For the serious user (Nokia 6210)

Member Name: Morgenhund

Product:	Nokia 6210
Date:	02/12/00 (284 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: HSCSD compatibility

Disadvantages: Price tag is high

With each new handset becoming smaller and thereby easier to put down and lose in a handbag, jacket pocket or wherever, this phone is reassuringly big. It is effectively 3210/3310 design meets 6110/6150/7110 performance, and is the first Nokia to offer enhanced data capabilities, being GPRS compatible and also HCSCD. Of course there is a price to pay for this. The screen is big, making it suitable for WAP, and its battery life being long, this phone is the ideal one for the professional user, being a marked step up from the 7110.

The internal aerial is a bonus, and as ever it is easy to use. I had one on trial and found all of the functions that I wanted were present, and more. The reception was very good (placed next to a 3210 on the same network it also got a better signal - discounting the fact that it has more signal bars!)

Of course as well as just a mobile phone, this becomes almost a PDA substitute, with a wide range of features including a calendar, to use to remind you of forthcoming events, which is on first sight a mere update of the 7110 calendar.

Another feature common to 6210 and 7110 is the ability to store multiple phone numbers for each contact. A voice dial has been incorporated, but this only extends to ten numbers, whereas the Siemens S35i offers 20.

HSCSD allows much faster internet connections, although this depends on the netwrok operator and Internet Service Provider, and may not be the case on all networks, although in theory this should allow video streaming (the first step towards UMTS!)

The PC Suite that can be used is specially written for the phone, and allows you to synchronise calendar entries and names in the Phone book, compose personal ringing tones or make your own graphics, as well as syncing with Outlook either via IrDA or by DataCable.

PART 2: S35i vs 6210

After having a Siemens S35i which did everything I wanted and quite a bit more, I decided to get another phon
e and the 6210 seemed to be the only step up ? I would have happily stayed with my S35i and got another one, but my Network kindly pulled it off the market and left me with no choose but to go back to Nokia.

I chose the phone because I needed a ?business? mobile ? i.e. fully featured, oblivious of gizmos such as lots of annoying ringtones that you can program yourself and a lot of games to play (although corporate Snake II playing has been known to play). I was used to the very small S35i and so the size of the phone was initially a bit of a disappointment, being larger and slightly heavier than the S35i (113g vs 99g) and of course changing from Siemens to Nokia meant that I had to get used to the menu systems again ? although at least I didn?t keep on starting up WAP services by accident as had been the case when I had made the change the other way.

I also bought the desk charger for it, and was pleased to see that it wouldn?t vibrate whilst charging, which had been a problem with a previous phone that had vibrated itself out of the desktop charger. Of course the only problem on the charging front is that a full charge takes approximately four hours whereas with the Siemens I had been used to charging taking about an hour, although the battery does last a lot longer (generally recharging every 6 days rather than every 3 when not using it for that long a period each day).

The menu system is very much the same as with all Nokias, and was easy to navigate and the phone setting were a lot easier to find on occasions than some of the Siemens ones had been. As someone who sends a lot of text messages in various languages (often English, German and French each day) I was slightly annoyed by the no automatic language settings for text messages, although that being said this is getting a bit petty. My Siemens has failed to handle the load of text messages ? could only store 15 (in total not per inbox and outbox) and therefore I found I often had t
o clear SMS messages, which is not the case with the 6210, which has a majestic 150 SMS memory (that?s about four days worth from one source ? when verbosity is high and work level low! :o) hmm?).

I used to use my Palm to synchronise my S35i via InfraRed, and was glad that I could also export numbers to my Nokia 6210 using the Palm. The files are exported as business cards, which is excellent as often I take down three or four numbers for an individual (e.g. home, work, mobile, and fax) and the 6210 can handle this whereas the Siemens tended to only be able to take one number at a time. Further more, because the Palm stores numbers under tags eg. Home, work etc. the overlap is direct which saves you time as you don?t have to redesignate the number types, and the Palm?s default (the one it displays when not displaying the whole ?business card? view) is made the default number which is very useful. Noticeably the beam feature is not always activated on the 6210, whereas the S35i you either have it permanently activated or off. This is probably useful in prolonging the Nokia?s battery life.

Not that I play the games very often (wish I had the time to :-) ) but Snake II is improved and with new levels and a great way to waste your battery, especially in 2 player IR mode. Opposite (aka Othello/Reversi) is different from the S35i version, with the starting configuration requiring different moves to capitalise fully and take all four corners? and I haven?t played Pairs II yet.

Overall I am very pleased with the phone and have found that it has compared very favourably to the Siemens S35i which is by no means a slouch as far as mobile phones go. How my love affair with the phone continues, I?ll not be able to say until I?ve been using it for a few months or so, but I required no further convincing that it is the phone for me at the moment.


This phone is an excellent successor to the 61xx series, although the price tag is very off pu
tting. Even with subsidised handsets, if bought at the same time as connection, the handset is still a very pricy item (ATS 1990 i.e. GBP90). If you can live without it for the time being, then do so, as in 6 months the price will be a lot more affordable, and software bugs will have been eliminated.

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