Simply Mobile (Nokia 5110)

Member Name: TheChocolateLady

Product:	Nokia 5110
Date:	20/10/06 (278 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reliable, durable, simple, inexpensive

Disadvantages: Single band, No fancy MP3, colours, videos, camera

This phone has got to be one of the oldest one on the market. And while it may not be available in your regular cell phone shop, you can still buy them on e-bay for less than £10 or if you want one that's guaranteed to be in really good working condition, you can try www.retrophone.com where they sell these for a mere £24.99. The question is, why would you want such an old, outmoded and single band phone? Well, if you're like us, perhaps you have an old hands-free unit in your car that fits this phone, and you want something inexpensive to use while driving. If so, then this is still the perfect phone.

The fact is, I bought this model by chance, since I purchased a used car which happened to have a hands-free cradle installed and this was the model that fit that cradle. Ever since cell phones became popular, I vowed I wouldn't get one unless I could have a one of those cradles. Actually, where I live (Israel), we apparently have one of the world's highest rates of cell phones per person. We also happen to be one of the worst countries in the world in regards to road safety. Amazingly, our legal system acted quickly and make it illegal to drive while holding a cell phone (not that this stopped many people, but at least I try to be a law abiding citizen).

That said, despite the fact that I have upgraded several times, and have a new car with its own hands-free cradle for another phone (Samsung), we still have one of these models that works perfectly. I still use it when I want to drive my husband's car (he has a Nokia 6310 and it's the same hands-free set for this phone) and for that, I simply take the extra SIM chip from my present car-only phone, and put it into our old 5110. This means we've been using this model phone for over six years and I've found it to be a good, reliable friend!

Advantages: The body is small enough to hold comfortably in your hand, even if it is a little bit on the heavy side (compared to today's newer models). But it isn't all that terribly heavy since I've put it in my coat pocket several times and almost forgot it was there.

The screen is large enough to make reading clear (even without my reading glasses, which I can't use while driving), and you can make the font larger on some of the options, like the phonebook, to make it even easier to read. Also, at night, the lighting on the face and keys of the phone is just enough to make it readable.

The phonebook seems to hold more than enough numbers for the average user (but this also depends on the SIM card you have), and putting new numbers in is very easy to do. It also remembers the last eight numbers you called as well as the last five you received and last five you missed - so getting back to people is very easy. One of the best things is you can easily save a number you received or missed by just pasting it into the memory and adding a name. This is the same as my Samsung but far easier than my present Ericsson phone.

It seems to have excellent reception even indoors and in certain tunnels. I found this to be particularly good since not long after we bought that old car, some kids in our neighborhood stole the antenna for the phone, and we didn't notice it made any difference with the phone's reception at all. And speaking of reception, when we used this as a primary phone, we always could hear people and people always could hear us - unlike the problems we had with some of the newer phones we've owned.

Someone told me that you can't download new ring tones to this phone, but I must beg to differ. Apparently, the service they subscribe to is the problem and not the phone, and I downloaded a few for this phone over the years - even if they are monophonic. You can also set the phone to Personal Tones, Loud, Discreet, or Silent (the latter two are not recommended for use in the car). There is a cute little icon option available for the screen whose only purpose, from what I can tell, is to be able to distinguish your phone from someone else's. That was important back when everyone else had this model, but its just a bit of fun for now. This phone came with three basic games: snake, memory and logic, which used to keep me from getting bored in places like doctor's waiting rooms, for instance. Of course, today's mobile phone games are far more sophisticated, but I still miss playing logic on my regular phone.

SMS messaging is extremely simple to use as well, but since we now use this phone only in the car, we don't use this function anymore since the card doesn't allow it (because it's the same number as the one I use outside the car. This is solely a function of the special Orange Two system SIM card).

The battery life on this phone is amazing. It has up to 11 days on standby and up to five hours of talk time. If you use it only in your car like we do, then you'll find that it charges up every time you put it in the cradle and that means you'll probably never need to charge it or find yourself without a battery.

Finally, I'm a natural klutz and I've dropped this phone many, many times - once from a fairly high height. Aside from a few nicks on the cover (which you can still get replacements for), the phone continued to work without any problems. So, if it can stand up to my punishment, it is a very durable phone indeed!

Drawbacks: First of all, as mentioned before, this is a single band phone - which means you'll only be able to use it in your home country. It doesn't have any fancy WAP or bluetooth facilities, either. And as I also said before, the ring tones are monophonic so they aren't going to be fancy and you can't download MP3 songs to use with it. It also isn't a colour screen, nor does it have video or picture-taking facilities and you can't even download more games. Basically, it is a truly basic phone.

You should know that the buttons sometimes seem stiff and are sometimes difficult to press. I find this slightly inconvenient when I'm driving. However, this isn't as much of a problem as one may think, since it does prevent keys getting pressed by accident when the phone is in your purse or while you carry it around in your hand and you forget to lock the keypad.

Some of the functions took me a long while to learn how to use - making this not as completely user-friendly as the salesperson seemed to think it was. But I'm not stupid and I have a fairly good grasp of new technology, and eventually I was able to master whatever I needed.

The message function has a very annoying ring to it which you can only turn down to Discreet or Silent and not change it to something pleasant. But since I don't get SMS messages on this phone anymore, this doesn't bother me.

Finally, the biggest problem with this phone is that the screen is fairly sensitive and if you're not careful, that will be the thing that goes wrong with it first. We did have a problem with the battery getting loose over the years but slipping a piece of paper inside seems to have fixed that without paying any service charges.

Conclusion: As you can see, the advantages far outweigh the drawbacks for this phone. Its easy to use, reliable, durable, good reception and if you have the hands-free cradle, it really is the best phone you could get to use for your car. Of course, these days everyone has all these fancy colour phones these days with cameras and downloaded MP3 ring tones and video clips and games, so if you want to use this as your main phone, you'll look pretty silly and out of touch with the times. But if you want something really basic, there's nothing you can fault this phone on - if you can find it (and apparently, you can at a very low cost indeed). Because of its age, old-fashioned functions and availability I'll only give it three stars, but still recommend it!

Thanks for reading!

Davida Chazan © January 2001, updated October 2006

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Technical Stuff:

This model has been discontinued by Nokia but as mentioned above can be found on e-bay as well as www.retrophone.com. The URL for this phone at that site is:
http://www.retrofone.com/product_info.php?product s_id=33 and you'll find all the specifications you need there.

One last thing - please, remember: Please don't drive and hold your cell phone at the same time. Its dangerous, believe me. Get that docking cradle or some kind of hands-off adapter. You'll be glad you did!
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Summary: An old reliable phone, great for using in your car.

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