell ringtones and alert sounds.

It should also come as no surprise that ringer alerts are loud and clear even if the phone is buried in the deep dark depths of my handbag (or Mum’s for that matter) so I don’t end up with hundreds of missed calls or messages, again usually from Mum asking where I am and to please call her if I didn’t hear my phone ring.
PHONE CALLS
There is little point in having a phone that can’t make phone calls. I access the dialer screen by tapping on the telephone button (this will be a button with the word ‘telephone’ on it or an icon depending on how the phone is set up). The buttons are big and the numbers are easy to read. You can of course click on the contacts button to use a number from there then I press (or rather tap) on the green accept button to dial up the number and the red reject button to end the call. If I want to answer the phone I just press the green accept button, if the screen lock has kicked in then I just unlock the keypad using the switch on the right hand side of the phone to unlock it. If I can’t talk on the phone, I can choose to reject the call by sending a text message, either with a preset message or a custom one. The sound quality is as good as I would expect from Nokia, I can hear who is calling clearly, and the person on the other end can hear me. I haven’t experienced any problems with dropped calls or the signal except during network outages which happens occasionally.

I also found it easy to navigate those dreaded automated telephone menus, for example when topping up my phone with a voucher. I just press the dialer button so I can tap on whatever keys I need to do what I want. Likewise if I want to access some of the other in call functions such as speaker phone, they are easy to access during the call, this will vary depending on the in call features supported by the network. O2 on Pay and Go doesn’t support call hold or being able to answer a second call for example.
MESSAGING
The Messaging menu is nicely organised with multimedia and text message stored in the Inbox, and with separate Inboxes for email accounts as and when they are set up. I downloaded the Windows Live application for my Mum, so her Hotmail account has been added to her phone, but you can use any POP3 or IMAP based account.

The rest of the Messaging menu consists of folders for sent messages, an outbox, drafts and delivery reports and a My Folders section giving me a place to store those messages I want to keep. Mum uses this to store any funny messages I have sent where my predictive text has gone awry. It’s also easy to save media content like mini movies and photos on to the handset memory or the memory card, but this has to be done within the message.
Text, multimedia messages and emails are straightforward with all the features that I would expect. I have a choice of three ways of entering text either by the phones keypad, or using the phone’s QWERTY keypad which is activated by turning the phone into the landscape position. Mum and I don’t have the largest hands in the world and we can use this without resorting to the stylus but someone with bigger hands might have to. There is a handwriting recognition mode but Mum doesn’t use it, and I think it is more of a gimmick than a serious text input mode as it is far quicker to type a message using either of the keypads.

Text can be entered using T9 predictive text, and as with all Nokia phones (certainly those that I’ve used) I select the word that I want by pressing the star key, and as it is a touch screen I can also tap on the word I am entering to select the one I want. It is also straightforward to add words to the dictionary again by tapping on the word I’m entering to bring up the menu and selecting the ‘spell’ option, this is much better than say on the LG Cookie I used to have where ‘Add to Dictionary’ is buried in a menu. I think it’s a shame that the predictive text option isn’t available on the QWERTY keypad as it can make entering text faster. As well as adding multimedia content I can also create templates so I can save time typing the same message out repeatedly.
My only complaint is that deleting multiple messages is fiddly, as Nokia hasn’t used a checkbox style system enabling easy selection/de-selection of messages to delete or keep depending which way I do this. I can select all the messages using the menu, and then use the same menu to deselect those I want to to keep.
BROWSING THE WEB

As I mentioned earlier in this review, this phone has wi-fi support, which was one of the main reasons I bought it for my Mum. It was a breeze to connect the phone to our wireless router, it was a matter of allowing the phone to detect the network and then entering the password or key depending which security system is used by the network.
The web browser is as good as others I’ve used on other phones, but I needed to tweak the settings to enable Mum to choose the connection she wants to use when surfing the web so she can use our wi-fi connection at home or the mobile network when out and about. As with most phones, the browser is slow to load pages over a GPRS connection, so I downloaded the Opera Mini browser (which I am working on a review of) which loads pages a lot faster in my opinion and also offers tabbed browsing. It does take a little while to get used to browsing the web with a touch screen, and I found that regardless of browser used that I needed to use the stylus to tap on web links.
MUSIC PLAYER

Obviously with a name like XpressMusic, I can expect this phone to have a good music player and I’m not disappointed. There is a 4GB microSDHC card included as standard which is certainly useful as the built in 70MB would not hold very much music, but I guess that it kept the price of the handset down. 4GB is a good starting point, but if you’ve got a large music collection then I’d recommend investing in a larger memory card, the biggest card this phone will accept is 16GB. There are various ways of getting music (and other files) on to the phone including Bluetooth and Nokia Music Store using the wi-fi connection. I use the USB connection as it is the quickest, though I laughed at the size of the USB cable supplied as it is a few centimetres long! I recommend using a laptop or a USB hub to stop the phone dangling in a precarious position. It has to be seen to believed, I’ve taken a photo of it and it’s in the picture area!
The actual music player is very good, and does everything I would expect from a dedicated device such as an iPod. I can view my music in numerous views including by Artist, Album and so on. I think the interface is a bit cumbersome in places, mainly when setting up and organising playlists on the phone and having to refresh the music library every time I add new music. Playing albums is straightforward, and is a matter of scrolling through the artist list or in album view to find what you want then double tapping on the track you want to listen to. If I feel like it I can also use shuffle to play my music in a random order.

The sound quality from the speaker is excellent and it’s capable of filling an average sized room with sound. Mum and I have used the phone as a music player in our bedrooms (I’ve borrowed it when my iPod’s run out of battery and needed some music to help me rest when I have been ill or can’t sleep) and in the lounge and I’d say it’s comparable to a portable CD/Radio/Cassette player. Mum and I like a wide variety of music ranging from pop/rock to classical music and we have no complaints with the overall sound quality regardless of the genre, so I am of the opinion the phone deserves its XpressMusic name.
RADIO
Having been impressed with the radio on the Nokia N70 I had a few years ago, I had high expectations for the radio on the Nokia 5530. I was a bit disappointed to be honest as the antenna (which is the headset/headphone cable) didn’t seem as sensitive and can’t pick up as many radio stations with a good signal as I could on the N70 or my Samsung Tocco Lite. The Nokia 5530 features RDS which helps you identify the station you’re listening to, and I found that I couldn’t get the station ID to display even with stations with a strong signal such as the BBC Nationals, Classic FM or local stations.
CAMERA

This phone has one of the best mobile phone cameras that I’ve used so far. The camera is easily accessed by pressing the hot key on the bottom right hand side of the phone this also doubles as the shutter/capture button, and I can zoom in or out using the touch screen (which is fiddly) or the volume controls located on the top right hand side of the phone. As with any mobile phone camera I’ve used it’s a digital zoom. The phone has an auto focus feature and this works in pretty much the same way as a regular digital camera – by pressing the shutter button half way down, and then pressing all the way down to take a photo.
I can access various settings using the touch screen which takes a little while to get used to. I simply touch the screen and a menu comes up enabling me to turn the flash/light on and off or use red eye reduction, and access a menu to switch to video mode as well as a host of settings such as scene mode and white balance and so on. I am very impressed by the range of settings as it isn’t far off a conventional digital camera.

