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Nokia 3220
by kayleighmcharris
We all have our fair share of spare mobile phones laying about the house which we haven't gotten around to getting rid of or just can't bring ourselves to do so, the Nokia 3220 is an example case of the latter. I've had this phone now since I was in my mid schooling age, back then this phone was quite a desirable 'must have'. Despite how ... out of date this phone is, I Personally think that it is too cool to get rid of, hopefully this review will explain to you why.
PRICE
Back in the day I think this phone made a large dent in my parents pockets, however now I'm lead to believe that this phone can easily be picked up for a fraction of the original price. The prices that seem most common now, from my research, are between £10-30. Keep in mind these prices are for used phones as its very rare to be able to get these phones from new nowadays, which is also worth considering if you're a potential buyer.
APPEARANCE
Okay, I'll be honest, this phone isn't the swankiest and sleekest looking phone I've ever seen, and I'm sure you'll agree. However it does have one very unique and cool visual feature, flashing side bars! This phone really does excite that inner child in you, I remember bragging to all of my friends every time I got a text message and my phone would create its own flashing light disco. If you love the simple things in life I'm sure you'll love this feature on the phone.
Another cool aspect of this phone's design is that the back of the phone has a see through coating which you can pull off and place your own personalized image into, this was great for me at the time as I was into Charmed and there weren't any cases available anywhere; this phone allowed me to make one of my smaller dreams come true.
You can also buy in different parts for the phone, such as different coloured keys. So as you can tell this phone is fairly flexible when it comes to its appearance, however the initial shape of the phone isn't the most attractive and can't be changed.
EASE OF USE
I find that most of the old Nokias were built simply and in result ended up being very easy to use. I remember as a younger child I picked up all the controls and applications on the phone within a couple hours of opening the box; so if you're a slightly older buyer with not a lot of experience with technology this could be a great beginning phone before you try anything too complicated like a smart phone.
You have all of the basic buttons on this phone, on/off, keys with both numbers and letters and a control pad (such as the green and red symbol ones which indicate OK and cancel), Once you get the handle on these you're set to control and use anything on the phone. As the phone is fairly large the buttons are also larger than some of the ones you get these days, which makes it a little easier for those with visual strains or large fingers.
RELIABILITY
The phone is very reliable compared to the newer ones these days, I never had a single problem with it freezing, turning off randomly or just wearing out, it was indeed a perfectly behaved phone. The battery life of the phone was also very good, it would last me a week of average use of texting (less than 100) , about 20 minutes of phone time and heavy use of games and calculators ect. However the phone would last a few days longer if I switched off the flashing sides, so if you want a no hassle phone when it comes to maintaining battery life, this could be the phone for you.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE
My overall experience with this phone is fantastic, if it wasn't for my obsession with keeping up to date with technology I'd probably still be using the phone now. It's nothing ground breaking or spectacular but if you need a device to text, phone and dance too, this is the one for you.
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LG Cookie KP500
by Jcm222
INTRODUCTION
I purchased this phone three or four years ago, as a gift for a family member, but got to use it myself for a while. As they have now changed their phone, I have it back in my possession...so kind of them!
DESIGN AND DISPLAY
The phone is very light (under 100 grams) and very thin (under 1.2 ... cm thick). This makes the phone fit into your pocket, and looks quite good too, particularly the black model of the phone. The phone has a three inch display with a poor resolution.
The phone is quite 'block like' and therefore feels very sturdy and far from cheap or tacky.
It is a touch screen model, but also has a few buttons for going to menus, and moving back or cancelling actions.
FEATURES
I struggled at first to adapt to the touch screen on the phone because it is not very sensitive or responsive. This could be a problem to some people, perhaps if they are used to more responsive touch screens. Although, it must be granted that the phone is quite dated and given the available technology, we can't really complain!
The phone has all the expected features like a camera, albeit a very poor one, the 3MP camera has very poor shutter speed and photos can easily appear blurred.
The touch screen is hard to use when typing, word processing and sending text messages, but a stylus is provided to make this easier.
I found the menu system quite complicated, and by default there are a lot of loud notification noises for completing actions, sending messages etc. These obviously can be turned off but I found it hard finding the appropriate place to do so!
BATTERY LIFE
The battery life on this LG Cookie is fairly average. It lasts a couple of days from a full charge, but that is mainly on standby. If you are someone who listens to a lot of music or making long phone calls, you will find this time diminishes EXTREMELY RAPIDLY!
MEMORY
The on-board memory is appalling; you only get ~40MB, ie around 10 songs. However this can easily by expanded using a memory card.
SUMMARY
An average phone particularly suited to young people who want a touchscreen but cannot get one of the latest, higher end models.
