Nokia 3300 - A Pleasant Surprise (Nokia 3300)

Member Name: garyfinny

Product:	Nokia 3300
Date:	21/03/04 (1226 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Music Player, Small

Disadvantages: Hard to use as phone for long periods.

Check my latest review, the Nokia 3300. Recently I was lucky to get my hands on one and here are my opinions. Any suggestions to the review format or anything else, just let me know.

INTRODUCT& #73;ONS

Music in the MP3 format is nothing new; the Siemens SL45 and Nokia 5510 were both early forerunners of this technology, allowing the addition of a Multimedia card (MMC) to hold songs, which could be played back via the phone. Correctly assuming that many people take their phones everywhere, these phones attained a valuable niche in the market.

However, the main drawbacks to these phones is that they are now quite dated, although admittedly very cheap if you?re looking primarily for a phone with MP3 player. The Nokia 3300 brings a new life and is quite an original phone for the release date (2nd Quarter, 2003), as not only does it support MP3 and radio functions, it also has a colour screen, useful for playing games.

Indeed, the whole thing is styled like an old Sega Game Gear, except much smaller. But would this increase in style be offset by a decrease in useability?

FIRST IMPRESSION S

Firstly, the phone is much smaller than the pictures make it look. It?s actually pretty comfortable to hold and the weighs about average for a mobile phone. As said before, the styling is much like a Game Gear, resulting in a D-Pad, three rows of numeric keys. Under the screen are four function buttons, these are used as on a normal phone.

Speaking of the LCD, this is a nice job. Colours are good, although slightly limited if you plan to upload photos to it. The screen is a good size, bigger than a 7210/7250 screen, and this is made use
of, especially in games.

Looking around the phone, it does not support Bluetooth, and there is no infra-red port either. However, the phone does come bundled with a USB data cable which allows you to upload software and data to the memory card. The card itself, is housed behind the battery along with the SIM card. It?s removable, so you can have separate cards for music, games, etc. The phone does not required the MMC in to work as it also has internal memory.

AFTER USAGE:

The unit is very easy to use, which is excellent. At heart, it uses the same operating system as the Nokia 3510, meaning that a number based menu-system for contacts, profiles, applications. Bascially, if you?re familiar with a Nokia, then you?re going to find this very easy.
Navigation is via the two menu keys under the screen and the D-Pad/numeric keypad to choose different options. It?s a good system to use, and even writing text messages is no problem ? the keypad will seem more and more normal the more you use it.

For a phone dedicated to music, this doesn?t disappoint, with a short-cut key to the top-left of the phone which allows you to go directly to the in-built music player or radio. Rather disappointingly, although the music can be played over the loudspeaker, the radio can?t (a feature common to Nokia phones). There?s further options when your music is playing, volume can be adjusted, you can choose the order of your songs, and there?s even an inbuilt equalizer function, although that?s really of limited use.

The loudspeaker certainly does a good job, with two speakers to the top-left and underside-right of the phone. Quite cleverly the top edge of the phone is almost flat, and allows the phone to stand up so sound can travel from both speakers. Exiting the music player
doesn?t stop the music, so you can still use the phone as normal with the music still playing.

There are the now-standard collection of polyphonic ringtones, but now, you?re allowed to use an MP3 for your ringtone. It?s a feature hardly ever seen on phones, and with the right song, it?s very impressive. There?s also voice recognition to allow you to shortcut to functions although I find it doesn?t really save any time as sometimes the system will not recognize your voice, particularly if you?ve had a heavy night before.

Call quality is good, and there?s an option to put calls on to the loudspeaker, allowing for handsfree conversation. I did not find an auto-answer loudspeaker function though which would have been very handy, but I guess most wouldn?t miss it. The microphone is actually to the left side of the phone ? there will be some confusion to find which way around the phone goes once you actually use it. To be honest, you might look a bit silly taking calls on this thing ? but who cares, it?s got music and games.

Battery life is also good ? the phone uses the same BLD-3 battery as found in the 7210-7250 phones, and can deliver around three days of usage. However, if you?re constantly playing games and music, that figure will decrease. I have seen hi-capacity batteries now on places like Ebay for good prices, which deliver extra life to the phone at the expense of a bit of extra weight.


CONNECTIV& #73;TY

The Nokia 3300 comes with literally no connectivity options, with only the USB cable the sole link to the computer, unless you want to buy an external card reader/writer. This lack of connectivity isn?t a problem, as you?re unlikely to want to share, or receive data for this phone (remember that pictures aren?t that great). It?s impractical to send or receive music
because of the slow transfer rate, so it?s probably the correct decision.

The phone supports WAP so you are able to use all the applications, although there is no POP3 support so you?re unable to use email with this. The WAP function is similar to the previous versions and hasn?t made any progress, although it would be hard to with this phone anyway.

EXTRAS

The phone comes bundled with some excellent games; Snake EX2, Water Rapids, DJ and Disco. This is where the D-Pad really comes into it?s own and makes games such as Water Rapids an enjoyable experience, and probably would not have been workable on other phones. The games are certainly better than average. I was surprised to find that Disco was actually a strategy-based game in which you had to build and manage a small night club. It?s quite addictive and very difficult!

This being Nokia, there are literally hundreds of games available for this phone. Just see a search engine for more. Some you?ll have to pay to download, some would be free. Games such as Tomb Raider or Splinter Cell really excel on this, but separating the movement and action functions makes the games much easier to play.

In all honesty, the keypad keys are probably slightly too close together to make prolonged play comfortable, but for short, quick blasts of gameplay, this is almost as good as it gets.

Other extras to this phone include the standard organizer, calculator and stopwatch functions. I guess it?s because I?ve seen so many Nokia phones I forget to mention the profiles system, which is excellent and totally customizable. Easy to take it for granted, but the system is simple to use, consistent and works.

If you?re going to get this phone ? a must would be to purch
ase a larger memory card. 256MB can be had for under £50 and will give you more options to store music, games and applications.

AVAILABIL& #73;TY

Availability is quite a difficult issue to discuss. Since it?s release, the Nokia 3300 was superceded by the Nokia N-Gage, and was actually discontinued by Orange, although Vodafone, T-Mobile and Virgin kept it on their networks as the N-Gage failed to meet expectations.

Orange dropping the 3300 lead to an actual price increase of this handset, I have seen this for £130-£140, whereas before, it was as low as £70. I would guess it was part of the strategy, as the N-Gage became cheaper than the 3300, rather strange for a technically superior phone.

The 3300 would be free on contract or upgrade, but I wouldn?t recommend this as there are much better phones to be had for nothing. A good chance is that a network may cut their price to clear stock (see our Yahoo Group for latest price alerts), or even nice ones on Ebay would sell for £50-70.

CONCLUSIO& #78;:

The Nokia 3300 gets FOUR STARS. I was surprised by the ease of use that this phone has, and music is always nice to listen to, particularly when you?ve chosen it! The handset is much smaller and sleeker than it looks in the picture, and certainly it?s excellent value for money, especially when you consider the cost of standalone MP3 players.

If you?re really into mobiles, this is perfect to use as a second phone. You can take it to places like the gym and use the MP3 player without worrying too much about losing or scratching it, as it?s low cost.

Summary: