It is interesting how mutually exclusive interests of your life affect each other. My love for fast biking and my beloved Red Hot Pulsar 180 DTSi helped me loose my Nokia 1100 (black). Guess, it bounced off from my jacket which I didn’t realize. Anyways, then I didn’t buy a mobile for several months as a punishment and relied on my wife’s 2100 which we bought sometime back. As our schedules began to change dramatically I needed to buy a mobile quickly.
After giving a long thought to buy an expensive cell having all the features like A/FM, Camera, PDA and what not I went to basics that tell me ’cell phone’s basic use is to communicate!’ :) I began my search on MS and also market-place and decided not to spend more than Rs. 5000.
Samsung C100 is now a days in this range with Nokia 2600. My prior experience with 1100 finally tilted myself towards Nokia. Also old habits die hard, I wouldn’t have liked to learn Samsung’s way of GUI etc. (Too lazy when it comes to such things...American habit I guess!) I bought 2600 for Rs 4850.
Here is my experience with it:
First and Foremost: The Voice Quality: Superb is the only word. It is much better than 1100 I had and 2100 which we still do. The clarity and quality of voice is of top orders. The mobile seems to have pretty strong signal catching abilities too. I am able to talk in an elevator too which I wasn’t with other units. Not sure if any improvement is made really or just a coincidence.
Style: Something that costs around 5 grand should look sleek. It is! I bought the black one, didn’t even look at other colors. The black one with tasteful usage of gray plastic that reminds you of carbon fiber (sort of) used in expensive cars. The bright borders of the display are a nice touch that adds to the styling positively. The knob to open the cell to reach battery/sim blends well and doesn’t stand out like sore thumb as in 2100. Well Done Overall In my opinion.
The Display: Typical Nokia! Straight-forward, can find all the useful information at a glance, the brightness can be varied quite a bit to suit your needs. The color display does look attractive and upscale sort.
The Keypad Slick is again the word. The keys are optimal sized and nice to the touch. The rectangular key that selects the function displayed is however a little smaller. You may press upon the arrow-navigation keys by mistake.
Navigation: Typical Nokia, there is certain familiarity and ease of use you come to expect from Nokia and they do not usually disappoint you. Quick arrows keys allows you to access dialed numbers(up). Down arrow keys lets you get into the Contact List. It is very easy to find several options and the Menu itself well organized. I just wish by default it didn’t select Dictionary on for the SMS.
Battery Life After my Motorola piece which I sold for Rs1100, Nokia 1100 was a blessing with respect to battery life. 2100 is also above average but 2600 seems to have gone ahead further and has ridiculous battery life I think. I have charged it only once and using it for almost 2 weeks now and quite a bit of use at that !! I am impressed!
Conclusion
Overall 8 out of 10. I think for Rs5000 I should get AM/FM (Hey! I can always wish, right?). Apart from that it is a great value & I recommend it to you highly. I hate to spend too much time on mobile shopping so there might be other deals out there that you may want to explore.
I think with the features and price, this mobile might become the new Nokia-1100 i.e. a success story for Nokia. I just wish they incorporate FM for no extra price.