As with most mobile phone cameras, I find that I get the best quality photos on a sunny day, but I still get a good result in overcast conditions, though the colours, especially green, can appear a bit oversaturated. I have found the automatic setting does a good job most of the time, and I also like the way the camera appears to ‘know’ when I’m trying to take a close up image even if I haven’t set the camera to macro mode which is a good timesaver. I have taken many photos which have been good enough to print. I have printed a beautiful 6X8 inch photo of my cat which is framed and on the top of our sideboard unit and you wouldn’t believe it was taken on a mobile phone. Personally I feel that 6X8 inches is the biggest I would print, and it depends on the overall photo. I have included some photos I’ve taken with this phone in the photos area to get an idea of the image quality.
Taking photos indoors using the flash is a bit hit and miss as I have found some of my pictures turn out grainy as it seems to bump up the ISO (light sensitivity) rating too high in my opinion.

The video mode enables me to record footage which Nokia describes as TV quality, and most of the time it produces good results with smooth playback and excellent sound quality. It’s not up to the standard of a traditional camcorder, but it is fine for capturing short movies if I haven’t got my camcorder to hand for example when I’ve found my cat curled up in bizarre places which he calls his new bed. I can also set the video camera mode to record at a lower resolution to send videos in multimedia messages or emails.
I can view my photos and video footage in the Gallery which offers the usual set of features I would expect. It takes advantage of the phone’s accelerometer technology to get the best viewing experience. I found the phone is sparse on photo and video editing functions. There are a few basic tools such as being able to crop or rotate an image for wallpaper to name a couple of examples.While I can probably download software from Nokia’s Ovi Store, I prefer to download my photos and video on to a computer as I think that a video/photo editing program is in my opinion going to be more versatile than anything a mobile phone can offer.
THIRD PARTY APPLICATIONS

Being a smartphone, there is a huge range of third party applications to choose from including free and paid for software. I can download software from many different sources, but I recommend using the Ovi Store, which is Nokia’s answer to the Apps store on iTunes, or another reputable source to avoid viruses and other nasties. So far I’ve downloaded GMail, Opera Mini, Opera Mobile and Google Maps to name a few examples, and Mum has bought Scrabble via O2′s gaming pages.
OTHER BITS AND PIECES
Modern mobile phones seem to be able to do most things these days, and the Nokia 5530 is no exception and it offers the usual selection of personal organiser tools such as alarms, calendar and the obligatory calculator. All of these work as well as on other phones I’ve had in the past, and they certainly do the job as well as I could reasonably expect.
FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall I believe I made the right purchasing decision for my Mum’s Christmas present, and I am as impressed with the Nokia 5530 as she is. The phone offers a good range of features including the music player and the camera. I know that a mobile phone isn’t going to replace a conventional digital camera or camcorder but for taking quick snaps and mini movies it is certainly capable of doing this.
The music player is excellent and the phone has the best sound quality I have come across so far on a mobile phone, and I think Nokia have done an excellent job in producing this music phone.

On the whole battery life has been excellent, and Mum charges her phone approximately every two to three days depending on her phone usage. It’s obviously going to be more often if either of us have used the phone to browse the web and using the wi-fi connection. It takes approximately 2 hours to charge, which is good.
The Nokia 5530 is also reliable most of the time. It does crash occasionally which results in me in having to take the battery out of the phone to restart it. I know it’s not really advisable but it is sometimes necessary.

I mentioned earlier that Mum has dropped the phone a few times and it’s still working, so it is definitely sturdy in my opinion.
In terms of connectivity, I really think Nokia missed the boat in not including 3G especially now since the Samsung Monte came onto the market earlier this year. That particular phone offers 3G along with wi-fi and seems to be better suited to social networking fans than the Nokia 5530. That said I still recommend the Nokia 5530 as a serious contender if you’re looking for a smartphone at a price that won’t break the bank that offers wi-fi, so I award a 4 star rating accordingly.

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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Samsung Tocco F480 Review

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LOOK:
The phone is a rectangle shaped slide phone, when closed it’s about 10cm tall and 5cm wide, and 1cm deep. It’s a very dark grey colour with a deep red line around the outside, the keypad is also this same deep red. There are three buttons on the front, a call button a call end button/on-off button, and back button. Then a normal keypad where you slide the phone up. There is a small camera at the front of the phone, used for video calling (which you have to set up with your network provider separetly). Two buttons on the right hand side (a hold/keys locked button and camera button) along with the charging station, and a volume key on the left hand side.
When you slide the phone up, you see the camera on the back of the phone, which is 8 megapixels.
The screen is huge, and takes up most of the phones front part, this is touch screen, and the only part of the phone which is not touch screen is imputting numbers and texting. This is all done on the keypad.
The screen has a dial “button”, Address “button”, and menu “button”, as well as a widget (I shall explain in a mo) as well as the time, signal strength, battery status, profile status and whether or not a memory card is inserted.
With the phone you get a microSD card and converter, which you insert and is in use right away, a battery charger, battery, computer lead and headset. Along with a small Users Manual…which I must say is not must use!

