A Masochistic Phone for a Clumsy Cow (Nokia 3330)

Member Name: michaird

Product:	Nokia 3330
Date:	06/08/02 (992 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sturdy, Reliable

Disadvantages: My other phone was just as good

Well, I am one hell of a clumsy cow. I must be one of the few women around that actually does get black eyes from cupboard doors and regularly smacks herself in the head with the fridge door because she forgot to take her head out first (Clumsiness is a hazard of being left handed, Don't yer know)

So I need something sturdy, something that I can drop on the floor a lot and it will still work (unlike the Errikson I had which literally fell to pieces a month after I got it) For sturdiness I simply don't think its possible to beat Nokia.

Originally had a 3310, which served me very well until some scumbag in a night-club stole it (ggrrrrr!) and with my phone insurance I got an up to date replacement, the 3330.

It's quite small, but not so small that you feel as if you should be lighting a fag with it. It's light, but heavy enough so that you would notice if some greasy scumbag has taken out of your pocket in a night-club (ggrrrrrr!) The buttons are large enough for my little stubby fingers and don't need much pressure for them to work. This phone will also fit any 3310 express on cover that you may have, I personally have never had a cover other than the one supplied but my sister has hundreds of them (at between £5-£20 a complete waste of money as far as I'm concerned)

The controls are quite intuitive and I can honesty say I have never looked in the manual to find out how to use it. However, In the interests of research I've dug out my manual and it is very well presented and instructions are clear and straightforward.

It has a good size screen with well-defined features, you can have an animated screen saver if you wish (mine is smiley faces bouncing up and down, very acid house) The screen will show you your signal strength and battery power.

So on to the features:

Phone book:

You can store up to 100 names in the internal memory and up to 250 names on the sim card (de
pending on the sim card), they can be displayed in the manner you prefer (name only, name and number etc) and are in alphabetical order.

You can assign a personalised ring tone to certain people in your address book (the death march for the mother-in-law for instance) so that you know who is ringing before you even look at the phone.

There is the facility to attach a voice dial to up to 8 people so that you simply need to say the name and it will ring them. I don't have much luck with this, as it seems to have a problem with brummy accents, I do know people who use it very successfully though.

You can assign speed dials, birthday reminders and to all the search and edit functions you would expect from a modern phone.

Messages:

The phone has prescriptive text, which means that it will make a guess at what word you are trying to spell. For example if you press 4 (ghi) 3 (def) 5 (jkl) 5 (jkl) 6 (mno) and it will guess that you want to say hello. If it picks the wrong word (for example whenever I try to spell MUM it thinks that it is more likely I am saying NUN) you press the star key and it will scroll through until you find the right word. If it doesn't, usually when texting swear words, you can turn the prescriptive text off and spell the word yourself,

You can send text message of up to 440 characters but the phone doesn't seem to hold many text messages in the memory, ten, I think, is the maximum,

You can also send and receive picture messages, which I suppose is good for birthday greetings and such like.

The best thing, in my opinion, is that if you are sent a number in a text message you can get the phone to dial that number. Nifty huh?

Chat:

This is a bit like a chat room on your mobile using SMS, my sister uses this a lot and has the phone bill to show for it, she says its good so you'll have to take her word for it. I think it's a waste of time and yo
u might as well just make the phone call.

Call register:

This is where you check the calls you've made missed and received. It will show you call duration and costs if you set it up to do so. If you have a prepaid phone this is where you would check your credit.

It is a dull, yet useful function.

Tones:

Ahhh, this is where you annoy the nation.

The phone has 35 predefined tones and 7 spaces for you to fill with downloaded or composed ones. On my 3310 I had the theme tune from Monty Python but now I just have a predefined one, I can be bothered with it.

There is a silent function for people who don't like the advertising and a vibrate option for people who a desperate for a little pleasure, these can also be used on text message alerts.

Here you also have the option to change the ring volume, warning tones and keypad tones

Call Settings

This is a scary function, which I do not venture into much.

Here you have the option to set the phone for things like automatic redial (for when you get a busy tone) PIN code setting, call barring and many other things I have never had much use for.
The most important function in the menu is 'restore factory settings' the one we use when we've done something dumb and don't know how to fix it.

Call Divert:

Quite simply this allows you to divert your calls, under certain circumstances, to either your mailbox or another number, which you specify.

Be careful with this as my mum had all her calls diverted to the home phone for months and was thinking about getting rid of the mobile because no-one ever called her on it (a job for the restore factory settings button).

Games:

There are five games to chose from:

Snake 2: I'm rubbish at this
Space impact: rubbish at this too
Bumper: I new game I don't know how to play this
Bantumi: very good on
the beginner level
Pairs 11: I'm ace at this

You can also download games via the WAP function if you want to.

Calculator:

Self-explanatory, it is a very simple calculator, which does the job. I'm a saddo and always seem to have a calculator in my bag anyway so I don't use it often.

Reminders:

Here you can right yourself notes, which the phone will remind you about when you tell it to. I've just check and I have a dental appointment at 6pm on the 12th of May, must delete that.

Clock:

Fairly simple, it's the clock settings. There is also an alarm, stopwatch and countdown timer.

Profiles:

Here you can set the way your phone will ring etc depending on where you are without having to go through all the change setting functions.

For example if your in a meeting you set the profile to silent (so it doesn't disturb you) and when you come out and go down to the pub you set it to loud (so you can hear it).

Services:

Another scary function. I don't use it myself but I have spoken with people who do and they tell me it is a good, no frills WAP service. Probably not for people who are going to use it for any serious purpose but my friends use it for things like checking cinema times, concert dates and getting horoscopes.

Charges will of course depend on the network you use.



I got mine free with my phone insurance however this model is on the carphone warehouse website from £129.99 depending on what package you want (that is the pre-pay upgrade price)

I like this phone as it is simple, here are no fancy flip covers or screens (i.e. things to get broken) it does the job and it does it well. I have dropped it more than once on many different types of floor (this afternoon, the concrete pavement) and it doesn't seem to mind. If you do want to fancy it up a bit, well there are all kind of accessories avail
able from express on covers, hands free sets and Day-Glo covers than light up like Blackpool when it rings. I don't rate it much higher than the 3310 to be honest, animated graphic and WAP capabilities aren't important to me and unless they are to you i would recommend sticking with the old model for as long as it works.

Some Techy Nonsense: (copied from the website www.nokia.com)

Availability: Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific
Weight: 133 g (with standard battery)
Dimensions: 113 x 48 x 22 mm, 97 cc
Talk time: 2 h 30 min - 4 h 30 min
Standby time: 55 - 260 h
Key features: WAP, chat messaging, animated screen savers, downloadable game packs, vibrate feature, voice dialling, picture viewer, predictive text input, new Bumper and Space Impact games, Xpress-on(tm) covers
Operating frequency: EGSM 900/1800 networks in Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific

Summary: