Thank Crunchie Its Friday! (Nokia 8210)

Member Name: criple

Product:	Nokia 8210
Date:	19/10/02 (871 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, Many Features, Can Customise

Disadvantages: Key Pad May Be Too Small For Large Fingers

I've had my Nokia 8210 since early this year and as usual I never bothered to read the instructions. My efforts at mastering modern technology normally consist of asking the hubby how to do something (he?s not any cleverer than me, it's just that I?m lazy!). I get him to read the instructions and then tell me, at least once.

How do I write an op about my little phone without going through the boring task of fixing my eyes on the 'how to' leaflet? Well, I'm probably going to have to aren't I?

I will leave it as long as I possibly can though; the reason being is that I'll tell you first of all about what I do know. I figure that this is the best way forward as if I use a certain function then it must be worth knowing about and if I can do it then anyone can.

The Nokia 8210 is a very popular phone; I'm not bothered about having something different to anyone else or the very latest gadget. I simply want something that looks good, does the job and is reliable. One of the main reasons why I bought the phone was its size. I could give you any number of reasons but as I had a Nokia 3310 prior to this that was more or less the same, I would be lying. The dimensions are 101.5/44.5/17.4mm, this may not mean much to you so I'll compare it with the Nokia 3310 dimensions, 113/48/22mm. More importantly the 3310 weighs 133g and the 8210 weighs a mere 79g!

Some people don't like small phones, my mum is one of them and it's hard to find things in her handbag at the best of times. If you have large fingers you may also prefer a phone that encompasses a larger keypad. I think the 8210 is ideal for a lady, my fingers aren't small and I don't have a problem. I've just asked my hubby what he thinks of the size of the keypad and he says he finds the keypad fine, he wouldn't make a mistake pressing the wrong buttons and he would feel quite comfortable using it. He did point out that he doesn'
t have big fingers (thank god, lol) so if yours are short and stumpy I suggest you do the finger test first.

The next best feature for me is the alarm function. It is so easy to use (after hubby told me how) and I set the alarm to wake us up for school everyday. You have to press the keypad 9 times to do this but that only takes about 5 seconds. You simply go to settings from the menu, click alarm on and set the time! Simple. If you get up at the same time every day you won't even need to change the time. When it goes off it is quite loud and I certainly don't sleep through it. You can of course set the phone to silent, general or loud anyway so if you're heavy sleeper, go for loud. It has lovely little bells flashing on and off and you can postpone it if you want. So that you know the alarm has been set there is a little picture of a clock that appears next to the time, once the alarm has been turned off it disappears.

Following on form the alarm there is a calendar function where you can enter a reminder, i.e. 'library books' and a date and time you want the reminder. You can choose to have the alarm sound or not. Thanks to reading the instructions I have just discovered that you can also enter notes for 'calls' when you need to phone someone a t a certain time, meetings and birthdays. Each of these notes will be indicated by a different symbol. The meeting for example would be two hands shaking, not like in the DTs but actually shaking hands. Of course you can view and erase notes at any time. I have just scrolled through right up to the middle of January so I imagine you can make notes for quite far in to the future if not a full 12 months.

Every phone should have text messaging functions, as it seems to be the communication method of the centaury. The Nokia 8210 comes complete with predictive text messaging. I don't know if this is a good thing or not. It is meant to save you time and what it does is
actually guess what word you are about to enter. It predicts it, enters the word and you can press the star key for another list of words if it is incorrect. If you are used to the old way of texting where you have to press number 5 on your keypad 3 times to get the letter L then you may get confused. The first time I used predictive text my words were a load of nonsense. I once sent my friend a message telling her I could get 'happy routes' through not checking what I typed, it should have read, harry potter! If you don?t like it, you will be pleased to hear you can switch it off. You can send messages up to a maximum of 160 characters. For those of you who like to personalise your phone as little more you can send and receive picture messages from and to other 8210, 3210 and 8850 mobile phones.