USING THE PHONE:
If you have never had a touch phone, don’t despair, I had never owned a tough phone when I got this phone, though I had used an iPod touch which I suppose got me used to it. The phone is easy to use, and after just a week I am now picking up my husbands non touch phone and having issues in getting used to using buttons again! You simply touch the item on the screen which you want to go to, so if you want to go into your Contact list, simply touch “Address book”, when your done, either click the back button or the end button. When you get a text, it comes up in the middle of the screen, and you simply touch “view” then “reply”, and text as you normally would with a normal phone. Now, the only hard bit I have with this is when I want to go back a few spaces, I find it hard to get to the exact place I want to be, you hold your finger on the part for a couple of seconds and a navigation box comes up with triangles for the direction you want your cursor to move, but getting this up is a pain, and will take a little practice I think!
Other than that the phone is used in the same way as any other phones, only instead of having to use up down and scross keys on the phone, you just touch where you want to be, making it quicker to get where you want!
Calling is simple, but I recommend clicking the hold key on the right hand side of the phone when your in a call, so as you don’t accidently cut off the person your on the phone to!
Other than that, it’s so so soooo easy to get used to using the touch screen, much easier than I imagined it to be! But if you have big fingers you may find it difficult!! And if your hands are sticky/dirty/greasy/grubby you’ll mess up your screen so be careful to wash your hands before using!!!!

CUSTOMISATION
This is where the phone falls down. I love this phone lots, but I find customising it very difficult. You can change the font of the phone, there is normal text, and then two more fonts which are cute and curvy and funky. But you can’t change the colour of the screen which is black and kind of “boyish”, I wanted to change mine to bright colours, which with much cheaper much older phones you can do with no problems, yes you can use your own pictures for your wallpaper etc, but the menu is always the same, you can’t change it at all…if you have this phone and have found a way to do it, please do enlighten me!!!! :)
As I said though, you can pop your own pictures on from your computer, as well as songs, and customise this yourself, by simply connecting the phone to the computer via the lead supplied or via bluetooth if you have a dongle! :)

DOWNSIDES:
Along with the customisation thing I just mentioned, there are two other downsides:
Widget: This is on the home screen at all times, you can minimise it, which makes it go to left hand side of the screen, but whenever you touch it by accident it comes up, and I just find it gets in the way, and I just don’t want it on my homescreen, I don’t use it, and I just think it looks silly there! It’s so so easy to find anything you need and so quick, there’s no need for it to be there in this phone!! But I’ve not found a way to get rid of this either, this is a bad thing for me, but for many other people, I suppose it would be something good, you can move things from the widget to your homescreen for easy access, but for me I don’t like it and I think for those who don’t want it there I think should have the option to not have it!

MESSAGING: Ok well the messaging on this phone is very easy to use don’t get me wrong, and it works…but the problem I have is the length of the messages…if you write a pretty short message, it comes up as around 4 messages…now for me who is on Unlimited messages this isn’t too bad, but, I was writing messages to my husband last night, and I was only writing a few words, and it was coming up as two messages, it seems much much shorter than in normal phones…again I don’t know if this can be changed, I have looked through the user guide, and also had a rummage through the phone, but can’t find any way of changing the message length as you can with some phones, again if you know how, please let me know as it would be very helpful, but as far as I can tell you cannot change this which means a pretty short message turns into a very very expensive message, you get 1005 characters per screen, and when you have used all of these 1005 characters you have written 15 text messages…..this doesn’t seem right to me. But, it’s not really anything too bad for me, but for someone on pay as you go, it would mean a lot of money!!!
The technical specs of this phone are available at http://uk.samsungmobile.com/mobile-phones/samsung-tocco-ultra-edition-specification. But the basic information is:

Battery Life:
Call time: 4 Hours
Standby: 10 days
JAVA/GPRS/EDGE enabled
Weight: 118g
Dimentions:110 x 51.5 x 12.7mm

Camera:
Camera Resolution 8MP
Digital / Optical Zoom Digatal zoom
LED Flash Dual power LEDs
Auto Focus Yes
Shot Mode Normal/Timer/Multi/Mosaic/Night
Photo Effects Grat/Negative/Sepia
Video:
Video player Yes
Video recording Yes
Video messaging Yes
Video streaming (sending videos over the internet, think YouTube)
Video Calling

The phone is pretty great, though the price of almost £300 if your not on contract, is pretty steep, but I think I would have paid this if I had it for this phone! :-)

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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Nokia 1208 Review

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This is another user-friendly and robust offering from Nokia that is likely to be ranged as both a contract and PAYT handset on most mobile networks.
It is a dependable device with little complexity that can often cause software glitches on fancier devices when they are launched by the manufacturers. The seamless keypad also protects the device from dust.

It is a quad-band device which means it can be used world wide (exluding Japan) meaning great value for money as you will need no other devices.
It is a wondefully simple device with no frivalities and for those of you that want a phone to be a phone – i.e. make phone calls rather than your Sunday Roast this is the ideal device for you.

No camera
No internet
No Bluetooth
No picture messaging
No radio
No memory card
This phone makes calls, receives calls, sends and receives text messages and that is it! Ahhh what a relief to those who don’t want a manula the size of war and peace and just want something simple and reliable.

It weighs 76g and is therefore both lightweight and durable. At only 102mm x 44.1mm x 17.5mm this candybar design is small enough for a trouser pocket or zip compartment of a ladies bag.
With integrated loudspeaker ideal for the outdoors, combined with a bright and handy flashlight feature this is ideal as an emergency phone as well… whether its to call a breakdown company or see the keyhole in the door this phone comes in useful in many situations. With talktime of up to 7hours and standby time of up to 365 the device just seems to keep going!

It has a clear and intense colour screen along with MP3 grade ringtones means that although it is basic it is no longer stoneage and doesn’t have to be embarassing to have a simple phone.
This is also ideal as a first phone for children/teenagers as it does what is needed to keep in contact with family without being desirable, meaning it is less likely to be stolen or sought after by others.

The phone also offers a unique call tracking feature which allows you to pre-set cost or call time of individual calls, cutting the call when this limit is reached. The device also has 5 phonebooks available which means it’s ideal for sharing or splitting your contacts into more manageable groups.
With stereo headset and X-press on covers available there is the opportunity to make the phone your own. Available in both black and red.

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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Sony Ericsson C903 Cyber-shot Review

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**INTRODUCTION**

For almost 5 years now I have had a Sony Ericsson mobile phone and two months ago I was due for an upgrade from my phone company and decided I would try something different this time and headed for a Samsung branded phone. I was torn between this new Sony Ericsson and the Samsung. I went for the Samsung and… then decided to give that to my mum and headed for the Sony Ericsson.
I guess I am in sync with how their phones work now and as all the settings are the same I can work it with my eyes closed! But, nonetheless it was still a new phone and therefore needs its own review. After using it for a couple of months I have got to know it pretty well and think it is about time I gave my opinion on it.
** LOOK AND DESIGN **

Compared to the design before the C903 (the C902) this phone looks slightly on the chunkier side. Being a slide phone it is a bit thicker but still manages to keep its sexy and stylish edge and at only 96g in weight it somehow manages to stay lightweight too! The size is 3.8 x 1.9 x 0.6 inches which really does make the phone quite compact and makes the phone small enough to fit in your pocket without being noticed. My model is a very clean and crisp black and silver. But the phone is available in glamour red and techno white for the slightly more adventurous!
The top layer has a large screen with the main button for answering and cancelling calls as well as scrolling. Once you slide this up the bottom layer is a crisp silver plate that has the keypad on. I have noticed with that with a lot of Sony Ericsson phones, including this one is that to make space for the large screens the buttons are always slightly squashed. The buttons have little grooves on so you don’t always press the wrong button but nonetheless small fingers may be needed for this one!

