Nokia 6100 - letting people game, send pictures, oh yeah AND CALL PEOPLE! (Nokia 6100)

Member Name: youvebeengored

Product:	Nokia 6100
Date:	08/01/04 (2043 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small and compact, Does what you want, when you want, Offers a number of great services

Disadvantages: No bluetooth, Not a camera phone, Poor games - but you can download loads

Mobile Technology has radically advanced in the past 5 years. People used to get excited about the possibility of owning a phone with games such as Snake being the main selling point. Before then it was the in thing for businessmen to carry 'bricks' around with them along with the filofax. But with many of the phones on the market today being small and perfectly formed (I think i have used that somewhere before!), these have become objects of dewsire for many people. With some many phones and service providers offer a large and varied amount of products, chosing what to buy can often be a long and costly process.

I have never really been a big fan of 'mobile' technology as i have never owned a new product, but at Christmas i invested in purchasing a Nokia 6100. The phones that i have owned have all been Nokia's. Many people complain about the products that are produced by Nokia - often being of poor quality and constantly breaking down, but I have experinced no such problems with their products.

So what does the Nokia 6100 offer to the user? The phone is a small, light-weight phone with a colour screen. It features WAP and infared technology, whilst able to support media messaging. The 6100 does not feature a built-in camera, however an attachment camera can be purchased - usually priced £60! But camera phones is a phase that the product is going through, so unless you really want one, i would consider purchasing this phone and a normal camera because the quality of the pictures taken is often quite poor.
Oh yes, i neraly forgot - it allows you to call people as well!

Anyway back to the phone in question.

The keypad is user friendly with ergonomically positioned keys. It also features a navigational type button allowing you to quickly find the fuction you require on the phone.

Phone contents
Messaging - the usually text message capability is avaliable as well as multimedia messaging. Emails ca
n be sent via the phone also - but WAP needs to be avaliable to do this

Call register - this section allows the user to find out who has called them and who they have called, the length of time calls were and the cost of these calls(very helpful for those who have limited credit budget.

Phone Book - where you can programme youre numbers into the phones memory. Unlike old phones where seperate numbers for the same people had to be stored like X home number, X office number , X mobile number. Now several numbers can be programmed under one name. This feature is very time saving.

Profiles - here is where you can configure your phone to your personal liking. Poloythonic ringtones, wallpapers and screensavers can be changed here. You can use the ones supplied with the phone or order your own and download them through the WAP facility. You can also view these and other things in the gallery section.

Calender/Organiser - is a useful aspect of the phone design, helping you to remember those important dates or meetings.

Games - well actually game! The 6100 comes with a Chess Puzzle game, quite boring unless you like chess! Again games can be downloaded and saved onto the phones memory through the WAP facility. A wide range of games are avaliable, however the quality is often poor. With games costing up to £5 to download make sure you really want a game before you download it!

Applications - a world clock and converter programme features on this phone, enabling you to find out the time in cities around the world, as well as being able to convert currencies, temperature measurments and weights.

Extras - calculator, and stopwatch feature can be useful, but really this is not used that often. A wallet feature allows you to manage your credit cards - but quite honestly i wouldn't want to programme my credit card information into my phone which could be stolen! Not very practical in my eyes.

Services - WAP
is mobile internet for your phone, this is useful when you want to download ringtones, wallpapers or games. Access news and other things can also be gained, but if you have a home interent connection use that over WAp as it can be expensive.
Infared is a way of transfering info between two phones within a 5m range, which is quite good, but is used very infrequently.

Go To - this menu is a shortcut to programs on your phone.

Costing £200 on pay as you go it is expensive, but beening free on contract you can cover the cost of the phone in the amount of free credits you get.

Disadvantages
The phone does not have bluetooth technology which is essential to many business users, however not that relevant to the ordinary user.
No camera maybe seen as uncool by younger people but accesaries can be bought if it is essential to have one.

Advantages
The phone can be used in America allowing you to stay in contact when in the US. A light phone with vibrating features enables to to keep the phone in silent mode but know when someone is trying to contact you, while in meetings or lectures!

Being on contract, the cost of the phone is spread over 12 months - and i think that this phone offers value for money. However if i bought the phone for pay as you go use i would look for a cheaper alternative.
The modern design, small size and straight forward layout all help this phone be a popular choice with people. I found that this phone was sold out during the Christmas period.

Summary: