Initial reason for purchase
I bought this phone as a standby when my 6230 got stolen and I was waiting for Nokia to release the N91. It was the cheapest Nokia phone that came with a handsfree kit.
Function over form
This is the first low end Nokia that I’ve bought - the first one that costed less than 14K on the day of purchase. This is ALSO the best PHONE I’ve ever bought. It’s possible that because I’ve only seen the higher end Nokia phones that I’ve adjusted to getting buggy sets. In the time that I’ve used this phone I’ve never seen it crash, hang, mysteriously stop functioning or break in any way.
*Durable
*True to Nokia, it’s a rugged machine that has been thrown, dropped into muddy water, taken a few bounces on the ground after falling a floor or two down. The most I’ve had to do to "repair" this phone is reseat the SIM card, put the phone back together(maybe wash and let it dry) and switch it on.
*Backup time
*I’m sure it’d give a brilliant standby time if you didn’t use it more than 4 hours a day(which I did most of the time). You take this phone and charge it once. maybe it’s the monochrome screen. Maybe it’s the small time features. no clue. it just lasts. I did have problems on days when I couldn’t find a charger for it(didn’t happen often - Nokias standard charger is available in most places). I’d peg it at probably 6 hours of(almost continuous) talktime.
*Reception
*I was staying in an area in Bangalore where everyone who came home had problems with cellular reception. They couldn’t hear. They couldn’t speak. They(on a few occasions) couldn’t dial. I on the other hand had no problems(with the same carrier) with this phone. A few of the phones that I recall passed through with issues were:
Nokia - 6600, 6610, 6230, N91, NGage QD
Samsung - C100, D500
iMate - SP5
Sony Ericcson - W800i
In other words, most of the phones that came home had issues - the 1108 did not.
*Human technology
*Nokia has been touting "Human Technology" for a long time now. This phone’s the first one I’ve seen than includes this. How irritating is it to have someone’s name stored on your phone twice(name and nick) so when the phone rings, the phone gets confused and doesn’t know which name to display - so just dumps the number there.
You TRY to store a number in duplicate and it’ll warn you that the entry’s already there. If you’re like me, you enter the number first and save it - when it prompts you for the name, the name of the person associated with this number pops into the entry box. This hasn’t happened on any of the other phones(even the N91 which costed 15 times more than this didn’t have this feature).
*Torch
*Okay. I wouldn’t brag about a phone on the basis of it including a torch, but this phone’s probably better than most torches - battery’d last longer as well since it’s an LED light.
*Phone
*As a phone, this just functions. It takes all the rubbish out - no camera, no colour, no radio, no flashy stuff(aside from the torch of course) and acts the way phones were intended to behave. like a phone. It’s got insufficient memory to store numbers and messages, but then you get enough on your SIM card usually.
*Battery Charger
*Happilly(not entirely sure about that), the N91 was released in April out here and I stopped using the 1108 as a phone. The N91 however has a smaller power input socket to plug the charger in. Since both phones use the same battery and you find the regular chargers everywhere, I use the 1108 as my charger - charge one battery in this phone while the other’s running my power hungry N91(which manages 1 day with great difficulty with possibly 45 minutes of talk time)
Conclusion
If you want a camera, check out a Canon or Nikon. If you want a PDA, check out the Palm or even iPaq. If you want a radio, there are a load of companies you could go with. For an MP3 player, if you get your hands on an Elson(like I managed) you’re in luck. If you want a phone. read my ratings.