The phone from the front looks just like a simple but fashionable phone. No mini computers or all in one housekeeper. Just a nice phone. But the creative people at Sony Ericsson had to make the phone unique in some way and in my opinion that is when you look at the back of the phone. Sold on the basis that this phone has an amazing picture capture quality, looking at the phone from the back, it could easily pass itself off as a brand new up-to-the-minute digital camera. It really does look that convincing. Anyway, more on that later.
** BASICS **
At the end of the day, no matter what you look for in a phone the basics have to work well. The Sony Ericsson C903 works great as a phone. I find that the clarity of the sound is not as good as I would expect which is a shame. But I do find that this phone is great at picking up a good signal. Compared to the Samsung model I tested out, the Sony Ericsson C903 gave me at least 1 bar more on my signal strength in places where my signal is usually really bad.

Although the buttons are small, the texting is easy and exactly as you would expect. The ringtones are not too bad actually. Quite bearable but with this phone I still prefer to put it on silent. The vibrating alert is fantastic. Because the small is small but stocky it gives an excellent strong vibrate that you don’t miss. I hate phones with a soft vibrate because I have my phone on silent at work so this is perfect for me! The battery life seems to have improved slightly on this Sony Ericsson. With up to 400 hours on standby I think this is pretty good. However, it disappoints slightly with the 10 hour talk time battery life. In my opinion, although the battery life has improved it still leaves a bit to be desired! Plus I find it doesn’t give you enough warning when the battery actually dies. I am used to an hour of beeps and warnings before the phone actually dies. But this gives you 2 warnings and ready or not its lights out!
I also have to add that this is the first phone I have had that doesn’t come with a USB adapter. So you can’t connect it to your computer. Luckily for me I have 3 or 4 hanging around the place because I like to put my favourite pictures on my laptop etc but if means if you are used to sharing data with your laptop then unless you have Bluetooth capability on your computer you will have to buy one. They are only a few pounds from Amazon or EBay but it’s still an inconvenience.

Overall a good phone for the basics, calling and texting is nothing special but at the same time it doesn’t have any major defects either. It works exactly how I would expect it too and I would anticipate nothing less from a modern phone.
** MAIN FEATURE AND SELLING POINT **
Most phones these days have a main selling point because there is just so much competition. What makes this phone stand out is the camera. As I said before, looking at the back of the phone it really does resemble a camera. The lens is hidden behind a slide. You simply flip the phone horizontally to get he best image, slide the back down and abracadabra a 5 megapixel camera. The ‘C’ in C903 stands for cyber-shot technology. This is basically the main factors that any good digital camera has. Just the fact it is actually a phone is what makes it special. The 5 megapixel bit is also pretty superior, it basically means that 5 million tiny dots make up one picture, therefore your picture is amazing clear and precise.

So not only does this phone take clear cut pictures, it also has face detection which can find 3 people in the frame at the same time but it also has something called ‘smile shutter’. The camera on the phone somehow picks up when people smile and automatically clicks at the right time. Say cheese and the camera does the work for you! It also has a function which lets you take 9 pictures in a run and then you can choose the best one. Great if you are trying to get the perfect angle or trying to get a miserable person to smile, or even when the wind is blowing your hair around! It also has auto focus, digital zoom, video recording, image stabiliser, and photo flash. It definitely has everything a camera could possible need!
Something I haven’t used as it sounds slightly too complicated for me, but it does sound like a great way of showing your pictures. The phone has a TV-out function that means you can connect it to your TV and view your images on the big screen. However, the wire isn’t included and I wouldn’t have a clue how it works! But still worth a mention.

I also find it so easy to use because once the camera is on and being used all the functions you need are on the edge of the phone, right where they are on a normal camera. I think this is what gives it the genuine camera feel, because of where the buttons are placed. Once you slide the lens shut, your camera turns back into the phone you know and love!
** OTHER GREAT FEATURES **
This phone has internet capabilities and can automatically update Facebook on your screen even without you being in the application itself. It has a small box on the screen which floats past every time you get an update. It doesn’t disturb you but for Facebook fanatics you will like this!
The phone also comes with an application called Walk-Mate. It works as a step counter / pedometer. If you keep it in your pocket while you walk the shaking motion (as with most pedometers) count the steps. It does work, but I am sure it isn’t entirely accurate. But I don’t find pedometers to be entirely accurate in general to be honest! But a great application if you are trying to get fit or walk more.

One of the best features on this phone is its built in GPS (Satellite navigation system). You never have to worry about getting lost again and it is great if you are trying to find your way around somewhere new. It also has inbuilt Google maps and Route-finder which lets you track and save routes for future use. It is a great bit of technology and it really does make you feel slightly safer when going out and about.
Before I forget, one extremely useful thing on this phone is its ability to show you a ‘conversation’. You can scroll through all the text between you and someone else as it is in speech boxes all on one page. It is great for remembering what you were talking about or to go back and check over what was said. It also means replying to texts are a lot quicker. I wondered how my boyfriend text me back so quickly and now I know! It is almost identical to instant messaging, that quick and that easy.
** TROUBLE SPOTS **

I have only found one or two main trouble spots with the C903. The first is that the shutter button you use to take the picture can be a bit unresponsive and can sometimes take several attempts before it actually takes the picture; I just have to remember to press it quite hard!
The phone doesn’t come with a memory stick which can be another expense. However, to be honest I really don’t think it is necessary. Most people have IPods etc to keep music on and other gadgets for pictures etc. If you prefer your phone to be an all in one media storage container then you will need to buy (a rather expensive) memory card.
** PRICE **

As I previously said I had this phone free as an upgrade from the phone network 3. You can get the handset for free from 3, T mobile and 02 as long as you get a contract. On pay as you go the cheapest price I have found is £160. Pretty expensive considering it isn’t as busy as the Iphone for example. But it is a good phone with some good features and is still pretty new. It will definitely go down in price and I am sure if you shop around you can get a decent deal.
** CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION **
I am genuinely happy with this phone. I do feel like it lacks an extra spark that some new phones have. But it isn’t a phone for showing off. It works well and if you are a picture taker then this is definitely for you. It look good, although not amazing and most of the applications come as standard in a lot of other phones or can be downloaded as application.
If you don’t particularly use the camera on your phone then I would recommend you look for something else.

