A New Timeless Phone by Nokia (Nokia 2600 classic)

Member Name: TheChocolateLady

Product:	Nokia 2600 classic
Date:	04/08/08 (717 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Simple, sleek, easy to use, great radio, no-frills, readability and customizable

Disadvantages: Sound better with earphone, only dual-band, no-MP3, only VGA camera

Nokia seem to have realized that not everyone wants a full array of bells and whistles on the machine they use primarily for phoning and texting. That's why they've come out a "classic" line of phones for basic users who still want 21st century technology. One of these is the Nokia 2600 Classic which I recently bought to replace the Nokia 2610 that I grew to hate with a passion.

The first thing you'll notice is how slim this phone is and despite it being a bit longer and wider than my 2610, it seems to weigh half as much. This allows for a larger screen and bigger buttons - which is something I only expected to find on a clamshell phone. It also comes with two fascias - one navy blue and one a bronze orange colour - I prefer the navy blue, as I think it looks sleeker than the orange one. With only the camera at the back and the holes for connecting the charger and earphones on the side, this looks uncluttered which I find very stylish.

As I mentioned already, this isn't fancy feature filled. The camera is a simple VGA one and I'm not sure what that means except that it doesn't even have a pixel number to it. This camera will be okay for emergencies (like taking a snap of an accident) but you're not going to toss your real camera for it. And while you can load your favourite songs onto this phone, it doesn't have a huge memory, nor is it expandable with a chip, so forget about using it as an MP3 player. And while it can support things like WAP and sending/receiving MMS, I refuse to enable this with my contract and end up paying an arm and a leg for connecting to the internet. This does support Bluetooth technology and using that I was able to copy a few nice songs from my computer into this for use as ring tones and alarms. I guess I could also get a Bluetooth earphone for this as well, but it doesn't come with the phone. What really impressed me is the radio. The phone can automatically search and store all the available stations, and that's one of the first things I did (and then I re-arranged them with my favourite stations first on the list). What's more, the reception for the radio is really quite good, even with the headphones you get with the phone. By the way, the headphones even have a button to change the channel. Mind you, listening to the radio will drain your battery a bit more than usual standby, but I doubt I'll use this option all that often anyway.

As for the battery, I find need to charge this one a touch more often than my old one (especially when I use the radio). Still, 4-5 days between charging is very good. Plus, this seems to get to full charge much faster than my 2610. That said, when the battery gets low, the reception for the radio erodes a bit, and for some reason, having the earphone in seems to drain the battery. This is probably because the headphones for listening to the radio work as an antenna and it can't distinguish between the stereo headphones and the mono earphone. Still when the battery is low, it doesn't affect the sound quality of the phone calls.

I must mention that I don't think the sound quality for calls is as good as the 2610. While people don't seem to have much problems hearing me, I get the distinct feeling that I'm making more of an effort to hear people than I used to. This could be my age or my imagination but this phone seems a tad quieter and there's no volume control that I can find. However, recent research about radiation made me try the loudspeaker and earphone which I found gave me excellent sound quality on both ends, while also being healthier to use. Mind you, the loudspeaker with the radio it sounds very tinny and toy-like, so I recommend you use the headphones they give you.

The menus on this phone will be very familiar to Nokia users, but on this model you can customize them even more than on the old ones. For instance, I've totally re-arranged my main menu icons and now it goes straight to my most used option instead of something I never use. So Nokia's already easily navigable interface is even better than ever. If you roam around these menus you'll find many interesting things here, including themes, wallpapers and the like. Among the things I found were the three games (one that's like snake, another like Tetris and a Sodoku) and some useful applications like currency and weights/measures converters. These aren't things I use often but it's nice to know they're there.

My other favourite things about this phone are the screen and keys. With a full colour screen and graphics, it won't look like you're using something this simple. Plus, it's a good 20% larger than my 2610 and I can read it no matter where I am - inside and outside, sunlight or dark of night. There's also an option for large fonts in the phonebook, which makes finding a contact a glasses-free effort. As for the keys, these are much easier to read with the white lighting-up print on the black background than my old dark gray lighting-up to blue on a silver background. All the buttons are very easy to press without feeling loose, and with just the right amount of resistance to them. Most importantly, when I press the keys the phone registers the action immediately and I don't have to press several times for something to work properly.

This new Nokia 2600 Classic is huge improvement over my 2610. The best parts being that I can see what's on the screen, and I can find what I'm looking for easily through re-arranging things and enlarging the fonts. While the camera is only just okay and there's no real MP3 player to speak of, that doesn't bother me since the radio is great. Having the Bluetooth means I can upload things and gives me the option for a wireless earphone. Unfortunately, there's not much internal memory and without the earphone, the sound quality isn't great. Also this is only a dual band phone so it isn't for frequent travelers to the USA/Canada. Still, it is lightweight, nice looking and is the perfect phone for those who mostly want to make phone calls and send SMS messages while still looking fashionable. Moreover, this is very reasonably priced. The Nokia 2600 Classic deserves at least four stars out of five and I can truly recommend it.

Thanks for reading!

Davida Chazan © August, 2008 (this also appears on Ciao.com)

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Technical Stuff:

The web pages for this phone can be found at http://europe.nokia.com/link?cid=PLAIN_TEXT_803954 or http://www.nokia.co.uk/A4831065 or http://shop.nokia.co.uk/nokia-uk/product.aspx?sku= 3822084&culture=en-GB where you'll find all the specifications for this phone. These phones aren't expensive and will cost you only about £79.00 in the UK.

I think in the UK you can also get this phone with gold/pale blue fascia sets that come with silver keys instead of the black ones. On that, the lettering is black until it lights up but I don't know what colour light is behind that. In any case, I find the white lettering that light up far easier to read against black keys than any of the silver keyed phones I've owned.
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Summary: One of the new Nokia Classic phones that's great for the basic and older user

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