Welcome To Club Nokia (Nokia 3310)

Member Name: sy2kgbr

Product:	Nokia 3310
Date:	01/01/02 (2193 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to personalise and so easy to use, you probably won't need your instruction booklet.

Disadvantages: Doing so costs money.

Virgin Mobile assures me that my new Nokia 3310 is "the life of the party". I'm not sure that I'd go that far, but I am still very pleased with it. The main advantage as I see it, is what I call the 'tweakability' of the phone, e.g. you can personalise it in a lot of ways. Screensavers, logos, ringtones, phone covers, welcome notes, pin codes...

Here's a short (well it seemed short when I was writing it, but these things have a horrible tendency to grow in length of their own voilition - a bit like "Snake" really) guide/review on the Nokia 3310.


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FEATURES & BASIC INFORMATION


This is why you want to buy the phone, right? Here we go...

Standby time: 55-260 hours
Talk time: 150-270 minutes
Recharge time: Up to 240 minutes (with a 900 mAh nickel metal hydride battery - recharge time will vary according to which battery you have)
Weight: 133 g

The handset itself doesn't have a phone book capacity, but my SIM card from Virgin will let me store up to 200 names. (Although if I called 200 people regularly on my mobile, I think I'd be broke very fast, so not necessarily an advantage.) You'll have to check the phone book capacity according to individual service providers.

On the plus side, the phone is duel band, on the down side; it doesn't have a modem and therefore has no WAP. You'll need a 3330 if you want to go online.

The resolution is 48 x 84 pixels, i.e. 3 lines on screen to you and me.

Other features: calculator, alarm clock, stopwatch, voicemail (from Virgin although other service providers will probably be able to give you a similiar version). Several features are largely dependant on your service provider so I've tried not to comment greatly on them. If there's anything I've missed out that you think I should put it, leave a note in the comments sec
tion, cheers :)


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PREDICTIVE TEXT MESSAGING


Under the 'Messages' section, go to 'Write Messages'. At the top left of the screen you'll see a little stubby pencil and the letters 'Abc'. The 'Abc' part indicates the capitalisation of the words, e.g.

Using 'Abc' we get
The quick brown fox

Using 'abc' we get
the quick brown fox

and using 'ABC' we get
THE QUICK BROWN FOX

You hit the hash button (bottom right on your keypad) to change the capitalisation options. Capisce? Okay, we're good. Now back to the stubby pencil. If it's further to the right than normal and it appears to have drawn a few lines to its left, then you're in predictive text messaging mode. This means that your phone will try its best to guess exactly what you're trying to say. An example? Shall we? Ok.

Let's say that for some weird and wonderful reason you want to write nose. Hit the following keys:

[6 mno] [6 mno] [7 pqrs] [3 def]

This results in the underlined word "more". Not what we want. So hit the asterisk key (bottom left on your keypad) and like magic, it changes to "nose". Hit the asterisk key again to get "nope", again to get "onse", then "mose" and finally in desperation "norf". At this point your Nokia gives up (you can almost hear its little possessor crying "what the hell are you trying to write?") and asks you to spell the word.

Predictive text messaging can be very useful if you're in a hurry, but you don't have to use it if you don't want.


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A FURTHER NOTE ON TEXTING


With the Nokia 3310 you can send multiple text messages at once. You pay for each message, so be careful not to use this
feature if you don't want to. When composing your message, there will be some numbers at the top right that look something like this "459/1" The important part to remember is that when it goes from "/1" to "/2", you're onto your next message. You can send up to 3.

It's up to you whether you want to use this message linking feature, but it's just something to be aware of. (You might end up sending a 3 message long text and thinking you've only paid for 1 message.) This particular feature is referred to as "Advanced Messaging".


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THE GAMES


With the Nokia 3310 you get "Snake II", "Space Impact", "Bantumi" and "Pairs", although I doubt you bought the phone bearing in the mind the great fun level of the last three games.

With the original Snake, if you crashed into the top, bottom or either side of the screen, you died. With the default setting of Snake II, these 'walls' do not exist. If you run into the left side, you'll come back out through the right side. If you're a diehard snake fan like jamespugh ("WHATS THE POINT IN SNAKE IF YOU CAN GO THROUGH THE WALLS..."), then select Maze 1 to erect walls along all four sides. If you're a suicidal serpent, you can pick one of the more complicated 'mazes' and probably die young.