This really is sold on the camera function and if you don’t use that then everything else just isn’t worth the money. I don’t want to be negative on the phone because it really is simplistic and easy to use, as well as having all the basics such as alarms, calculator, calendar etc. I am a Sony Ericsson fan so I could use this almost instantly without having to break myself into the new buttons and settings. It is an easy to use phone and recommended to anyone who wants something not too flashy but enough to keep up to date with the latest technology.

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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HTC Smart Review

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In my opinion the HTC Smart is an amazing phone, however as it having being branded with the smart phone title it just under performs. The major let down being that currently there are no applications available for this phone and until further news it doesn’t look like there will be. With it also having a 300MHz processor it can cope fine with running different built in applications, but soon as you run too many at once it struggles. For example running music and browsing the Internet, we soon see that either the keyboard become laggy and the input slows down or the music track stops or starts to skip. The other thing about the keyboard input is that the buttons are rather small, but are still able to pick up on what you are pressing. The full keyboard would be better off for a child or someone with small finger tips.
On the other hand though, there are plenty of good things about the HTC. Like how strong the touchscreen actually is, it is very durable and will definitely do the job without much damage for a reasonable amount of time, depending on how much wear and tear it gets put through. The way it fits and feels in your hand is another good point about the HTC Smart, it rests comfortably in your hand which then allows you to command the touch screen with your thumb. Also it has a 3.5mm audio jack for all standard earphones which is also a plus just in case you lose the standard pair of earphones you receive in the box. The 3 Mega pixel camera takes very good photo’s, also with it having a flash function you are able to take pictures in the dimmer lit areas.

The phone also has HTC Sense and a very impressive friend stream which allows you to combine your facebook and twitter account all into one. From there you can update your status, like posts, comment on posts and upload photo’s. The Freind stream also plays a part in the Phonebook that is installed on the phone allowing you to link your contacts facebook to their contact information, proving useful if you want to see a picture of them when they text you or ring you.
Last but not least i would like to talk about the Weather update function available on the phone as well as the memory. On the HTC Smart you are able to check the weather in any city for the next 5 days at any time. Simply slide the home screen along to the Weather application then tap it and it will update and tell you the temperature at the exact time, what the weather is like. this can be a very useful feature while on the move or while planning a day trip out.

Moving onto the memory available in the HTC smart. The Smart has 256mb pre-installed memory which is handy but wont last long for taking pictures. It also supports a Micro SD card (up too 32GB) which is a lot more helpful and its something you would really expect from a phone like this.
All in all i think HTC achieved what they set out to do by creating an affordable Smart phone. yeah it might have some draw backs but for £100 on pay as you go, you can’t really go wrong.

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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Sony Ericsson W380i Review

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The W380i is a Sony Ericsson Walkman music phone, this was a feature that I particularly liked because the Sony Ericson I had pinched was a walkman phone and it was a lot easier to listen to music but since I got the cyber shot phone I couldn’t listen to music and search through my phone at the same time.
The Sony Ericsson’s built-in Web browser is poor, and I strongly advise you to install Opera Mini for free from the opera website. This app makes browsing the full Internet a treat, and it’s extremely quick on the W380i…

The phone comes with a stylish shell & with a beautifully finished casing. The handset is available in two elegant colours which include a purple and a magnetic grey colour.
The design of the phone is very stylish and practical as the phone comes with a touch control music keys and music information displayed on the casing of the handset. You can use the controls to play, pause or fast foward the music.

The W380i comes with a very cool key locking feature which is simple to activate and very useful because it allows me to to lock the external keys, so therefore music will not accidentally start playing when the handset is in my handbag.
I think that the Sony Ericsson W380i is a good sized phone it measures 16mm in depth, 49mm in width & 92mm in height which is around a standard size for a phone. The handset is solid without being bulky & heavy which weighs 100 grams including the battery. The battery is very good for this phone; it can last up to 7 hours of talk time & 300 hours of standby battery.
The phone comes with 14 Mbytes of internal memory; this wasn’t enough for me so I bought a memory card to expand my phones memory capacity so I could put more music on and photos.

This phone is excellent for any music lovers, you can ring take photos and listen to your favourite music, I recently broke my mp4 player and this has really come in handy for listening to music in the tube. There’s a radio on this phone which also displays information from the radio station.
Has always sonny Ericsson has delivered fun features for yet another great phone which includes Mega Bass, Play Now and TrackID. The Mega Bass these feature allows me to enhance the bass of the music im playing which provides a higher quality sound for me to enjoy.
The Play Now feature isn’t really necessary, as I don’t download ringtones, it is very fast however but something I would use in the future.
The TrackID is my favourite fun feature it is a music recognition service which allows me to record a few seconds of a song that I like the sound of and this system will provide me with the name of the song, the artist & the album within seconds.

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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Nokia 810 Review

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The Nokia N810 is an ultra portable, highly attractive executive toy. I think that sums it up quite well because I’m not entirely sure which niche market it has its sights on.
Maybe I’m old school (or skool), but when I think of Nokia I think of great phones, easy texting and possibly even a half-decent camera. So this device confuses me because I keep asking myself… what’s it for exactly?

The problem is that it doesn’t have a cell phone built-in. It also takes longer than an Asus EEE to start up. Ok so it has a touch-screen display and a nice bracket to make it sit on your desk at a comfortable viewing angle, but do they really expect you to buy this AS WELL AS a bluetooth enabled phone? At around £280 it hardly seems worth it unless you’re in the media industry. Yes it comes with a couple of demonstration music video clips and I was impressed by the smooth video and crystal clear sound (don’t expect the internal speaker to annoy the neighbours though). Yes it has built in support for streaming radio over wi-fi but why not buy a dab radio instead and save yourself £200? I suppose you could use the mirco SD memory card slot to attempt to use this device to shame iPod owners to change their ways although they might laugh and comment about fools and money being easily parted.
Connectivity can be sourced from a wi-fi lan, a data call or packet data with the latter options presumably requiring the pairing of a bluetooth phone. There don’t appear to be any obvious accounting options to keep track of how much data you download or any heavy usage alarms so you could be in for some shocks if you pair a phone up instead of using wi-fi. The best you can do is use the browsers options (magnifying glass at the bottom right) to turn off shockwave, real media playback and image downloads.

