The Nokia 8310 mobile phone is the new upgrade to the Nokia 8210. It is hard to believe all of the features that are packed into this small little phone. The phone is 97mm x 43mm x 17mm, which makes this phone just a little bit smaller than it’s predecessor was, or still is. In reviewing this phone I will first tell you about what it looks like, how easy it is to use and them some technical specifications from Nokia.
Looks
Well the 8310 defiantly has defiantly been designed to look good as well as perform. This is the major difference between the 8310 and the 8210 is that the 8310 looks so much better. It has a sleek and slightly rounded look, the keypad is laid out in a nicer way, which makes it look less square. So basically the 8310 looks a lot better than the blocky 8210!
The choice of colours that you can get as well also makes this phone look very impressive. It is not just one colour there are two colours the main body then the keypad colour, which on my phone is the standard silver and dark blue. The keypad when the phone is active lights up, which is very cool.
Another thing that you will notice when you look and the phone when it is being used is the backlight colour and the light in general is not the standard colour. It is a nice glowing light blue colour, much the same as those Timex Glow watches (if you know what I mean?). This has one major advantage as far as I can see, apart from being nicer to look at, it is a very bright light so if you need a torch but don’t have one you wont need one! You can use your phone!
Ease of Use
Like any of the Nokia phones this also has an easy to use interface to it, which makes the phone very easy to use. The phone book is easily access by pressing up or down on the main button in the middle of the phone. The select someone to phone you select the name then select which number to phone, home, mobile, work etc... Also to call people you can set up speed dialling and voice dialling, so you say something and it will call the number that what you said is associated to!
Text messaging is also very easy; with the dictionary activated the phone allows predictive texting. This basically means you press the button for the letter that is in the word and the phone works out which word you might want. If this is not right you simple scroll through the other possibilities and if the word is not there then you simply add it to the dictionary on the phone for next time! Easy peasy!
Other features of the phone are also accessible by the voice commands, which makes this phone very easy to use!
Other Features
This phone as I said before is packed full of features, which you might not expect from a phone so small. The features that this phone has are: voice recorder, radio, WAP, games, calendar, to-do-list, infra-red, profiles and much more like calculator, alarm clock etc...
This voice recorder can be used to record messages up 3 minutes in total, so you could have one long message that lasts the whole three minutes or numerous short messages. I like this feature, as it can be both fun as well as very useful for remembering things.
This is a feature that is increasingly being put into mobile phones for some reason, this reason I have no idea but what the hey it’s pretty neat! To use this feature you will need to plug the headphones into the phone that you got with the phone! Then go to the Radio menu and tune it in, this can be done by selecting a present that you can save or by manually or automatically tuning the radio. Once tuned in you can then go about using the phone as normal but listening to the radio, so you might go on the Internet or play a game.
I’ve personally never used this, as it is pretty much useless, WAP it has to be said was the most over-hyped mobile phone development ever and I can’t see myself ever using it. For this reason it is probably that the WAP services are free on the contract that I have got with this phone. This operates either the normal way or through the new GPRS system, which I have yet to see working!
This phone like most Nokia phones has games, this model has the following game on it: Snake 2, Snowboarding, Bumper and Pairs 2. I don’t really use these much but they must be fun for if your waiting for someone or just that bored that you want to play on your phone. Everyone knows Snake you go around eating stuff to get points, but Snake 2 you can change the game boards to mazes, boxes and even download more from the internet (see https://nokiagame.com). The Snowboarding game is as it sounds a snowboarding game with three versions, downhill, half pipe and big jump. This sounds good but the game in my opinion is pretty rubbish! Bumper on the other hand is quite good, it is a pinball game with two different boards. But you can also download new boards from the Internet (see https://nokiagame.com). Pairs 2 is the next version of the pairs games where you have to match up cards as pairs, there are two versions of the games puzzle and time trial.
This has the potential to be very useful, you can input notes into the calendar, such as birthdays, meetings, call reminder. Then on the day that you set the note you will get a reminder that you have to do this and that etc...
Another feature that might be useful to you if you need to organise yourself is the to-do-list. You can organise things to do into a three level priority list. These can also be add to the calendar or sent as a text message to someone else with this facility on his or her phone. This is quite a nice idea!
Umm, the only things that I think or at least that I know you can do with this is you can send a business card to another phone with infra-red and also play a two-player game of Snake 2 with someone else. A neat idea but not everyone has one of these phones, but useful if your mate does!
Now a standard feature on Nokia phones you can set up the sounds and alerts and vibrations to how you want them in different situations, like meetings (silent), outdoors (louder), etc... You can also put a timer on them so that they will activate in a number of minutes or hours, I can’t quite work this one out, but I’m sure someone might have a use for it!
Specification
• Availability: Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific
• Weight: 84 g
• Dimensions: 97 x 43 x 17 ... 19 mm
• Talktime: 2 h 15 min - 4 h
• Standby time: 100 - 350 h (up to 20 h radio on)
• Key features: Latest look and feel, WAP over GPRS, integrated FM radio, user changeable front and back covers, voice features
• Operating frequency: EGSM 900/1800 networks in Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific
• Colours: Nine Xpress-on covers available, six of them are sold also as accessories
For more information please visit: https://nokia.com/phones/8310/index.html
Accessories
This phone has a lot of accessories available for it, things such as: covers (change the colour of your phones!), keypads (change the colour of your keypad!), desktop stands (charger), data cables, full car kits, part car kits. To find out more have a look at the Nokia website address I mentioned previously and click on the accessories link.
My Thoughts
This is a brilliant new phone that has a lot going for it! It looks good, is easy to use and is becoming more and more available. The only problem at the moment is the price, if you are lucky you will get it free with your contract or you might have to pay up to £130 or if you buy it without a sim card it becomes very expensive at £300! Ouch! A very good phone with a lot of features, I would recommend this phone to anyone looking to buy a new one!