Non-Techy Guide to the Nokia 7110 (Nokia 7110)

Member Name: partyspice

Product:	Nokia 7110
Date:	18/06/01 (308 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of functions, Stylish and well-designed, WAP enabled

Disadvantages: A bit pricey

Using vouchers from iPoints, etc. we managed to get the Nokia 7110 for £40 instead of the usual £150, from The Link on a BT Cellnet Pay-as-you-go option. I had been looking for a phone that offered several options including calendar reminders and Internet access (ie. E-mail). The idea is that the phone will be a useful long-term investment as far as work would go and so that my partner has the choice of voice, text or e-mail should she need to contact me.

So entered the race to find the phone that would suit best. Using Dooyoo I read loads of opinions on what the general consensus for the best phone was. The Nokia 7110 didn't come high up the list, but was recommended highly anyway and I did like the look of the phone from the moment I had clapped eyes on it in a shop.

The idea of this opinion is not to delve into the technical stuff, you can find that out by looking at other opinions or the specifications for the phone on well-known sites. This opinion is about the best features that I use, so it is from my personal experience.

Okay - so lets give you the low down this phone then from a user point of view:

Shape and Style
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is not the smallest phone available and is of average weight, ie. You know you have it hooked on your belt, you can physically feel it there! It has a short rigid aerial (but don't we all). The design is sleek, with the keys laid out in typical Nokia format and flush with the fascia.

The keys are covered by a pop-down sliding cover, which can be moved manually or by pressing a little button hidden on the side of the phone, allowing it to 'flick' out dramatically!

The best thing for me is the screen display. It is large and in ya face! I find it really easy to read and see stuff on it. That is great for me. I don't want to have to peer at a small screen to read my mail or text message - I want to be able to stand 25 feet away and still read it
! (Binoculars may be useful for extreme needs like that!)…

The colours - well - to my knowledge at this time there are no clip-on fascias for the 7110. On my phone (and others I have seen) the colours are dark but pleasant. Mine is a dark green that changes from one shade to another as the light catches it. Nothing spectacular but Hey - who cares really!

The major point regarding design is the Roller (which will be described later). Safe to say it is damned useful and a great way to navigate through the menus! That is located just beneath the display screen. When the phone cover is closed, the Roller is still useable.

And on the Menu tonight…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The 7110 is packed with options, options and may an option on the side with an optional menu sauce! I cannot possibly go through all of them - there are loads - so lets have a look at the one's I have use the most…

1) List of Names - easy - just press the Nav Roller bar. The default is to show these names stored in your phone book. Use the roller to scroll up or down the list till you reach your desired contact. You can then either press the green call button to call that number, press the roller to see the detail for the number you are calling or press the options to do things like edit or send text message.

2) MENU is an option available when the phone first on. It is the top level of the menu system on the phone. Select it and you will be greeted with pictorial and text sub-level menu descriptions with a default option available immediately.

For example, on MESSAGES the default option is WRITE, to write a text message.

3) MESSAGES deals with text messages. Sending, receiving, storing standard messages and checking your text message boxes is all here. All new messages received are stored in the in-box, messages sent are stored in your out-box. There are two other message boxes called Archive and Templates
. You can create your own message boxes as well as these. I haven't bothered doing that. Any messages I wish to keep I just knock into the Archive area.

Text messages are easy to write. Just use the old keypad. However, if you need to be able to get to special characters, I just press the * key and the use the roller to scroll to the character I want. Very useful and better than pressing the key several times before the right character appears.

When you have finished select options and send. If you have no number to send to you will be prompted to search for a number or to enter a new one. Then it will send the message. It is very intuitive.

4) CALL REGISTER keeps track of Missed Calls, Received Calls, Dialled Numbers and Call Duration and Cost. You can also delete all call information from here.

5) PROFILES! Ooo this is a biggy. Within the phone you can store what is called profiles. For example, there is a GENERAL PROFILE and SILENT PROFILE pre-set (you can change these as time goes on to suit you). General Profile is the basic settings, such as ring tone on, vibrate alert off, etc. Silent is all sound off but vibrate alert on. Get the idea.

