This is a rubbish phone. Fundamentally, the call quality is shocking. I assume the aerial is rubbish. The user interface lags - I push a button and have to wait to see something happen. I reckon there's a half-second lag betwen me hitting the keys, and the phone actually locking or unlocking, and ditto for most other operations. I previously had a 6230, and while it had its foibles, at least the text went in as you typed it, the keypad had less inconvenient buttons, and resuming an interrupted text was super-simple. How, given fewer constraints than previous generations, they've managed to make the interface worse, I do not know.
In fact, I only discovered how to change the volume on this thing today, thanks to googling, as I felt so silly being unable to do that. Left and right directional keys during a phone conversation, apparently. Makes me realise how much I liked dedicated volume keys. Even my 3210 used up and down, I think.
This is my fourth Nokia phone, as I've generally found them consistent and straightforward. Oh, and apparently they've had good sound quality, 'cos in comparison, this thing's rubbish. I try to choose simple, small phones, 'cos all I want to do is keep it in my pocket (small) and make calls and send texts (simple). So, I got this simple cheapo phone. It does admittedly deliver on the small side, but given it doesn't actually make phone calls very well, I should probably just keep my pocket empty instead.
I have a suspicion that they could make a cheap, high-quality phone, but they'd rather make their low-end model rubbish, to encourage you to upgrade. After all, they couldn't deliberately design something as bad as this, could they?
Posted 2009-03-15.