- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
- 17,081
- 136
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=1482
I have no interest in giving a review in the standard manner. I shall be jumping all over the damn place and you had better like it.
First off: I had it for two weeks and just returned it yesterday for a full refund minus the activation cost. 35 bucks is a darn good deal to find out if you like a phone or not.
I used to have a Nokia 6230 and it was a darn good phone. I made the assumption that anything in their 6000 series was a full fledged multimedia powerhouse.
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=408
BUILD: (I put this first because its important to me. Despite the trend being popular with most other Americans, I dont like paying hundreds of dollars for a piece of electronic wonder that breaks at the slightest provocation.)
Very sturdy. Stainless steel case. Its relatively thin, even for a bar phone. For my small hands it was just long enough and wide enough to be a comfortable hold. If you have sweaty hands then the smooth plastic and steel might slip away from you. Not too heavy but more than enough to remind you its there. The buttons are a little small, but thats what you get for having a small phone with a large display.
BATTERY: (This is 2nd most important item to me, since I actually like to be able to use my toys, especially when they are so damn expensive).
Decent, but not great, and certainly not in the same league as other Nokia phones, especially the simple low-end models. If you disable Packets, Blutooth and Wi-Fi you will increase talk time a great deal, but then of course you lose many of the features you paid for. The short battery life is another trade-off for having a small phone packed with lots of features. All those nice goodies will dry it up, especially the display. My 6230 was a little fatter but had superior battery life.
DISPLAY:
I am not a huge fan of PDA's and my general rule is a phone is a talking device, not a gaming platform. I didn't intend to do web surfing on this thing or manage my Outlook. However, I do like to be able to see my contacts list and (when I feel like it) my music list too. This display was fairly large for a small phone, but again it comes at the expense of the keypad size. Excellent color and brightness. All the themes and wallpapers were pleasing & easy on the eyes. My only concern was battery life. You have a couple different options for standby, blanking the display, and screen savers, but you dont have the option to lower the brightness during normal use.
It is not a touchscreen.
MEDIA: It plays most audio types, but only one video format (that I could find). The 3GP format is the only thing you have available when making vids or playing them. Music sounds OK with the speaker and excellent with the headphones. The camera stinks but thats not a deal-breaker for me. In fact if I could find a good quality, hi-end phone without a camera I would buy it instantly. Accessing the media player by digging through the menus is a pain, but you can customize any and all shortcuts as you see fit.
INTERFACE: Once you figure out how to customize the Main Screen menu (I think they call it Active Standby) and then customize the left menu button to show only the most important things, you will love this phone. I made it very easy to access everything I need with just two clicks.
The voice dialing isnt as good as I would like. After you speak a name a menu pops up and asks which item you want to dial. This happens even if only one thing is available. Kinda defeats the purpose of voice dialing if you still have to look at the screen and scroll through a list and then click on a name. If I am missing something I would love to know about it.
WIFI: Make no mistake, the Wifi on this phone is not for data, its only for voice. For data you have to use the painfully slow EDGE, or whatever the hell they call it. You also cant do real WWW access, just T-Mobiles cute little simplified online store and services.
Wifi calls sound excellent, much better than cellular. But you need to enable the Wifi transciever to do this, and that kills your battery even when not calling. You also need to be in range of a wifi hotspot and have their password. Or hope they dont have a password. Driving down the road at 55mph will make this pretty much useless.
Cellular call quality is OK but not what I've come to expect from a Nokia, especially the higher end models.
CONCLUSIONS: Relatively limited multimedia features considering this is a 6000 series. And very poor battery life if you want to use the features you do have. My 6230 lasted MUCH longer. If they had just made the 6301 a little bigger and increased the battery power this phone would be a winner as just a phone. As a Nokia 6000 series multimedia device its just failure all around, except for cosmetics.
Go for a better model in this series. If you dont need many features go for a lower end model and save some money. There are a bunch of 5000 series out with T-mobile that are good music players and also work better as phones.
Incidenally my personal favorite model is the Nokia 1221. Its butt ugly but does the job and the battery lasts for a ridiculously long time. I may go back to T-mobile (they have the most Nokias) and get a 2000 series just to have something basic.
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=149
EDIT:
These guys have excellent reviews.
http://www.infosyncworld.com/r...s/nokia-6301/9642.html
And they were right to award this phone a score of 49. (Which is still pretty generous for them)
If you care about IM and text messaging you will probably want to look at their review.
