3310 - Probably The Number Of Opinons Written About It! (Nokia 3310)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Nokia 3310
Date:	20/03/03 (354 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good basic phone, Interchangeable parts, Senisible list of features

Disadvantages: On its way out, No street cred at all!

Opinion 4,593 on the Nokia 3310

I really, really HATE cell-phones.

I should qualify that statement. I hate the way they get used, from the one-handed driver (who always seems to be behind me when I have to brake hard) to being on a bus at 4 p.m. surrounded by a total shower of secondary school kids "effing and blinding" into an amazing array of up-to-the-minute technology.

However, when it comes to "fess up" time, I have to say that I've got one, and have done for years. I think I must have been the person they invented pay-as-you-go for, though. I can put £10 credit onto mine and make it last nearly all bloody year.

The secret? I only use it to warn people when something different is about to happen, "hallo, I'm NOT on the train" being a prime example.

I hardly ever turn mine on, unless I've prearranged to do so with someone who needs to contact me whilst I'm out, so my recorded announcement carries a warning that writing me a letter would be a quicker means of getting hold of me!

So what's this got to do with the Nokia 3310, one of the most written-about phones on any opinion site? I've got one, that's what, and since I've had it for a while, and intend to do so until it fails, I regard myself as good a person as any to give a long term impression of the damned thing.

HOW DID I COME BY IT?

A couple of years ago, BT Cellnet as it was, then decided that in order to stop me straying to the "dark side" of pay-as-you-go, they needed to pull a rabbit out of the hat, in the form of a really good tariff. My deal was to give me 15-months rental, including 100 minutes use per month, all for an up-front payment of £89, so I jumped on the deal.

However, smelling a rat, I mentioned that my existing phone, an aging Ericsson, could well fail me in the battery department during that prolonged period. "No worries, Mr. Green,
we'll send you a new phone now" came the reply, and that's how I came by the Nokia 3310. I stuck with this for 15 months, before O2, Cellnet's second coming, offered me a "really good deal" - £89 for 12 months with less minutes per month. At this point, I dove for the "dark side", taking the phone, which apparently I now owned, with me.

APPEARANCE

To my way of thinking, the current trend to make phones smaller and smaller is missing one vital point, the size of the human face. The Nokia, a phone not exactly in its first flush of youth, seems to me, to be just about the right size, being genuinely pocket-able but having some substance to it.

The much-vaunted interchangeable facia facility is of no great interest to me, although I did swap-out the original two-tone grey for an official Nokia replacement in metallic maroon, but that's as far as I go with that. Cover removal has a knack to it, and anyone proud of their finger nails had better get someone else to do it.

In its maroon guise, my original white rubber buttons are now replaced by silver ones with pale green back lighting. This I find strangely unhelpful in daylight conditions, as it seems to blend in with the silver, making text messaging a very hit and miss affair. I'm looking at it now, and the letters are MUCH clearer with the phone turned off!

Shape-wise, the Nokia is quite bland and inoffensive, being all smooth curves. The display is an adequate size to show several lines of text.

The one thing I miss most, when compared to my old Ericsson, is a pen-clip to secure it when in a top pocket. There IS on the leather case, but I find these quite tacky and they bulk-up the phone to the extent that they just don't seem so dainty afterwards.

FEATURES

When introduced, this was probably described as having more features than you can "shake a stick at". (Someone ought to tell the pe
ople who invent these phrases, that prepositions are not the kind of words to end a sentence WITH!).

Nowadays, that stick must be looking a bit tattered. However, the features it does have remain genuinely useful.

a) SEX AIDS - The vibrating call alert is always good for a laugh, especially if you've forgotten that the phone is on - "how was it for you" sent as a text message starts to take on a whole new meaning if the thing is in a pocket in the vicinity of de ol' weddin' tackle. Left on a glass-topped table, (the phone, not my wedding tackle*) the din is quite alarming, and makes the Nokia prone to lemming impressions as it dives for the floor. The din is also quite alarming when I put the said personal items on a glass-topped table, especially if it hasn't been warmed up in advance.

b) THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN VOICE - Voice actuation is quite useful, if you can be arsed to set it up. This works in tandem with your existing Phone Book of remembered numbers. Having selected the number in question, say, your home number, you can teach the phone to react to the words "Phone home" or similar. One hint here - don't put on your best telephone manner for the recording session, otherwise your exhortations to "fonome!" won't be recognised. Just be yourself and it works - most of the time. As a feature, I hardly ever bother to use it, but I can see that anyone taking a responsible attitude to cell-phone use in the car might want it, since you only have to select the number needed and hold down the call button for longer to activate it. This minimises any distraction and dangerous attempts to dial out whilst driving.

c) PREDICTIVE TEXT FOR LESS THUMB-ACHE - No, not Old Moore's Almanac or the works of Nostradamus, but useful feature to help with the speedier typing of text messages. Each button on a phone keypad has to perform several functions, one of which is obviously to output the
tone corresponding to the assigned number. Most keys also carry three letters of the alphabet. Prior to predictive texting, to type for example the letter F, you would have had to press the 3\DEF key three times in rapid succession to get F. No real problem there, but suppose the next letter in the typed sequence was to be E, you'd have to wait till the cursor stopped flashing before pressing the same button all over again (twice this time) to get E.

With predictive text, typing a word like DEED would be somewhat quicker. You merely press the DEF button 4 times, and as soon as you introduce a space to show that the word is finished, predictive text takes its best guess at what you meant. If the word DEED is not recognised, or maybe the mechanism thought you meant FEED, you can add this word to a personal dictionary of the words you are most likely to want.

It takes a bit of getting used to, and during the "learning phase", it can actually slow you down, but the effort pays off.

AFTERTHOUGHTS

There are of course, many other features, but since all cell-phones have them, more a facet of the network than the phone, there's little mileage in discussing them here.

The Nokia 3310 has now become the "free option" on many sign-up passages, which no doubt means they've stopped making it, but this needn't stop you getting one. When it comes to accessories and spares, the Nokia is probably the most catered-for phones around thanks to the fact that more recent Nokia's like the 3330 tend to use the same parts.

I've always found battery life to be exemplary. Bearing in mind that I don't even turn it on, the official figures for standby/conversation time mean little to me. What is impressive is that I can leave it neglected in my coat pocket for a month or so, and still make a call on it when I want to!

If you just want a cheap (possibly even free) phone, and don't ca
re about it being the world's smallest or most feature-packed then the 3310 does it, and does it well.

AND it bounces!

Summary: