Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Review: The slim and Bold Nokia 6300

nokia-6300-00_thumbLooking for a classic type slim phone with all basic features in it and simple to use.. then here is the phone for you. Check the review of 6300 here to know more about it.

Pros:

  • Sleek and metallic design.
  • QVGA (320x240) TFT display that can display 16million colors
  • Connects to PC using mini-USB port instead of the previous Nokia USB cable
  • Has EDGE connectivity
  • Has Bluetooth with A2DP for using with wireless stereo headset

Cons:

  • Really Basic features. ( Uses Symbian series 40 OS )
  • No 3G connectivity.
  • No auto-focus in the camera.

nokia-6300-00

Look and build:

This super slim classic phone from Nokia measures 106.4 x 43.6 x 11.7 mm having a displacement of 56cc. That surely saves a lot of space in your pocket. The slim phones have also become a fashion these days. This slim phone surely is attracting the business class people and students. 6300 weighs merely 91g even though it is surrounded by those glossy steel plates.

The phone has a QVGA TFT display sizing 31 x 41 mm which can display 16million colors which is really good for viewing photos, videos, messages, emails and browsing the internet. The display is so bright even it is perfectly readable under direct sunlight.

6300 barely has any buttons on its sides except the dual volume control buttons for controlling the volume located on the right side of the handset. The switch off button is located on the top side of the phone as in many other Nokia handsets.

Surprisingly, the phone comes with a mini-USB data port which can be used to connect the phone to the PC seamlessly unlike in old Nokia models that used the Nokia pop-port to connect to the PC. The mini-usb port is located on the bottom side of the phone. Besides which there is a port for connecting earphones and charger. The mic also lies on the same side.

There are two LED lights on either side of the handset. These illuminators are hardly an essential on the phone but they made 6300 look extra cool. The blue LEDs are covered with white plastic on the surface which actually helps to know if there is some message arrived or if there are some missed calls. Don’t afraid about the buzzing of the lights in the nights as this feature can actually be deactivated from the menu.

The rear of the phone comes in two parts. The top part is made up of high quality black plastic in which the two mega-pixels camera is fixed. The Nokia logo is found just above the camera lens. And the speaker phone is just set on the right side of the camera lens pinned with 9 holes. The lower part of the rear is the battery cover that’s made of solid steel.

The steel plate is easy to remove. There lies the BL-4C type Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 860 mAh under the hood. The battery is able to power the phone 210 minutes of calling time or 348 hours of stand-by according to the official Nokia website. The sim card is placed under the battery. The memory card (microSD) slot is located on the right side of the phone which comes in to view when the rear plate is removed. 6300 supports upto 2gb of storage on a microSD card. The phone comes with approx memory of 7.8mb and a 128mb microSD memory card in the package.

To the conclusion about the looks, the sleek phone simply looks really cool and classic with its metallic looks and without any unnecessary decorative elements on it. Also it’s easy to carry around in the pockets without feeling that heavy unlike other metallic handsets. The Alert LEDs give the extra cool look to the phone.

Features:

The features don’t differ much. It has almost similar features as any other phone of its class. Nokia made 6300 really simple that it comes with Symbian series 40 3rd edition user interface. And has very basic menu layout. However you can change the order of the menu items as you like. A window pops up explaining about the application when the user hovers over an icon in the menu for a long time. All the media applications can be accessed through the interface. Media applications include camera, video player, video recorder and FM radio.

The 2-Megapixel camera that’s located on the back lets you take still photos or shoot video at a QCIF format. The pictures quality is however average. As there is no side button for camera, the photos need to be taken in vertical mode. The center navigation key acts as the capture button. The night mode is a handy feature. The disappointing thing with the camera is there is no auto-focus, no flash, and no lens cover. So that’s about the camera which you can use it to for some emergency shots.

The built-in media player supports MP3/MP4/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+ file formats. Mp3 files can also be set as ringtones apart from the 64 channel polyphonic tones. As mentioned earlier 6300 comes with a voice recorder. As in any other phone, this phone also features basic applications like calendar, calculator, unit converter, event reminders, alarm, time countdown etc. Well, about the games, that’s not that fun to play games in 6300 as it’s pretty slow on the default s40 platform.

The phone can store upto 1000 contacts and also has the usual photo call feature. The recent call entries are limited to 20 each at dialed, received and missed calls.

The sms editor is perfectly organized. With 6300 the user can send and receive any type of SMS and MMS messages. However MMS messages are limited to the size of 300kb. Surprisingly there are 2 tyoes of MMS editors that can be used. One is the editor that comes with all the latest Nokia mobiles and the other called as multimedia messages plus which can be used to attach even non-compatible files. The menu lets you hit messages in 3 font sizes. The display can show 10 lines at the least font size and about 6 lines at the largest font size. Messages are stored in the shared memory irrespective of their type. The email application is based on java and is slow to operate. It works with POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols.

Verdict:

Nokia 6300 is a good looking phone with all the basic features packed in it. The polished steel plates make it extra glossy and classic. Apart from being it on a Symbian 40 platform, 6300 has a lot of multimedia features. The mini-USB port was one worthy feature to own this phone too. Also the 16 million color display also adds to it. If you have a second thought you can also look at Sony Ericsson’s K800i or K810i that’s available at almost same price tag. That’s all about this slim Nokia 6300.

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