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Nokia 5000
by Innocent_Girl
In 2008, I lost my phone at my first year of Nottingham University, it was an expensive £100 Samsung purple phone at the time. I immediately started looking for cheaper alternatives on the O2 website, not wanting to purchase another expensive model, I found another Purple phone for half the price, it was the Nokia 5000. In fact, it ... came in a range of colours including bright green, bright baby blue and metallic purple. I went to a local O2 shop and told them about my lost phone and they immediately offered me a deal of free £20 credit with my new phone, so I actually got the new phone for £30, instead of the RRP of £50.
The one good thing about this phone, is it looked a lot more expensive and flashier than it really is. In fact a lot of my friends mistook it for a high tier phone and would ask me for advise on what to get next, even though I wasn't a proclaimed expert at the time. That being said, I've learned a lot about this model of phone, since I still use it to this day. With 4 solid years of good use, I am now starting to look for something expediently sophisticated and better, while maintaining the flashy look that most phones rarely carry. Even the most expensive ones, often look dull and ordinary, I know you can often purchase cases for them but they somehow just aren't the same.
Anyway now for some in depth information about this phone. It was released in 2008 and since then, it will be no surprise to you, has long been discontinued. However you can still pick up unlocked and used versions of the phone for between £20-30 on Ebay. You can get a locked phone and buy a code to unlock it to any network for £3 on most phone code websites.
The phone is exceptionally light at 74g, I sometimes forget it's even in my pocket and look for it before I leave, only to realise it was already there. Compare this to the latest iPhone, it's about 40 grams lighter, and every bit of weight counts since you have to carry it everywhere. The screen is about 2 inches big and the dimensions of the phone are, again, smaller than an iPhone, 106mm in length, 46mm in width and 0.44 in depth. The depth is the only criteria which is bigger than iPhone, which is around 0.30mm. Anyway, pretty good specs for a budget phone so far.
Next criteria, the phone is 2G only, no 3G functionality at all, 3G was just coming out at the time and almost entirely exclusive to the iPhone back in 2008. The phone has MP3 ringtones which sound great, option to download polyphonic ones and the ability to send ringtones to your friends for free via bluetooth or create your own ringtones by transferrring supported MP3's to your phone. The phone speakers in general are average qualuty. On loudspeaker, there's some slight distortion, while on standard headset mode, there's zero.
One of my main grievances with the phone is it does take too long to start up from switching it on. The phone can sometimes crash if you try to enter the phone contacts too soon to make a call while it's still starting up. However this is somewhat offset by having the capacity to store 1000 contact numbers. Also I've received so many text messages and never had to delete a single one, so the memory on this phone for that feature, is very impressive. It's also fun to read back previous messages from a couple of months, even few years ago. The phone also allows you see any messages you sent out, in case you forget what you put the night before.
Some contemporary features that are lacking and could be a possible deal breaker for some are no USB, no WLAN, no memory card slot. The camera quality is at 1.3mp but most of the time is set to 256k because you need to activate a certain setting in a particular moment, for the pixel rate to ever go that high. I frankly find taking pictures a farce because they are blurry and low quality. This is defintly one of the worst features of this phone, especially compared to an iPhone. You can still send and receive pictures on the phone but they cost 50p a time on a pay as you go service or mobile. Also the quality hardly makes it worth it.
There is an MP3 player and FM radio which is a nice feature but capacity is very small, around 128mb. I never use this feature because my normal MP3 player is much better and this only has about 4 hours on full use. The literature says the phone can last up to 336h on standby but from years of testing, I know this isn't true. I've left it on standby many times and the battery has always completely drained within a couple of days of not checking it.
The standard applications that come pre-installed in the phone include a calculator, a calendar, a converter for currency and weight, a stopwatch etc. All of these have been helpful and have been used at one point or another. There's the option to download more apps if you need so. There is also a games folder which comes with Snake III, which is no way near as fun as previous incarnations. There's Backgammon, with the option to play against a friend if they have a compatible phone. The other game is called City Blocks and is the best one of the bunch by far. You have to stack blocks on each other, in a contruction yard, without them all falling down. It's tough, requires great timing and perception, you get a big bonus, if you land each block perfectly on top of each other. If you don't and the blocks land blocks at angles, the whole chain of blocks will begin to wobble and eventually fall off with a series of wrong moves. It's like a complex phone version of Jenga.
The Nokia 5000's durability is suprisingly highly. It's survived being thrown against a wall in anger, dropped on a concrete path and even water being spilled over it. These accidents have more than tested it's overall durability and way surpassed my previous phone, which couldn't survive even the smallest of falls. The Nokia 5000 is still as shiny and new as when I bought, with no discolouration or visible scratches.
Overall the Nokia 5000 is a good phone, although in this era, it's probably only for those that want a phone of simplicity and ease of use. The lack of contemporary features and the flexibility to do all the things you want is a big drawback. So if you care about accessing Facebook, Twitter and taking high quality pictures on the go or browsing the internet without restriction, then I would look for something more sophisticated. This phone more than met it's requirements and would actually still be an excellent choice for a first time user or a small child.
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