I bought the Nokia 6131 from the Nokia Priority dealer at BF Block in Salt Lake, Kolkata, just 2 days ago. From my limited experience with the phone, here’s my initial feedback. Hopefully, I will keep updating this later.
Why I bought it?
1. Sleek and Stylish: Needless to say, the Nokia 6131 is a good looking phone. It is sleek and stylish.
- Display: The mini (outer) and main (inner) display screens of this phone are amazing. The main display supports an amazing 16 million colors. The mini display though less prolific is pretty decent.
3. Features: This phone comes with an array of features like a 1.3 mega pixel camera (with video recording), Bluetooth, Infra-Red, FM Radio, GPRS, etc. Please refer the Nokia web site for the complete list of features.
Problem Areas
Within 2 days, I started experiencing some problems with the phone. Here are the major problem areas (I’ll keep updating the list).
1. Phone goes into Standby in the Middle of an Operation: The main display of the phone suddenly goes blank and a short while later, the phone arbitrarily goes into standby mode, while I’m in the middle of doing some operation. Example: I had switched over from a Nokia 2100 to this phone (a quantum leap, I must say), and I needed to customize my existing contacts (which I transferred to the phone’s memory from my SIM card) to take advantage of the new phone’s contacts features. So, while editing a contact’s details, the main display suddenly went blank (if you’re familiar with PowerPoint, it was like horizontal blinds appearing on the screen), and a short while later I got the standby screen. This happened over and over at least 7 to 8 times, and not just while editing the contact details. It was as though the phone would work fine for 2 to 3 minutes, while I was doing something on it, and then presto, the screen goes blank and then quickly back to standby mode. All editing I was doing at that time was lost. When I immediately pressed the right selection key to get back to contacts, I got a message that said that the contacts are not yet ready. I had to wait another 10 to 15 seconds for the Contacts to get displayed again. This happened several times during the space of a few hours.
2. Battery Life: Battery (BL-4C) is another major drawback of the phone. I think that the display features are so powerful that the battery charge lasts at most for 24 hours. But I’ll be able to say more about this only on prolonged use.
As of now, I am planning to take the phone back to the dealer to see what help he can offer with Problem Area #1. More updates later.
UPDATE (Monday, July 3, 2006)
User interface and display features continue to amaze me
Even more expensive Nokia phones like the 3250 do not have the sensational display features of the Nokia 6131. When compared to the Nokia 3250, the Nokia 6131’s screen is larger, and has smooth-edged screen fonts, a feature missing in more expensive Nokia models. In fact the difference is glaring, after you’ve used the 6131 for a few days and then try out a friend’s phone. So, as of today, I’m upping my rating for "Ease of Use" by 1 point.
An update on Problem Area #1
Problem Area #1 mentioned earlier simply disappeared after I tried the old tried and trusted trick of switching off and switching on the phone. After that, no matter how hard I tried, the phone wouldn’t give the same problem again. So I’m happy that for now at least, the problem is resolved. I’m also upping my rating for "Reliability and Durability" from 2/5 to 3/5 due to this.
An update on Problem Area #2
Battery continues to be an area of concern. The phone needs to be charged every day.
New Problem Areas
Problem Area #3: Data cable is not included
If you were expecting that a phone with such an impressive feature set, would also be accompanied by a data cable, you couldn’t be more wrong. If you want to transfer files from your computer to the phone, you have to either shell out an extra Rs. 1, 500 (according to the Nokia salesperson) for a data cable (that comes free with phones like the Nokia 3250), or buy a bluetooth adapter for your computer.
Problem Area #4: Internal Memory is lacking
The Nokia 6131 comes with only 11 MB for user data -- 10 MB for the "Gallery" and 1 MB for the address book. This is a serious drawback considering that:
The phone is capable of supporting up to 2 GB of external memory (incidentally 2 GB micro SD cards are not even available now)
With all its funky multimedia features, one would expect more internal memory
External memory is widely considered to be a dicey proposition since it is supposed to slow down the phone’s operations and cause it to hang occassionally (This is from feedback from others and I don’t know this from personal experience).
However, in the light of my improved perception of the phone, in spite of the above problem areas, I have changed the product recommendation to "Yes".
UPDATE (Friday, March 30, 2007)
Problem Area #5: Music Player and Radio need improvement
The Music/Media Player and radio produce good quality sound. However, both these applications are inconsistent in their performance. The worst part of both these applications is that they tend to hang in the middle of operations. It is virtually impossible to hear a couple of hours of non-stop music, because the operating system invariably hangs and restarts mid-way through songs. Once this happens, the phone loses memory of the song that it was playing before it hanged. This is especially irritating when listening to songs in shuffle (random) mode, because the listener may have to listen to songs he has already played.
Problem Area #6: The Skin of the Phone peels off after a few months
The black ’skin’ of the phone begins to peel off after a few months, revealing a black colored surface with a different texture underneath. The phone begins to look like it is affected by some skin disease.