The device itself looks like it could have been designed by Apple. The highly polished aluminium case gives it a precision-engineered feel and it is surprisingly heavy for its size (pretty much the same size as any PDA). At the top left corner is a built-in camera yet strangely you have to download either the camera or video camera application to use it. I was not overly impressed with the results either as in the two pictures I took, one turned out extremely grainy due to low light and the other blurry due to lack of stabilisation. Part of the problem is the snapshot button is produced by the software so you have to face the camera towards your subject then hit a small submit-type button on the opposite side of the screen.
The keypad feels small but solid after you slide it out from the main body of the unit. The keys seem to be curved outwards in some sort of ploy to make it easier to hit the right one. Despite this the keypad does not feel particularly friendly to use.

The micro-desktop is also a strange concoction. The taskbar appears down the left edge of the screen with a bunch of status icons at the top right. The main panel displays a choice of applets although at one point I turned on the RSS feed and it overlayed the real player applet making both unreadable. Fortunately this can be fixed by dragging the applets across the screen and dropping them into empty space (if you can do it without accidentally clicking on the applets). What’s really strange is if you click on the clock or calendar you are presented with a map of the world yet it doesn’t let you change the current time. You can scroll the map around to your hearts content but you’re stuck with whatever time is configured until you find your way into the date & time settings of the control panel.
The contacts panel gives you options to add an account for Google talk, Jabber or SIP although I’ve not yet had a chance to try out my freeworldialup account. Part of the problem is this device doesn’t seem to handle wi-fi networks particularly well even if you up the power from 10mW to 100mW in the network settings. At this very instant I have it sitting side by side with an Asus EEE. The EEE is already connected and returning search requests while the N810 is still trying to get connected. It’s got to our corporate login page but is taking its time; almost as if Nokia were punishing us for not using an expensive mobile phone tariff to connect. Also strange is the absense of any office productivity applications. Adobe’s PDF reader is about all you get pre-installed.

Sliding the keypad shut brings up an on-screen keyboard jobby when you need to enter text which also has words provided by predictive text. You can use the list button (left of the space bar) to switch to handwriting recognition mode although it isn’t immediately obvious that you have to click on the button marked “Abc1″ if you want to enter a colon or slash character for a web address. Trust me on this one, it’s easier to slide out that keypad instead, even if you do need to hold down the function key to access the numerics.
So why exactly does anyone need one of these devices? Well from the pre-installed list of favourite websites it looks as though they want us to have access to facebook, wikipedia and all our spam while out and about and to have our latest fix of RSS-served news wherever we are.

Using the built-in GPS we can even find out where we are and I’m happy to say that the device does come with a basic base map of the UK. I compared this with my Garmin Nuvi and headed outside to test. The N810 managed to get a position fix about twenty seconds faster than the Garmin so maybe that’s the point of this device. The operating system is Maemo (a linux distro) which also appears to rely on busybox code. This means Nokia will be forced to release any modified busybox code to the open source community so maybe we will start to see some geocaching applications coming out for this device.
At this point I was struck by a sudden truth. I haven’t had to use the horizontal scroll option on any of the pages I’ve used yet and looking at the browser options reveals I’ve got the “Fit width to view” option ticked. Ok so the web pages use very small fonts which will make them difficult to read for some people but maybe that’s the point of this device. Instead of trying to create a pocket computer they’ve tried to get a surfing experience which is as close as you can get to using your home computer as possible in a portable device. Suddenly a lightbulb gets switched on somewhere and I surf off over to Youtube. This device has it’s faults; but then don’t we all? Would I buy one with my own money though? Well I don’t think so. I’m still viewing this as an executive toy rather than my required-but-non-existent uber-gadget which would have a built-in cell-phone, a much better camera, more software, more memory and a utility to swap content via the card-slot.

Update 16th July 2008
=================
I’ve now had a little more time to use this gadget and I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that some websites still require horizontal scrolling to read the content. Also drop down menus can be problematic. The good news is if you go into the application manager, select tools from the list button at the top left of the screen, then select application catalogue, you get a list of package repository sources. Curiously the maemo extras one was disabled but enabling it gives you access to more content (some of which does not seem to work but a lot does). As a result I found a sound recorder utility, an MSX emulator, a ZX spectrum emulator and most importantly a version of wordpress blogging software which at least would enable you to write & store a letter or memo on the move. Although that keypad would rapidly become very irritating if you had to use the numbers 1 & 2 a lot as despite the small size of this thing, it’s quite a stretch to press the function button with your left thumb and then press Q or W at the left side of the keyboard to get those numbers. Sadly this device also features a tiny, non-standard USB socket. You do get a data cable to connect to a PC in the box but you’re not going to be able to plug in a standard keyboard without an adapter.

I don’t have access to a bluetooth keyboard but if there’s one that works with this device, try to get the seller to throw one in. I suspect it will make this much more usable and with the flexible viewing angles provided by the support bracket you would effectively have a tiny, two-piece laptop. I’d also suggest a visit to the maemo developers website to keep an eye out for a compatible open office package or at least a basic spreadsheet. Then again as I keep my data on a flash memory stick there’s not much chance that I’ll be plugging it into that tiny USB socket any time soon.

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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Sony Ericsson P990i Review

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***An introduction – this has nothing to do with the P990i – but I start my reviews with background information. If you just want to know the specifications of the phone, then I suggest you visit the Sony website or scroll down my review***
Back in 1997 my friends started getting pagers, and shortly afterwards mobile phones. I wasn’t having any of it. “How childish!” I used to exclaim as we sat in the pub and they compared ringtones. “I’m never going to get a mobile phone. I hate phones anyway. I don’t see what all the fuss is about!”

I do hate phones, speaking on them in particular. I always have, it’s something I’ve inherited from my father – luckily unlike my father I realise that when on the phone to Australia one is not required to speak 10 times louder. But that’s another story, and I am pleased to say that my phone phobia is getting better due to being forced to use it at work.
I arrived at University in 1999 and was one of the few people not to have them it seemed (in fact it was probably about ¼ of people who didn’t). I took advantage of using Big John’s Orange Everyday 50 contract phone to call my mum and friends, after 3 weeks into Uni when I managed to f**k up (there is no polite word I’m afraid) my room phone card, and my friend Pete’s, and as a result could only take incoming calls. The idea of having a mobile phone did start to appeal a bit more.

