Its Cute!!!!! (Nec 338)

Member Name: katygriff

Product:	Nec 338
Date:	12/09/05 (775 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great little phone

Disadvantages: The network

NEC 338

My mom bought this phone as she was desperate for a cheap pay as you go phone with a camera. She bought it for £64.99 at Christmas and as she is bored of it now as my dad has given her his brand new contract nokia phone. Why oh why he couldn’t have offered me it I decided to share with you how the NEC 338 has treated my mom.

If we first take a look at the specifications of this phone:
Standby – 116 hours.
Talk time – 200 minutes.
Video call – 130 minutes.
Weight – 114g.
Camera – Self timer and 2 x Zoom.
Resolution – 220 x 176 pixels.
Colours – 65,535.
Memory – 17MB.

Now I will take you through some of the more important things you would like to know about the phone and tariff.

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Cost for 3 prepay:

Prepay phones on 3 are a little different. When you buy a voucher it will only last for 30 days from the day it is activated on your phone. After those 30 days, the voucher will be wiped and any remaining credit will be deleted which is the one thing that I didn’t like about the 3 prepay service. However as my mom usually spent over £20 a month she found it useful that she was limiting herself each month to £15 so she got the use out of the voucher. Here are the voucher prices and what you get;

£15 Voucher – this voucher basically gives you £15 to spend on whatever you like. You can text, make calls and download.
£25 Voucher – equivalent to 500 minutes or 500 texts and then £1.50 left to spend on whatever.
£35 Voucher – equivalent to 750 minutes or 750 texts and then £1.50 left to spend on whatever.

Also you can ask for specific vouchers just for downloading in stores which are available for £10.

As the NEC 338 is only available on prepay I thought it would be useful to tell you those figures.

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Appearance:

We all know that the first thing anybody thinks about a phone is how it is going to look. Go ahead and deny it but we would all prefer a nice looking petite little phone to a big heavy brick of a phone any day. The NEC 338 is actually very nice looking for a phone from 3. The most common colour of this phone is actually silver but if you are lucky you can get your hands on the black version which looks really good. Unlike many of the 3 and NEC phones, the 338 is actually quite small and although it is quite thick, it in no way looks huge. It is a flip phone and the display is big and easy to see which was good for my mom as she has a bit of her problem with her eyesight and it is a pain for her to keep putting on her glasses every time she wanted to look at the phone. Luckily this phone displays writing quite large and she was able to see everything without rummaging for her glasses.

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Making Calls:

This phone is very easy to use. You can make calls by searching through your phone book and just pressing the green button on whomever you want to call. Call records are kept within the phones memory so you can see who you last made a call too, who you received a call from and who called you when you missed it. It will also store call times so you can keep a monitor on how long you are spending on the phone. This is very important especially when you are using pay as you go as you do not want to run out of credit with one phone call. My mom found it useful to get used to how much it cost on her phone by spending a minute talking to people and then phoning up to find out how much credit she had left. This way she was able to monitor exactly how much she was spending and limit herself.

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Texting:

Not that my mom ever used text messages because she does not know how although I have tried to show her countless numbers of times I investigated for myself. This phone texts exactly the same as my LGU8100 and nokia phones. This means it is easy and quick and the fact that nokia phones are the most popular to buy shows that most people will not have a problem with texting on this phone. Text is quite big so is easy to see and predictive text is available. Also by holding down the # key, you can access the symbols so you can add ? or @ or ) to your texts plus many more. On your 338 phone you save received texts to your inbox but also you will have an outbox which is where all your sent texts will go so remember to empty this once in a while. Also there is a draft facility so if you are in the middle of writing a text and something else comes up you can save it to continue later.

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Picture messages:

On the same lines of texting is picture messaging. Very easy to do. You have the option when you go to text of sending a multimedia message instead of a normal text. Select this and then it will take you to a screen similar to a text where you can add the contact names and then add the picture by searching through your personal pictures you have saved on your phone. The 3 phones usually have this multimedia section set up automatically so you should be able to go straight ahead and use it when you first get your phone.

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Using the camera:

Using the camera is easy. Select the camera option from the media section in the menu. The camera on the 338 is rotatable so you can watch on the screen as you take a photo to get the perfect picture. Also it is good for instances like when you are with a friend and you want to take a picture of the 2 of you but there is no one around to take the photo for you. Just rotate the camera towards you and there you are. The camera quality is excellent and as you move the camera around a room, it will keep up with you pretty well. Pictures turn out very well indeed and you can change the type of picture by choosing the brightness, zoom and type i.e. black and white.

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Videos:

Linking in to the camera is taking videos. Video quality to be honest is not the best it could be but for a mobile it is pretty good. Video streaming is impressive and although I am not sure what the total time you can spend videoing something for is I know you can do it for over 5 minutes as we have done this taking videos of the dogs at Christmas. Video calling however is very impressive and although I am sure again that the quality in phones will get better, the 3 phones are excellent at it. The sound and picture quality is great but to get the best picture try to keep the phone still and get your contact to do the same. Video calls are fun but do cost a little extra money so be careful with how long you spend on there. The 338 phone has a nice big screen so you should be able to see the other person clearly.

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Downloading:

Like with many phones now, you will be able to download wallpapers, games and ring tones. The good thing about 3 phones like the 338 is that the screens are quite big and you can download full music videos straight to your mobile. 3 have a thing called quickplay video streaming which means that 3 video content is automatically available on your mobile. The quality is pretty good and videos are clear. The thing that does annoy me however is that when you download ring tones they do not last for the whole song and instead will consist of the most popular bit of a song. It is good though as you can download chart releases with real sound which is quite fun to have. The music videos are updated a lot and you can usually find the most recent releases there to download. Wallpapers are fun and you can choose from cartoon ones to photos of celebrities. I downloaded Colin Farrell onto my moms at Christmas. She said it made her smile every time she flipped open her phone.

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Other things:

The 338 contains other normal features such as calculator, a decent selection of ring tones and an alarm clock. It will contain no games to begin with though so you will have to download them if you are an avid phone gamer. Also you can access and send and receive email from your 3 phone although I am ashamed to say that I have not figured out how to use this service yet. Your NEC 338 also contains speakerphone so video calling is great and you have the option to turn it on during phone calls which is good when you want to take a call but also carry on with what you are doing. The speakerphone is not that loud though so try to stick in the same room in a decent range. Also this phone has infrared and Bluetooth capability do you can transfer files easily to another phone or computer.

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Me and Moms Verdict:

My verdict is that it is a phone and it does the things you want it to do like phone people and text and it also does more. Although I am not really into the video calling as I do not know that many people who have it, I like the idea of it and it is fun to have it on your phone. The downloads you can get for this phone are very entertaining as there is a good range but be careful as they can become expensive. The only complaint that I would have about the NEC 338 is that I do not like it that the prepay vouchers expire but that is hardly the phones fault but for this reason I would not buy this phone as you can only get it on prepay. However it is a gorgeous, nice looking phone with fantastic features and small too. You could do a lot worse.

My mom types to you now;

I have generally been happy with the phone although I have had problems with the network. I do not understand exactly all the features but I have had a good go at trying to and I have had a nice 9 months using this phone. It has never broken or had any technical problems so I have been extremely lucky. I would recommend.

Ok me again now;

I think you will agree that it is a nice phone to have but come on 3 we need you to change the voucher expirations, maybe make them 60 days so it gives people a better chance at using them. Within the box you will get your phone, a manual, a charger and a hands free kit. Bluetooth sets can be bought for about £39.99 at the cheapest in the shops or eBay will have some bargains.

Thanks for reading.

xxx

Summary: You could do worse

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