Hi friends,
aLi is an idiot. Yes, he is. Some of you may claim that this is a well-known fact to you, but the not-so-before known truth has dawned upon me just now, albeit after 2 years. I swear.
Baat yeh hui ki, way back in December 2004, when I had got myself a new Samsung X-100, then instead of cherishing the moment, I cursed myself for buying the phone when it was just launched in the market. Had I waited for a few more months, I’d have got it for a much lower price.
History repeats itself, and man is an social fool. Flashback September 24, 2006. I went to a cell phone showroom to update myself with a Sony Ericsson w700i, but Nokia 6233 attracted me. With a difference of around 1500 bucks between the two, I opted for the latter, only to realize that this was a recently-launched model and I could’ve availed a fat discount IF I had got the better of my impatience!
Anyways, jo ho gaya so ho gaya. Ab pachtay hot kya jab chiriya chug gayi khet?
Now before you safely assume that I’ve been inspired by gattu4u, I’ll review the "product" to put all speculations to rest.
To start with, the looks of the 3G phone is so sexy that you’ll forget all the Aishwaryas and the Bipashas of the world. It only comes next to Kareena. This was one of my main priority of buying the phone, and it was also because of which I preferred it over w700i. Coming in classic black and silver alloy colours, its the metal surface on the edges that gives it an edge over others, and also makes it a lot more attractive to look at.
The keypad usage of the phone needs to be experienced. Not all the phones possess a keypad as soft and smooth as this one does. Though the printed alphabets are a bit light in appearance, an avid mobile user won’t find much of a problem going by this. But it being so soft to use, the users may have to lock the keypad ALL THE TIMES to avoid any accidental pressing of the buttons.
The display of 6233 is neat, pretty much on the lines with other Nokia phones, but one distinct quality is that a particular theme that you may select, makes it actually look very elegant. One need not protrude his eyes to see whats going on, and the menus are conveniently divided, not posing a challenge to average operators.
The main highlight of 6233 undoubtedly is the music quality. Having a speaker on each side, the stereo-quality output is extraordinary! In fact, one may want to slow down the volume at times. Here, it must be said that the sound quality in full volume doesn’t jar the ear; it just sounds too loud if you’re near to the phone. Otherwise, though the pre-set ringtones are slow in sound, if you select MP3 downloads as ringing tones, rest assured, you won’t be missing a call.
Now the technical terms
6233 possesses a Li-Pol battery, which the company claims would last for about 4 days. But for average users it may last for about 3 days [say, 3-4 hrs of music, half-an-hour of games, an hour of calls]. For heavy users, if you wanna spend 10 hrs listening to music, and are playing games/talking otherwise, the battery may warn of running out in a day’s time itself! Still, it works for quite a while considering what all it offers. It takes around 2 hours to be fully charged.
The bad part is that the phone comes with a memory card of merely 64mb, which is expandable no doubt, but considering the techno-savvy people that we have today, not even the world of downloads (God help video downloaders!) is enough for us! Given the high price, atleast a 256mb card was what we deserved! Also, with the pre-installed games and tones, what we get is just a meagre 55mb for our own stuff. Not useful!
In terms of connectivity, it has the mandatory bluetooth and infrared, the latter hardly being operated by users nowadays. One problem that one can encounter is that when connected to the computer, the bluetooth refuses to function, and whats more, the computer fails to search for the phone even though it may be located at a finger’s distance. I haven’t used it much now, so maybe I am not doing things right. But to the best of my knowledge, the memory card connectivity with external devices is not an easy job for a layman.
Now the part which has becomea necessity for even a man who wants a basic phone at the cheapest rate - a camera. 6233 comes with a 2-megapixel camera which allows us to take user-defined pictures, slides or videos in normal, greyscale, sepia or negative mode. The picture clarity is amazing, though it is not as good during the night or at places where there isn’t enough light. Judge it yourself by haing a look at the uploaded pictures of the review. However, the camera has one disadvantage of taking only horizontal pictures, which can be very inconvenient at times, specially if the taken-picture is to be saved as a wallpaper. In that case, one has to take a horizontal picture, transfer it to the computer, size it, and then transfer it back to the phone to give it the proper format. A normally-taken picture will occupy anything between 35-50 kb of the memory, depending on the conditions. The video is by default set to a maximum of 21 seconds, which can be manually set to about an hour (for 64mb), or more, depending on the memory card.
The negatives include...
Apart from the not-so-few mentioned above, the quality of the radio is not upto the mark. Even if at home, there will be a disturbance at times, and if one listens to the radio while walking, the reception won’t be crsytal clear; it will interrupt you many a time. The headset provided makes all the difference; I won’t say that its bad, but it does make the sound quality a bit cheap, and causes a major portion of the trouble.
Now, caution for all music lovers. While you listen to your favourite track on the music player of the phone, the background light will not go off, and will continue to glow throughout the song. This will eat up a lot of the battery while you merry around dancing to the digital sound of the phone. Fortunately, the same is not the ase with the radio. But again, the backlight is too strong and there is no option to reduce it.
Kul milakar.. ?
Nokia 6233 is worth it. If you discount the negatives that the phone offers, its a good buy at an introductory price of INR 14000, when most of the others [including Nokia] start their phones from around 25k which later comes down to 18k and so on. Agreed, its not fully worth of the price that you’ll be paying for it, but it will become a must-buy in say, around 2 months time, when the price slips down by nearly 2k bucks. It may even turn out to be the bestseller in the market, posing a serious threat to competitors like Ericsson and Samsung, who target their phones mainly at the business group and the youth, as 6233 satisfies the needs of both. If music is your first priority, and you’re addicted to playing games, go for it! For others, Nokia 1100 might be a much better alternative!!!
Leaking out...™
aLi.
P.S. I don’t know why I said that man is a social fool. Any correspondence in that regard will not be entertained.
© Aliasgar Poonawala, 2006