I have no interest in giving a review in the standard manner. I shall be jumping all over the damn place and you had better like it.
First off: I had it for two weeks and just returned it yesterday for a full refund minus the activation cost. 35 bucks is a darn good deal to find out if you like a phone or not.
I used to have a Nokia 6230 and it was a darn good phone. I made the assumption that anything in their 6000 series was a full fledged multimedia powerhouse.
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=408
BUILD: (I put this first because its important to me. Despite the trend being popular with most other Americans, I dont like paying hundreds of dollars for a piece of electronic wonder that breaks at the slightest provocation.)
Very sturdy. Stainless steel case. Its relatively thin, even for a bar phone. For my small hands it was just long enough and wide enough to be a comfortable hold. If you have sweaty hands then the smooth plastic and steel might slip away from you. Not too heavy but more than enough to remind you its there. The buttons are a little small, but thats what you get for having a small phone with a large display.
BATTERY: (This is 2nd most important item to me, since I actually like to be able to use my toys, especially when they are so damn expensive).
Decent, but not great, and certainly not in the same league as other Nokia phones, especially the simple low-end models. If you disable Packets, Blutooth and Wi-Fi you will increase talk time a great deal, but then of course you lose many of the features you paid for. The short battery life is another trade-off for having a small phone packed with lots of features. All those nice goodies will dry it up, especially the display. My 6230 was a little fatter but had superior battery life.
DISPLAY:
I am not a huge fan of PDA's and my general rule is a phone is a talking device, not a gaming platform. I didn't intend to do web surfing on this thing or manage my Outlook. However, I do like to be able to see my contacts list and (when I feel like it) my music list too. This display was fairly large for a small phone, but again it comes at the expense of the keypad size. Excellent color and brightness. All the themes and wallpapers were pleasing & easy on the eyes. My only concern was battery life. You have a couple different options for standby, blanking the display, and screen savers, but you dont have the option to lower the brightness during normal use.
It is not a touchscreen.
MEDIA: It plays most audio types, but only one video format (that I could find). The 3GP format is the only thing you have available when making vids or playing them. Music sounds OK with the speaker and excellent with the headphones. The camera stinks but thats not a deal-breaker for me. In fact if I could find a good quality, hi-end phone without a camera I would buy it instantly. Accessing the media player by digging through the menus is a pain, but you can customize any and all shortcuts as you see fit.
INTERFACE: Once you figure out how to customize the Main Screen menu (I think they call it Active Standby) and then customize the left menu button to show only the most important things, you will love this phone. I made it very easy to access everything I need with just two clicks.
The voice dialing isnt as good as I would like. After you speak a name a menu pops up and asks which item you want to dial. This happens even if only one thing is available. Kinda defeats the purpose of voice dialing if you still have to look at the screen and scroll through a list and then click on a name. If I am missing something I would love to know about it.
WIFI: Make no mistake, the Wifi on this phone is not for data, its only for voice. For data you have to use the painfully slow EDGE, or whatever the hell they call it. You also cant do real WWW access, just T-Mobiles cute little simplified online store and services.
Wifi calls sound excellent, much better than cellular. But you need to enable the Wifi transciever to do this, and that kills your battery even when not calling. You also need to be in range of a wifi hotspot and have their password. Or hope they dont have a password. Driving down the road at 55mph will make this pretty much useless.
Cellular call quality is OK but not what I've come to expect from a Nokia, especially the higher end models.
CONCLUSIONS: Relatively limited multimedia features considering this is a 6000 series. And very poor battery life if you want to use the features you do have. My 6230 lasted MUCH longer. If they had just made the 6301 a little bigger and increased the battery power this phone would be a winner as just a phone. As a Nokia 6000 series multimedia device its just failure all around, except for cosmetics.
Go for a better model in this series. If you dont need many features go for a lower end model and save some money. There are a bunch of 5000 series out with T-mobile that are good music players and also work better as phones.
Incidenally my personal favorite model is the Nokia 1221. Its butt ugly but does the job and the battery lasts for a ridiculously long time. I may go back to T-mobile (they have the most Nokias) and get a 2000 series just to have something basic.
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=149
EDIT:
These guys have excellent reviews.
http://www.infosyncworld.com/r...s/nokia-6301/9642.html
And they were right to award this phone a score of 49. (Which is still pretty generous for them)
If you care about IM and text messaging you will probably want to look at their review.
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