Bit Disapointing!! (Nokia 7210)

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Product:	Nokia 7210
Date:	28/01/03 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks nice

Disadvantages: Funny keypad layout takes a lot of getting used to, polyphonic ringtones are poor

I love nokia's as much as everyone else, but here comes the definitive honest review of this phone from someone who has been using nokia's for 6 years, and owned 4 different models. 1. polyphonic tones (only 4 channel compared to 3510 with 8 channels, and samsung t100 with 16!) I've been playing with this phone since i got it about 2 weeks ago. my first disappointment came when i received my first text message. The polyphonic message alert sounded nowhere near as good as it does on my friend's nokia 3510. By doing some research i found this web site: href"http://www.active-nokia-ringtones.co.uk/ ringtones/polyphonic-ringtones.a sp">http://www.active-nokia-ringtones.co.uk/r ingtones/polyphonic-ringtones.a sp which basically explains that the nokia 7210 is capable of playing 4 notes (degrees of polyphony) at once, whereas the 3510 has twice that many, and the Samsung t100 has twice as many again at 16! If one of the selling points for you for this phone is the polyphonic ringtones, stay away because although they sound good compared to monophonic ringtones, compared to every other polyphonic phone on the market, this one sucks. Because of this it is also not possible to download other polyphonic tones, i have yet to find a site with 4-channel polyphonic tones, if you download 8 channel tones they either just don't work or sound awful as the upper 4 channels can't be played; even after a week of extensive searching i have yet to find a tone to download which sounds good on my 7210, the preset ones sound cool but i don't like em much, i'd rather be able to download some, don't expect to be able to do this satisfactorily to this phone. 2. weird keypad layout maybe its because i came from a tiny nokia 8310 and i'm used to writing text messages barely moving my thumb, but i can't get used to this keypad layout. I'm forever pushing the wrong buttons and feel i have to write messages much slower than on my 8310, probably
the size difference that does that. Also the silver buttons on the outside are very faint and you can barely see the letters in poor light. 3. Games The games didn't really grab me at all, i got bored with them after 10 mins. i did download a couple of java games over GPRS which are very cool though. 4. Radio Excellent stereo sound, good job. 5. 4-way scroll I still find the 4 way scroll confusing, i'm forever pushing up to make the cursor go back, and down to make it go forwards, it is a good feature though and allows you to scroll around the hi-res screen in a flash, i'm sure i'll get used to it soon. 6. Wallpaper Preset wallpapers are all poor, either just swirly coloured patterns or low quality line drawings, however i downloaded some more and installed them using the picture manager in the nokia pc suite over infrared, and now have a collection of cool images that look great on the wallpaper. 7. Colour Schemes Change the colour of the menu's and the onscreen battery and signal indicators...cool. unfortunately you can't change the time, date, operator and softkey labels, so if you have a dark background you just can't see these. 8. Screensaver: Digital Clock Hmmm, the screensaver is only ever displayed when the phone is dark, even in good light its hard to see when the backlight is off. I wish there was a way to light up the phone to check the time without disturbing the screensaver. There isn't as far as i can see. 9. Java applications The preinstalled java application is a converter for mass, length, temperature, currency and area. Come on nokia, PLEASE! give us something cool to play with, is that the best you could do... pathetic, i could write that conversion program in java in 30 mins...seriously. 10. Calendar I like the calendar on this phone, it gives you a fullscreen display of the month and you can scroll around and view the days using the 4-direction keypad. nice one. 11. Screen When i first switched the phone on and sa
w the quality of the screen i was stunned. After seeing a friend's samsung t100 i'm disappointed with my choice, the screen is nowhere near as clear, and i notice that when i bring up some games with certain patterns i get a weird line effect like you do on television when the weatherman has a funny tie or stripy shirt on. So there it is. I blindly went for this nokia because nokia like i blindly went for every other nokia i have always used, known and loved. It beats the pants off the Sony Ericson phone, but gets destroyed by its little brother, the 3510 for the polyphonics, and the Samsung t100 beats it at everything except looks. I wish i had played with the samsung before buying the nokia, because i wouldn't be using a 7210 now. I would either be a little patient and wait for the 7250, or go for the samsung t100, or even save money and get the 3510... the ringtones do sound sooooo much better!!! Give the 7210 a miss. From a die-hard, honest-to-god nokia-fan and addict of 6 years, the 7210 is a cool phone, however for once nokia have let themselves down, and there are indeed other things out there that are much better than this. There are many bad reviews for the phone on this site, i wish i had paid more attention to them, the others either have nothing to compare it to or are just blind nokia fanatics like me. Very Disappointed

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