Ring tones! You can download ring tones for this phone although it might annoy other people. It has standard ring tones built in and it's up to you to choose and set the phone accordingly. If you download a ring tone from a website or pay for one then it will come through as a text message. You then need to save it to your phone. You can have the phone on silent or vibrate if you wish, or both! This is useful when you are in meetings so as not to disturb others. I have it on ring and vibrate most of the time.

Making a call is so easy, you either type in the number (including dialling code) and then press the button with a telephone on it, or go to your phone book and dial from there. You can store up to 250 names and numbers on the phone and another 250 on the sim card, I only wish I knew that many people. There is also a voice dialling facility where you can store 8 numbers. I actually didn't know this, which is why I haven't used it. It is a dual band phone, which means that it can operate on GSM 900/1800 frequency and the talk times ranges between 2-3hrs 20 minutes.

A small but useful feature is the ability to lock the
keypad. I have been known to accidentally press the keys and call someone; this can prove rather expensive. To do this you simply press the top left arrow key followed by the star key, it will then tell you that the keypad is locked. It's the same procedure to unlock the phone. If it is locked when the phone rings you can answer the call but you need to unlock it before you make one.

One of the many advantages of the 8210 and the like is the ability to customise the phone by buying the snap on express covers. It is not everyone's taste and I must admit the standard Nokia covers are very nice looking although expensive. There are literally hundreds of designs to choose from, I currently have a Crunchie one, hence the title. Original Nokia covers are around £20 but you can buy cheaper from ebay etc. be warned that some cheep imitations may affect the functions of your phone. I bought some once that switched the phone off when I went to dial and some just won't fit properly.

Many other accessories are available from hands free kits to car kits, headsets, cases etc, again it is advisable to use Nokia approved products. If you buy something that attaches to your phone that isn't Nokia approved I'm not sure how you would stand with your warranty. If you ever need a new battery they are easily available and I picked one up of ebay for £7, much cheaper than buying from the likes of Dixons. The battery you get with the phone is a li-lon battery, which gives a standby time of 50-150 hours. This type of battery is extremely slim and lightweight and you can charge it without having to fully disperse it. You should get more battery life and you don't have to wait until your battery is dead before you charge it up.

I also have a twin sim back for my phone; this means that my phone will hold 2 sim cards of either different networks or one contract and one pay as you go. This is very handy for me as my husband is on another netw
ork. They aren't standard with the phone and you will have to but them independently, again I bought mine from ebay for £7! The phone will be slightly heavier than normal as the back is thicker than the original Nokia back and it is plain back. This means that if you buy a new front and back X-press on cover you will only be able to use the front. This doesn't bother me as I prefer the convenience of having two networks.

I have told you the features that I think are more important but I would need to write pages and pages to give you all the information on this phone. I will list some of the other features to give you an idea of its capacity and usefulness:

Infra red

For wireless communication between phone and compatible PC or printer. You can send messages/ring tones etc to other phones with facility at a speed of 9.6kb/s

Missed calls
Received calls
Call duration
Dialled numbers
Call divert
Set your own profiles
Automatic update of date and time

Last but not least as there are probably loads more, Games!

The phone comes complete with 4 games:
Snake
Logic
Rotation
Memory

The kids are always borrowing the phone to play games, it does wear you battery down pretty quick though. If you are lucky enough to have a friend with an 8210 you can play a 2-player game using the infrared feature.

Overall opinion

I am very happy with the phone and will probably stay with Nokia as I find their menu functions easy to understand and the phones easy to use. Accessories and spare parts are easy to come buy and customising your phone is a piece of cake.
The only problem I have had is a bit of plastic broke off the top of the phone when I was changing the cover, the same thing happened to a friend of mine in exactly the same place so it must be a weakness. The covers stay on fine so it isn't a major problem. Some phones had been known to have a sc
reen problem but that has been rectified. I think you could take your phone back to have it repaired free of charge if you needed to, mine has been fine and it's a couple of years old as I bought it second hand on ebay for £85. You can pick them up now second hand for around £70. They were selling new for about £150 but as newer models come out and replace them i'm not sure where they are available from now.

I would definitely recommend the phone and can sum it up by saying it's funky, stylish and sexy, we're a perfect match!

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