All of the games come with instructions should you need them, your high scores and various settings (e.g. to change the level of difficulty).


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RINGTONES


This phone comes with 35 standard ringtones, including Dom Joly's famously favoured "Nokia Tone". However if none of these 35 appeal to you (there are quite a few pants ones, I must admit) then you can try composing your own one, entering a helpful version of 'N
okia sheet music' from some website or special ringtone book or buying a ringtone and having it sent to your phone. I don't especially favour the last option due to the cost (usually around £1.50/minute).

You have 7 free spaces in which to store additional ringtones. You can delete the ones you program in yourself as and when you get bored of them.

Here's a few pointers when programming in a ringtone:

• The asterisk button is used to change the octave (1, 2, 3)
• The hash button is used to make a note sharp
• 1234567 corresponds to CDEFGAB, just as you'd expect on a piano/keyboard
• [8 tuv] and [9 wxyz] can be used to change the length of the note


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OPERATOR LOGOS/SCREENSAVERS


An operator logo is basically the bit on the screen that says "Virgin Mobile", "NOKIA", "Orange" or something similiar. Your phone will come with one, but if you prefer you can get a different logo sent to your phone. (This will usually cost you. See my note at the end of this thing for a great site to get one free.)

When your phone is locked and/or you're not doing anything to it, you can set a screensaver to appear on your screen. Your phone will come with several to choose from. You can specify whether you want one, and if so, which one, from the "Tones" menu.


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QUICK DIAL


You can assign a number or voice tag for people in your address book, but for the same reason I always use keypad lock, I don't use this feature. It's very easy for me to stupidly call people when I don't actually want to.


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TAKING OFF THE BACK COVER


Turn the phone over. Towards the bottom you should see a little button that you can push dow
n (the locking catch). Do so, and push the cover upwards (I find it easier to flip the phone vertically and push it downwards).

You can now change the battery, SIM code or even fascia. To put the back cover back on, insert the two catches at the sides of the back cover are in place, then slide the cover down until it clicks, signifying it's been locked into place.


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ON/OFF BUTTON


This is the black button at the top of the phone. Press down on it for a few seconds to switch the phone on, and again to switch it off. If when the phone is on, you press the ON/OFF button once, you'll have the option to "Switch off!" or select a ringing setting. Choose from "General", "Silent", "Discreet", "Loud" or "My style". "Discreet" just means vibrate and it's quite a useful setting to be able to select.


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CONCLUSION


Nokias are immensely popular little phones so don't be surprised if all your friends have one (not necessarily the same model). This may at first seem like a bad thing ("but I wanna be unique!") or a good thing ("I can send pictures to my friends!") depending on how you look at it, but you should bear in mind that since you can personalise your Nokia, it doesn't have to look the same as everyone else's.

Being specific, the Nokia 3310 is a great little phone, but it's not the newest one in the Nokia line. This is actually a good thing in my opinion. It's new enough to be respected but not new enough to cost you an arm and a leg.

Shop around and find yourself a good deal to suit you. My 3310 came from Virgin Mobile for a touch under £100 on a pay-as-you-go type contract with a free scaffy bag, £25 worth of credit (£5 already on the phone, £20 for you to key in yourse
lf) and £3 worth of ringtones/logos. Originally I had intended to keep my old Virgin number (hence the whole point of me buying another Virgin phone - you can't upgrade your handset) but I liked the new one better and decided to use it instead. Virgin thoughtfully threw in a few blank contact cards (8 to be exact) for me to scribble down my name, mobile number and e-mail address. They even put down *their* number and url, in case any of my friends becomes envious of my brand spanking new phone and wishes to acquire one for themselves. (It's 0845 6000 600 if you're really interested.)

A final tip from me, is to visit www.fonetastic.com to get yourself a free operator logo or ringtone. (You have to use the paid service to get screensavers and games, but you can't download games for the 3310 anyway.) They also have a free SMS system. This site works on credits (e.g. you earn so many free credits a day, and you also win additional ones from your random lucky number - visit each day to get one).

If you've just got a 3310, enjoy, if not, then what are you waiting for?:P

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