The idea is to allow several profiles to exist depending where you are. So if you need to nip into a meeting but have to remain contactable, you can switch to Silent Profile from the menu. This means all calls will come in but the phone will only vibrate - no sound!

Being able to pre-define these settings means you don't have to keep changing settings back and forth. You just change profile. Profiles can have different settings which you determine. For example, you can change the tones for keypad, ring, text alert. You can also decide which calls you should know about. You can store family names and numbers in a folder called Family and then tell the profile to inform you when a family member calls, but not when any other phone number is ringing you.

A bit
complicated, but I can see the uses. At the moment, all calls come through to GENERAL profile and I use SILENT when in meetings, etc. Really useful and the vibrate alert is emotionally draining, especially when I don't answer the phone for at least two minutes!

6) SETTINGS control the things like time, date and alarm settings. Nice if you are travelling and have forgotten your alarm clock, you can just set the phone to wake you up at a time you chose! In addition, you can set options for phone settings like key functions or call settings like automatic redial, etc. Again - not particularly useful to me but there nonetheless.

7) CALL DIVERT allows you to choose the way you deal with incoming calls. For example, you can turn all diverts off or select to divert calls when the phone is switched off or if you are on another call. It means basically you won't miss a thing. Calls are diverted to your voice mail box and can be accessed when ever you please.

8) GAMES! These include Snake II, Rotation, Racket and Opposite. I like Racket (ping pong to everyone else), Opposite (like Reversi) and Snake II where you wander around as an ever growing snake eating little blobs on the screen. Full instructions are included.

You can play a two-player game using the Infrared facility as long as your opponent also has this on their phone. Tried it the other day and it worked a treat. There you go - what a chat up line - "Would you like to play Snakes with me?"

9) CALCULATOR is self-explanatory so no detail on this one folks!

10) CALENDAR is mighty useful for a busy (and forgetful) bloke like me! You can easily add meetings, birthdays and reminders in on many dates with alarm notification at various times Eg. 30 minutes before a meeting is due to start! Great! It means I have time to race across from one site to another in time for a meeting. The neat thing is you can set the phone to remove meetings in the calendar
if you forget to do so. It is probably the function I now use most regularly next to phoning and texting!

11) INFRARED is built in so you can play games with other people. Well actually no - that is a spin off. You can use this with additional equipment to synchronise and pass information to your PC. That I am not going to do yet, but the Infrared does work. By the way, I won at the dual of Snakes!!!

12) SERVICES is the Internet (WAP) connection. From here you can access the weather, travel, news and other relevant services including of course E-MAIL. I have my e-mail account set up with GENIE and I have to say it works fine and is useful. I don't use this constantly as it does cost a bit to do so. However, BT are in the habit of saying things like "All WAP is free in June" (like it is now)… then I use it!!!!!!!!!

14) MY SERVICES contain useful numbers provided through the BT service provider, such as Traffic Line, UK Directory and Dictation Line. Never used them as most of them cost extra and I don't see the point, other than keeping useful numbers in one place!

Extra Bits
~~~~~~~~~~

If you select a menu item and wait, a helpful message appears explaining the purpose of the menu option selected. This is quite useful if you, like me, forget what the heck you're doing!

Tunes! Lots on the phone but you can down load, as you feel necessary! Again not necessary to go through the list of tunes, but safe to say there is a decent selection!

Overall View
~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is a lot there to take in. It has been a long opinion. The phone overall is perfect for me. It isn't too small, there is a lot packed in, the battery life is good and I aim to get a lot out of it. It is also Nokia and I am pleased with their standard of quality and design.

One good tip is to nip into the Nokia Web site and download the Nokia 7110 manual to your PC. It does come in handy
and is more informative than the documentation you get with the phone initially.

The only factor against it is the cost. Some packages you get the phone free. But for pay-as-you-go you are looking at £150. However, take a leaf out of my book and try accumulating iPoints and stuff like that so you can exchange for high street vouchers for The Link, for example. You can then get good deals on this and any other phone they have on offer! Hence the magic price of £40. Not bad eh!

Check it out and enjoy the vibrate function ;)

Summary: