Earlier I had a Nokia 6600 which was lost a month back. It was truly a masterpiece from Nokia and still it retains its elegance and esteem. I did not feel bad even when I saw vegetable vendors and milkmen using the same model.
Instead of weeping over the lost set and trying to gain sympathy from my boss who is not going to pay for a new one, I started looking for a mobile with some expectations in mind. It should have a large screen, radio, media player, high res. camera and good speakers. It should not embarrassingly bulge my pocket and attract the attention of girls, as my earlier mobile set did and it should not be choked with unnecessary design elements also. It should have a reasonable battery back up, extendable memory and should allow me to play chess and suduku even when I am at office. It should be priced moderately and it should be from Nokia. Am I being impractical? May be, but Voila! all my expectations were fulfilled by the new Nokia 6300!
I will write about this product that will be limited to extent of my usage and knowledge of the phone. The author will not be responsible for any damage, physical, psychological or financial, caused to MS readers by comprehending this review;)
Design: It is sleek. It is simple. It is beautiful. You would not expect more unless you are fan of Pokeman.(9 out of 10).
Casing: It is a beautiful amalgamation of steel and plastic. The steel is brushed while plastic is glossy. Plastic gets scratched easily(not by your beard though) and they are visible only at a distance of 2 ft or less. The casing is too smooth to handle that initially I used to have a feeling of the mobile slipping from my hands. If your palms are dry, you will find it uncomfortable. The camera does not have a lens cover as in new sony ericsson models but come on, how can you expect to have that when you want a slim phone?(8 out of 10).
Side profile: It has a blue light on sides and that’s so cool! If you have any missed call or unread sms, this will flash at regular intervals so you need not pick up the phone and see its desktop everytime to find out. The buttons on the side are just too hard to press - could irritate you(8 out of 10).
Screen: This is wow. With a bold size of 240 x 320 pixels, this is pretty larger than Sony Ericsson W700i which was one of my options, moments before my purchase. The colors are so brilliant that you would not take your eyes off from the screen. Particularly, colors in green shades are very juicy. You will certainly pat yourself for choosing your girlfriend if you look at her photo in this mobile!(10 out of 10).
Keypad: This is another wow. Never seen before a brightly at the same time, uniformly lit keypad. It is so nicely spaced in spite of the screen taking much of the space. This soft touch keypad is pretty comfortable to type long messages just like 6600. It would have been better only when it is like my keyboard.(10 out of 10).
Sound: I compared with the walkman phone w700i, 6300 is louder than the latter. The sound is clear as long as the volume is 90% or less. It has good treble and a small level of wood bass could be felt. Thank god I did not expect the effect of Bose from a 1cm x 1 cm speaker. Reception is also amazingly clear.(9 out of 10).
Camera: Not the best of Nokia. It is a low end camera that was chosen by Nokia to keep the costs low. I can understand that. I am not going to fight for IPA anyway. It has a good zoom which comes at the cost of quality. of course! The quality is good in day light and even with its superb night mode feature, the photos in poor light conditions are average. Resolution is sufficient enough for a small print. Again, green colors are splendidly captured by this 2 MP camera. Watch out for the shaking if it is in night mode.(7 out of 10).
Media: It has a hardware driven mp3 player with equalizer(great), video recorder(yuck), video player(ok), FM player(cool) and audio recorder(poor). Mp3 player is really good, very easy to use. But there is no option to STOP, you can only pause and come out. It is like coming out of the toilet with your fly open. Never mind. The video recording size is too small. Big disappointment. My 6600 video recording was better with an 1 mp module.(8 out of 10)
Navigation: It is cool, very fast(Java) and easy. But it does not have the switching between applications option which was in 6600. Oh god, why are we going back in ergonomics? The 5-way joystick is quite easy to operate(8 out of 10).
Battery: It has an average life, possibly because of some reason which I do not know.(7 out of 10)
Internet: I haven’t tried this yet, so I don’t know what to write. I wanted to copy paste this section from some other review but later decided not to.
Other features: In-built flash player, stop watch, count-down timer, notes, games, alarm, calendar, and all other goodies are seen. Exhaustive phone book, expandable memory(does not slow down the OS), good power saving features, downloadable themes, java applications, mp3 ring tones, quick blue tooth access, easy messaging and exhaustive settings menu are worth mentioning in this washable phone(10 out of 10).
Unlike Einstein, this phone is both beautiful and smart. I think I have missed something but I don’t want to write any more because it is 15 past 6 in the evening now and my boss would know that I am not working!
Overall this is a wonderful package(9 out of 10) for less than Rs. 10k and you can buy one without wasting another moment of your precious life. If you find anything better than this for this cost, you are probably living in Mars.