It had to happen eventually - a BAD Nokia phone! (Nokia 2610)

Member Name: TheChocolateLady

Product:	Nokia 2610
Date:	14/09/07 (2423 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Attractive, good battery life, nice keys

Disadvantages: Very poor sound quality and you can't see the screen when you're outside

Having been unhappy with the tiny keys of my free Sony Ericsson T290i, I recently upgraded to a Nokia 2610, and while I've had some good experience with Nokia phones in the past, I'm afraid this one doesn't come up to snuff, and here's why. But first, let me tell you what's good about this phone.

Nokia phones are famous for their sturdy build, and the 2610 is no exception. The style is simple and attractive, with a good metallic feel to it (as opposed to a cheap, plastic feel), giving confidence that this won't easily break. This particular model was chosen for the large(ish) keys, which help my aging eyes see what I'm doing. I especially like the thick and easy to push navigation ring which sits around the joystick. In addition, since the keys aren't plastic you don't feel like the paint will rub off quickly.

Regarding the battery, I should mention that I'm not a heavy user, and this phone doesn't have a camera, radio or MP3 player. That said, I'm finding with regular use I only need to charge this phone about once a week. Mind you, I have a different car-phone, so keep that in mind. What's best about Nokia phones is that the battery indicator is six dash-lines along the side of the screen, which is more precise than the little battery symbols with bars inside it. I've also found that when the battery lowers to no dash-lines, I still can use the phone for a bit, and even after I get a warning, I've been able to finish a call or send out one last message without being shut down. By the way, this phone doesn't "cry" incessantly prior to turning off – which I'm not sure is a good thing. But you do get more than one notification, which is better than my Ericsson, which would beep once, and then turn off.

The menus here can be shown as a large font list (for the older eyes) or as a page of icons. Despite my reading-glasses, I prefer the icon view and the pictures are easy to understand and navigate. Of course, these include all the usual options for contacts, call records, settings, internet access, games and more. Another good thing is that you can adjust the font settings so that they're not so small when you surf the web or send text messages. There's also an option for getting help text which shows up if you leave your "cursor" on an option for a few seconds.

Finally, you can use MP3 songs, SP-MIDI tunes or any polyphonic ringtones you can find and download for any of your applications. The phone comes with some tones built in, but they're mostly bog-standard. And speaking of sounds, I appreciate that if you choose a non-default profile like "silent", you can have it timed. This means if I'm in a movie, I can set my phone to silent until the time when the film ends, and I won't have to worry about turning the general profile back on afterwards. This is a huge boon for us forgetful people who often need to turn their phone ringing off.

All that sounds pretty good, but you can tell from my introduction here, all is not perfect in Nokia 2610-land. In order for you to understand the gravity of the problems here, I'm going to tell you about them starting from some of the least bothersome to the most. While I have several minor niggles, let's start writing text messages. On my Ericsson, I got used to using language selections where one option was numbers only. This was very convenient for writing phone numbers, dates and times into messages. This Nokia, however, doesn't have this and you have to click the keys until you get to the number you want to include, and I'm not pleased with this.

My next big problem is with the screen. Firstly, the text for the menu options is very small and at the top of the screen, when you'd expect it to be bigger and at the bottom. I'll get used to this, but it doesn't make much sense, and I keep missing things. Next, the default initial icon that you first see on the menu is for the "Gallery", which is where all the themes, graphics and ringtones are. Why this is so, is beyond me, since one would think that the menu item you use the most should be the one that it comes to first – for instance, say, the phone book. (Hello! This is a phone, people!) Yes, there is a programmable "go to" button, but this default is just thoughtless. More importantly, no matter how much I fiddle with the contrast, or change the wallpaper or theme, whenever I'm outside I cannot see anything on the screen at all – rain or shine. Not even choosing the "outside" profile helps. This is one of the biggest downfalls of this phone and is downright inexcusable.

But what really makes me angry about this phone is the sound quality. Firstly, I've adjusted all the volume levels to their fullest, which doesn't seem to help – not with the level of the ringtones and not with the quality of the sound. I often miss calls because I can't hear the phone ringing from my purse, and I find I need to put this in my pocket so I can feel the vibration – which isn't attractive for a woman. I have difficulty hearing people when they call unless they're speaking straight into their machines, which seldom is the case. What's more, if there's even just a little bit of background noise, people have a hard time hearing me as well. And while there is an integrated hands-free speaker, I don't think that solves the problem, since I don't need everyone to hear my calls - just me.

So I ask you, if you have a phone where you can hardly hear it ringing, which the screen is impossible to see when you're outdoors (hey, its called a "mobile" phone, which means you don't have to be inside to use it) and where you can't always hear people nor they always hear you, what damned good is it? Without having a camera or radio or MP3 player to focus on, it seems to me that Nokia should have been able to make sure that the basics worked properly. Yes, this phone is inexpensive (or available free with contracts from the various providers), and it does have some nice things about it, but as the basic phone it was meant to be, it just doesn't live up to the famous Nokia tradition of reliable calling and messaging. I cannot recommend this phone and will give it only two stars out of five (I'm rounding DOWN this time).

Thanks for reading!

Davida Chazan © September, 2007

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Technical Stuff:

If you still want to find out about this phone, even after reading what I said above, the webpage for it can be found at http://www.nokia.co.uk/link?cid=EDITORIAL_28968

I'm so disappointed with this phone that I'm not going to bother looking for other sites for you – it's just not worth your time or mine.
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Summary: The Nokia 2610 is basic, but fails to live up to the standards of their past.

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