I met hubby in January 2000, and was he also on Orange EveryDay 50. He had a Nokia 6110. In the summer when we were apart it was decided that I should get a phone and also be on EveryDay 50, therefore saving my parents’ phone bill! I also got a Nokia 6110, and it was great – I bought a Purple Ronnie cover for it, and a little chair for it to sit in. It was such a durable phone – on several occasions I threw it against the wall in a drunken rage – I did crack the screen once, but the phone still worked! When I renewed my contract the following year I got a Nokia 3210, slightly smaller (less of a brick), a few more features, but much the same, and kept this for more than a year. I fancied a bit of a change at the beginning of 2003 and got a Sagem MY G5 – I had been taken in by the games feature, but sadly the phone was awful, and the novelty wore off after a month.
In the summer of 2004, I finally got round to getting a decent phone, and was glad to get rid of the Sagem. I decided to get a Sony Ericsson K700i – for once I had a flashy phone – camera, MP3 player (so I could have a real song ringtone!) I had so much fun taking little videos of my office, and random videos of the train station – the excitement!

***Now – why did I get the P990i?***
Anyway, it’s now 2007, and it’s time to move on. I looked on the Orange website, and decided that I wanted a Sony Ericsson P990i (I had seen it in a shop when it first came out in 2005, and loved the look of it – but VERY expensive back then). I love the idea of having a QWERTY keyboard (please note, this is the way that standard keyboards in the UK are set up), and being able to use it as a PDA (like a computer). The keyboard can’t be seen in Ciao’s picture of the phone – it can be seen (and used) when the flap with numbers on it opened.

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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Nokia 3510i Review

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~BASICS~

Size – 118 x 49.6 x 17.1 mm
Weight – 106g (Including battery)
Talk time – 2 hours 30 – 4 hours 30
Standby time – up to 13 days (312 hours)
Charging time – 4 hours approx
Blue front and back covers as standard.
With this phone’s size and weight it isn’t perhaps either the smallest or lightest available, far from it in fact. It is however pretty comparable to my last mobile, which was a Phillips Saavy. With its built in aerial it is not only sleeker than the Phillips was, but I can’t poke anyone’s eye out now! If anything, this phone is better balanced when holding it in my hand and in use, which is the important thing. Slightly ‘top heavy’ it gives a better all round ‘feel’ in use.

The standby/talk/charging times above are all quoted from Nokia but in practice they are pretty accurate. The charge time in particular is spot on although I’m still in the habit of leaving the phone connected to the charger overnight, a throwback from my Phillips phone when I had to charge it for that long! I find the phone lasts for around a week between charges, not bad considering it is in use everyday for calls and messages. The standby figure is the only one I cannot say if it is correct or not. Not use my mobile for 13 days to test the theory out? Well I thought about it…
The metallic blue covers are pretty neutral and would suit either male/female users, however the bright orange side panels may well not be to everyone’s tastes. The covers can of course be changed and I have so far found a pretty good selection available in mobile phone accessory shops of which there seem to be plenty in most high streets. The orange panels are unfortunately NOT removable – they are an integrated part of the design and light up when the phone is in use – therefore think carefully when customising your Nokia 3510i… Pink covers are definitely out!

~FEATURES~

High resolution, 4096 colour illuminated display
Wallpaper
Screensaver
Polyphonic ring tones
Phone book
Call management
The screen size, whilst not enormous is certainly larger than I was used to. The biggest difference here for me was the fact that the display is in colour whereas my Phillips had a very odd tinge to it. The wallpapers/pictures I have seen so far all appear to show up clearly but I really haven’t counted the number of colours that CAN be shown. Why do manufacturers insist on quoting this kind of information?

The screen layout is easy to read and navigate. The clock sits in the top right hand corner, the menu option in the bottom left and the ability to quickly get to your address book is found bottom right. The signal bar runs up the left-hand side of the screen and the battery life indicator up the right. It’s all very simple and uncluttered. The screensaver is however a real let down. There’s only the one (a clock) and whilst that is very useful it would be nice if there was a choice available. There is also NO ability to download an alternative either, so you are stuck with it. You can however choose how long (in minutes) it takes for the screensaver to cut in which is a minor redeeming feature.
The wallpaper selection (found in the gallery) that is pre-loaded onto the phone is nothing to write home about really. There’s certainly nothing that’s going to make you gasp or shout “Wow”! Granted they are better than looking at the Nokia choice but still… The same can be said for the ring tone selection available. There are 34 of them when you get the phone, both polyphonic and monophonic and the best that can be said is that they are pretty dire. Luckily for everyone you can change both ring tone and wallpaper by downloading new ones via the WAP provision.

There are several simple ways of getting at the phone book and even 2 ways of storing your friends/colleagues/family names/numbers. Simply hitting the downward scroll button will take you to all your stored numbers and I’ve already mentioned the ‘names’ option available from the main screen. Now depending on what information you want to store will depend on where you store each name/number. If you store all your names on the SIM card then all you can do is save name and number. However, if you want to add more information about each contact (e-mail, web address and postal address) then you can store the information on the phones internal memory. Be aware though that this will cut down on how much other stuff you can store as the memory is finite and has to be shared between all applications. Personally I have all my numbers stored on the SIM card. I NEED the space for downloads…
Now the most important bit for this section – making calls! If you know the number of the person you’re calling, just enter the number and hit dial, alternatively use the address book and dial out that way. There is a simpler way for lazy people – rather like myself. You can store 9 of your most frequently used numbers on ‘speed dial’ and just hit the appropriate keypad number then dial. Connection seems to be faster than on my old Phillips and much clearer. You can also assign 10 numbers to ‘voice dial’. I had that facility on my old phone and I thought it was a really great innovation until I realised how much of a twit you look talking to your disconnected phone… Needless to say, I have chosen NOT to assign ANY numbers!

You can redial the last number called by simply pressing the dial button twice and call back a missed call by finding the number in the ‘missed calls’ menu. To receive a call simply hit the answer button or you could hit end call to send the caller through to voice mail. You’d be amazed how many times I do that…!
********************************************************

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)
GSM connectivity with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) for monthly customers.
WAP 1.2.1
Multimedia messaging in short is exactly what you would expect it to be. This phone gives you the ability to send messages that contain text and graphics and you can receive messages that contain text, graphics AND ring tones.

