The latest offering from the house of Nokia is the cutesy little 2100 targeted at the lower end of the market. At 85 gms this phone is one of the lightest in its class. The trend of translucent plastic started by Apple in its iMac range seems to have finally found favour at the design house of the Finnish phone major. The 2100 is enclosed in a translucent casing and is available in 8 colors, some of which are pretty out of the norm colors- light pink anyone? It has a 96 x 65 pixels screen that is pleasantly illuminated by a blue light. The keypad is inundated with a brilliant a white backlight which looks awesome through the rubber keys and the translucent cover.
This phone is clearly designed for the undiscerning first time user and its feature set supports this claim. You get no GPRS, no MMS, no WAP, no Java and no color screen. What you get is a well designed light and easy to use phone that is rugged and does the job of ’just being a phone’ pretty well. The user interface, a typical Nokia, is easy even for a novice to navigate through
Citizens of SMS land will take to this phone as a duck takes to water. Customizable Distribution lists make it a breeze to send an SMS to multiple recipients. The all and mighty T9 predictive text is ever present to make text inputting a breeze.2100 supports picture messaging and it even has its own picture editor - the effective usability of which is suspect. The 2100 has 35 permanent and 7 replaceable ringtones - sorry folks no polyphonic stuff allowed. If you are in a mood to give Beethoven some competition then you can try your hand at composing your own ringtone using the 2100’s inbuilt composer.
You can literally make the phone dance to your tune with new rhythmic backlight feature. What actually happens is that the backlight flashes in synchronization with the notes of the ringtone – a pretty snazzy feature.
One of the most touted features of the 2100 is the small flap at the back where you can insert the picture of your loved one (or yourself...if you have to!). While this is a sweet addition, it is not ’the’ killer feature.
The reception of this handset is good and so is the voice clarity. The speaker is a bit too loud but if you are like me... a little hard of hearing, then I guess you won’t mind it. With full charge and normal use, the 2100 provides approximately 2.5 hrs of talk time which is average and 3 days of standby which is again average.
Now I come to the all important part -the price. As I mentioned earlier, this phone is targeted at the lower end of the market. The lack of frills and eye candy may make this phone look uninteresting but the truth is that it is one hell of a value phone. The launch price of Rs 7299 is a little to steep but I have just one request... ladies and gentlemen please make a mad dash for this phone once its price drops to a more realistic Rs. 5000.