3330 Reasons to buy... (Nokia 3330)

Member Name: jamiemchale

Product:	Nokia 3330
Date:	12/06/01 (124 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good menu, Good range of features, Nice Looking

Disadvantages: Battery time, Price a bit steep

Well, maybe not 3330 reasons to buy, but I can certainly give you quite a few.

I decided I was in need of a new mobile as most of my friends were switching to the Genie Mobile plans, getting free SMS messaging - An expensive way to live if you still pay 10p per Txt. There was a small range of phones to choose from. I went for the Nokia 3330 due to recommendations from my friends, and because I liked the overall appearance and features list.

I could list every feature of the phone and comment on it, instead I'll list the features that stand out to me (in no particular order...):

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1. Text Messaging
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This is one of the features of the phone that I use most. As with most other Nokia's that I have seen the text messaging is fairly good (especially compared to my old phone).

Predictive text makes it faster to write messages, with it guessing most of the words that I use correctly - If not then you can insert words, symbols, numbers and "smilies" (:-P) that don't get fed through the dictionary.

The phone can store up to 10 messages on my Genie pre-pay plan, and 20 on the contract phones.

The menu options for text messages are nicely laid out, you can see who the text is from before you open it, reply, forward and erase messages. Another nice feature is that you can "copy & paste" numbers from text messages to your address book with the "Use Number" feature.

Overall I find text messages useful, and easy to use with the Nokia.

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2. Address Book
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The address book stores names and numbers. The SIM card with the genie pre-pay stores 99 numbers, and the phone can store 100. This should be enough for most mobile phone users.

The address book works well, you can organise it in several different "views" to make it easy to browse.

The only problem that I have w
ith the address book is that in the "list" view - When multiple entries appear on the screen at the same time - You cannot just "view" the number, as the only option is to "call". You have to switch to "name, number" view to see them - Which only displays one entry at a time.

However, the address book is fully functional, and easy to use.

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3. Games
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The Nokia 3330 comes with five games. Snake 2, Space Impact (like space invaders), Bumper (pinball game), Bantumi (something with numbers???), and Pairs 2.

All the games are reasonably easy to play, and will keep you entertained for a while. When you have a good high score, you can connect via WAP to Club Nokia and upload the score, competing with other Nokia users.

The only problem I see with the games is in the Bumper pinball game, the flippers don't seem responsive to your key presses, there seems to be a bit of lag whilst pressing the keys and the game responding.

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4. WAP
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I had WAP on my old phone, but never used it due to cost. With Genie Mobile, WAP access is free.

WAP is alright for specific tasks, I can look up train times easily, which is great when you're standing on a station at 1am, with no idea when the next train is.

WAP sometimes doesn't work, you need a generally good signal, and it is hard to "find new things" to do, once you have found the site/feature you want to use you can bookmark it, and jump straight to it later.

WAP is a feature that is reasonable on the phone, but not its main selling point. I would still recommend the 3330 over the 3310, which is the same phone, but without the WAP features.

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5. Battery Time
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This is the main drawback to the phone. The battery drains incredibly fast - My old phone I could leave on for days, then
charge it - But the Nokia 3330 seems to need charging very regularly, especially after long calls - Or heavy txting sessions.

On the other hand, it seems to charge reasonably quickly too - But this is the main point that drags the phone down in my estimation.

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6. Customisation
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As with most mobile phones now "customisation" is a heavily talked about feature. This doesn't bother me too much, but its still nice to have these features, which are:

- Ring tones - You can download and compose ring tones, there are several sites on the net that offer free tones. Mine is the classic Guns N' Roses tune "Sweet Child O' Mine"

- Operator logos - You can get little logos sent to your phone to be displayed whilst you are not browsing the menu, Surprise! Surprise! mine is the Guns N' Roses band logo (notice a trend developing here :-P)

- Screen Savers - This is a really pointless, but also kinda cool little feature. Mobile phone screens do not need "saving" in the same way as PC screens do. They can last an eternity with the same thing being displayed on them. However, the little animations are something different to look at once you're bored of the operator logo (mine is a little guitarist that jumps up and down).

- Profiles - You can set up different profiles, changing the tones, setting the vibrating alert, turning off sounds etc, and switch between these profiles by pressing the power button. Very useful for quickly switching to slient mode when you don't want to be disturbed - This is a very useful feature of the phone.

- Changing covers - Althought I quite like the "classic white" that came with my phone you can easily change the front and back covers to your phone - Giving it a personal feel, and making it recognisable from the 100's of other Nokia 3330s

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Ok, that
9;s a summary of the main points of the phone that I use. Overall the Nokia is a good phone which I would recommend to most phone users with a bit of money to splash about. Its drawbacks are the price and battery life - But combined with the right mobile tariffs it can make a good addition to your social life.

Jamie

Summary: