My wife's Nokia 6263 died an untimely death due to an accident and that left her using our spare phone for a bit.
For her new phone she wanted:
1. a camera as good as can possibly be found on a cell phone (5MP+, flash, AF, etc.)
2. excellent call quality
3. a keypad she could dial without looking at (so no touchscreens)
4. excellent battery life - a week without recharging ideally.
5. quad-band GSM
6. sync calendars and contacts with her laptop
She didn't care about anything else. 3G, WiFi, GPS, web access, etc - she didn't care about any of it.
And then - since she doesn't read this forum I can add my own requirement - it needed to be under $300 new, unlocked and unsubsidized because she seems to be particularly unfortunate when it comes to keeping a cell phone alive for an extended period.
This list pretty much narrowed the field down so much that there really weren't a lot of choices. In particular, the need for a keypad and the desire for long battery life between recharges took a lot of phones out of the running.
In fact, putting all of these things into the excellent search utility at gsmarena.com turned up exactly 17 phones: click her if you are curious
After several weeks of looking around, she decided that she didn't like the Sony Ericsson C903 - she said it felt too flimsy, and she didn't really like slide phones. Which narrowed the field down to a much smaller group. She didn't like the Blackberry-like E72 or E71X - she said they were too hard to dial by touch. Finally, I went with the Nokia 6220 - which isn't on the list at gsmarena because it's been discountinued (it was on the list about 3 weeks ago when I started searching).
The 6220 was never sold in the US - and it's particularly hard to find in the US but it's not uncommon in Australia and the EU apparently. It's been discontinued worldwide and so it was actually fairly cheap (one of it's prime attractions to me). I bought it from a store in the UK for $220 (inc. shipping) and had it shipped over.
We've had it about a week and I can say that we are both pretty happy. It takes great photos indoors and out. Indoors the flash is very bright and the autofocus works very well, the colors are a bit overexposed, but it looks good. Outside the photos are honestly pretty amazing. It looks like a regular point-and-shoot. If anyone is curious I can post up a couple of shots, but I am honestly very impressed. The battery life is excellent. I turned off 3G - the frequencies are wrong for our AT&T 3G service anyway - and the battery is still above 50% after 5 days of use. The phone build quality is a bit flimsy and the keypad feels cheap and plasticy, but the back of it is solid enough. The call quality is very good.
I'm not sure that in this forum of smartphone people, a review of a discontinued not-very-smartphone is all that interesting, but it took me a while to choose a phone and I'm pleased with what we got and what we paid for it.
For her new phone she wanted:
1. a camera as good as can possibly be found on a cell phone (5MP+, flash, AF, etc.)
2. excellent call quality
3. a keypad she could dial without looking at (so no touchscreens)
4. excellent battery life - a week without recharging ideally.
5. quad-band GSM
6. sync calendars and contacts with her laptop
She didn't care about anything else. 3G, WiFi, GPS, web access, etc - she didn't care about any of it.
And then - since she doesn't read this forum I can add my own requirement - it needed to be under $300 new, unlocked and unsubsidized because she seems to be particularly unfortunate when it comes to keeping a cell phone alive for an extended period.
This list pretty much narrowed the field down so much that there really weren't a lot of choices. In particular, the need for a keypad and the desire for long battery life between recharges took a lot of phones out of the running.
In fact, putting all of these things into the excellent search utility at gsmarena.com turned up exactly 17 phones: click her if you are curious
After several weeks of looking around, she decided that she didn't like the Sony Ericsson C903 - she said it felt too flimsy, and she didn't really like slide phones. Which narrowed the field down to a much smaller group. She didn't like the Blackberry-like E72 or E71X - she said they were too hard to dial by touch. Finally, I went with the Nokia 6220 - which isn't on the list at gsmarena because it's been discountinued (it was on the list about 3 weeks ago when I started searching).
The 6220 was never sold in the US - and it's particularly hard to find in the US but it's not uncommon in Australia and the EU apparently. It's been discontinued worldwide and so it was actually fairly cheap (one of it's prime attractions to me). I bought it from a store in the UK for $220 (inc. shipping) and had it shipped over.
We've had it about a week and I can say that we are both pretty happy. It takes great photos indoors and out. Indoors the flash is very bright and the autofocus works very well, the colors are a bit overexposed, but it looks good. Outside the photos are honestly pretty amazing. It looks like a regular point-and-shoot. If anyone is curious I can post up a couple of shots, but I am honestly very impressed. The battery life is excellent. I turned off 3G - the frequencies are wrong for our AT&T 3G service anyway - and the battery is still above 50% after 5 days of use. The phone build quality is a bit flimsy and the keypad feels cheap and plasticy, but the back of it is solid enough. The call quality is very good.
I'm not sure that in this forum of smartphone people, a review of a discontinued not-very-smartphone is all that interesting, but it took me a while to choose a phone and I'm pleased with what we got and what we paid for it.
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