The phone gives you the ability to use something called ‘concatenated’ SMS, which I don’t pretend to understand; put simply it means that you can send and receive text messages of up to 761 characters without the phone breaking them up into shorter chunks and therefore costing more to send. I would applaud anyone sending me a message of 761 characters but the chances of me ever sending one of that length is remote at best! It is a far better system though than the one I was used to; at least now I can send a message longer than 160 letters if I wish to.
Just like with my old phone there is a pre-loaded selection of pictures you can attach to your text message to ‘enhance’ it. Unfortunately when you get to the ‘insert picture’ option all you get is a list (picture 1, picture 2 etc) which is unhelpful to say the least. On my old phone you just scrolled through the pictures until you found the one you wanted. Now you have to open each one to see what it is. I suppose if you have a fantastic memory you’d soon remember which was which. I don’t tend to bother much with this facility because I just cannot be bothered to mess about opening each one. You can also take advantage of the Multimedia messaging menu option where you can write text messages, add graphics and send the result to either another mobile phone with the ability to receive these sorts of messages OR send to an e-mail address.

There are some 10 pre-defined templates you can use for regular SMS messages but I have never had cause to use them; I prefer to send personal messages. The phone also has a predictive text option. Again I don’t use it; but it’s not that I haven’t tried to get to grips with it of course! I think I’m just to set in my ways now to bother with it and besides, my life is too short to teach my phone which words I use regularly.
There are of course plenty of folders available for you to store all your SMS/MMS sent/received messages in and you can also create your own. I have got into the habit of going through them all regularly and clearing out all unwanted messages, I have already mentioned that the more things you save the less memory is available for other applications.

I’m not even going to begin to try and understand what the connectivity statements from Nokia mean. WAP I grasp, but only just, the rest flies above my head! All I know is that in practice the connection is pretty fast, you only pay for what you download and at least this ability means you can swiftly personalise your phone and get rid of the hideous Nokia pre-loaded wallpapers and ringing tones… Downloads are easy to retrieve, store and access – they must be, even I can manage it!
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Java games
Clock, calendar, alarm clock, stopwatch, timer
Customisable profiles
The phone comes with 3 games – Backgammon, Racket and Skydiver. The first I think is self-explanatory and the second is a tennis style game, which is pretty hard until you get the hang of which key to press when. Skydiver is I think a fairly obvious title. Guide your little parachuting guy through rings and then land him safely within the landing zone. Addictive little game this one and I’m in no rush to get rid of it. When you get bored of his airborne antics you can always forget to open his parachute… As with the ring tones/wallpaper/graphics, you can download alternative games from a wide selection available online and delete unwanted games when you’ve had enough of them.

The clock/date is first set when you turn on your phone for the first time – it is the first thing you are prompted to do. Once set you can then use the calendar function and the alarm clock. The calendar allows you to make notes for whatever days you like and you can set an alarm to alert you should you wish to. Handy little feature for those as forgetful as myself! The alarm clock is a synch to set and a little bell symbol is displayed when it turned on. Trust me here – it’s loud and only gets louder until you either hit off or snooze.
The customisable profiles is an area I haven’t really fully explored but the basic premise of it is that you can select different ‘modes’ that the phone can operate in; silent, discreet, loud or chose your own. Each of the pre-named modes can be personalised, but as I have said, I haven’t bothered! If I want the phone to be quiet it really isn’t a struggle to turn it off or set it to not ring…

~SUMMARY~

In a nutshell, those are the basics of this phone. I love its customisability and I suppose in theory there shouldn’t be 2 completely identical Nokia 3510I’s out there! With covers that can be changed coupled with the fact that the wallpaper, ring tones and games can all be deleted/changed you really can make this baby your very own and stamp your identity all over it. There are no bugs in the software that I have noticed, mine certainly hasn’t locked or hung whilst I’ve had it.
The phone really is a doddle to use and to get the hang of. When I bought it, it came with a small yet fairly substantial booklet full of step-by-step guides but I found and indeed am still finding that the best way to discover what it can do is to scroll through the menus and play around with it a bit. I only have small hands but I can navigate and hit all keys accurately – just by using the thumb of one hand! The screen is not so large that it dominates the phone yet not so small that you have to squint to see what you’re doing.

I bought mine from The Link for £89.95 as a Pay-And-Go package (it should have been £99.95) – I obtained a ten pound reduction for trading my old phone in and also gained the advantage of having the Orange Text Saver pack (worth £19.99) thrown in for free.
This is a perfect phone for older kids or for adults like myself who want a good, solid and reliable method of communication but don’t want anything to complicated or complex.

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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Samsung S8300 Review

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Style:
I absolutely adore the phone with its smooth and shiny looking slide and I also think that its great that this new phone also has a large screen great for watching movies and playing your games…

Its not to bulky or heavy its perfect to slide in and out of my pocket….
I don’t really like the buttons at the bottom would been a lot easier if it was fully touch screen.

Features:
I have been through most of the phone and found that the phone has a lot of feature with its music player and widgets etc…
I have also found that this new phone has sat nav so if your lost and can afford a sat nav this is an all in one easier to enter your co-ordinations or destinations as i have used…The music player is very easy to browse as you have a selection from show all tracks or albums or artists making it easier to find a track you want to listen to…

I also think widgets where a good Idea as I watched a video on you-tube showing me how to put a face-book widgets on helping me access things i need important quicker that’s a bonus considering most phones you have to go through the menu where as the widgets are located on the front left of screen…
The phone also has a built in SAT-NAV which is fantastic saves going and buying works exactly the same way where you enter your co-ordinations or post code ot name of the town etc and it brings up maps with distance and directions…

I find internet browsing on this phone easy but takes a little getting use to at first as everything is touch screen but fantastic big screen to do all your browsing on…
Gaming on this handset is fantastic as like i mentioned large screen to play your games and more clearer to see what your doing also with a nice bright screen…

Camera:
I have used the camera a lot since purchase of the phone as it has an amazing 8mp compared to my old phone which had 3.2mp I highly recommend…
Once you have taken pictures you can edit them and make them funny or even add things like text or some clip art…

You can also zoom and auto focus on pictures to be able to get better quality pictures from the handset…
Layout:
The layout of the phone overall is brilliant I find it easy to find everything I need For example there is a button on right hand side of the handset which allows you to lock and unlock handset when ever you want I find this helpful as kids mess with phone ringing everyone…

You have your volume button which are located bottom right side to turn up and down your music or phone call…
Also Its also helpful the charger socket has a cover stop it from getting dirty and dusty so it works longer…

Posted by admin on September 3rd, 2010

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