PhotographyNokia 6300 review
I'm not much of a cell phone person. This is my third mobile phone. Ever. The first was a 1998 fridge style Panasonic G520, the second a 2002 Siemens C55, which got chewed on by Bailey, and now I have this Nokia 6300. I needed a phone that was a little tougher than average, and the stainless steel casing of the 6300 definitely lives up to this requirement.
Looks - I must admit, for the first time ever, I went by the looks of a device. The brushed metal one is too shiny for my tastes (remember the LG Shine?), but I do like the metal housing. So the "All Black" edition it was. My girlfriend, still on her first phone (a Philips Fisio 625), also wanted a new one, and was also impressed with the black metal 
Nokia. So, I ended up ordering two exact same phones. How we're supposed to tell them apart is yet to be sorted out. I bought both phones without any sort of service. Mine holds a prepaid SIM, my girlfriend has a subscription service SIM.
Build - The key factor for choosing a new mobile phone for me was build quality. Every single mobile phone I've held before this one felt like a cheap piece of plastic. They creak when you hold them to your ear, the keypads feel flimsy and creak as well. The Nokia 6300 exhibits none of these things. It feels solid, and although the buttons are plastic, they feel solid as well. The directional button, however, has a bit of an unresponsive feeling. The stainless steel front and back are of a non-magnetic type, which unfortunately rules out the use of a magnetic holder. The USB connector is covered by a very firm lid, a little too firm. I simply can't get it to open without using tools.
User interface - Top notch. For heavy users, the menus can be completely rearranged to have the most used item up top or under the various buttons directly. There's a lot of tweakability. Other than that, menus are logical and clear. Everything makes sense. The music player is decent, Java applications and games run very smoothly (but eat through the battery in a few hours), browsing files and directories is implemented in a logical manner. Organizer is pretty decent, but I would've liked a more elaborate calendar. The clock on the main screen is a bit hard to make out against most photo wallpapers.
Accessories - Along with the phone, battery and charger comes a wired headset, which doubles as a pair of earphones. The phone comes equipped with a 128 MB micro-SD card. Plenty of room for ringtones, pictures and a few MP3s. But who the hell came up with this card size? I mean, was it really that hard to make a standard size SD card fit in there? But all in all, accessories are of impressive quality.
Sound - It's a Nokia. Call audio is loud and clear. People who complain about the sound quality or volume of this phone have hearing damage. That's all I'm gonna say about it. When listening to music things change. The internal speaker is trying very hard to do something it simply can't do. Plugging in the supplied headphones yields a pleasant surprise: sound quality is half-decent now. Not bad at all for included headphones. Making calls with it, as a hands free kit, is also satisfactory because both ears have a bud to listen to.
Reception - Being a Dutchman I doubt I will ever have to worry about reception. The Netherlands are like a GSM forest, with base stations everywhere, never more than a few kilometers away. My work place is about 100 meters from a base station, and at home it's about 500 meters to the nearest one. In short, I'm not qualified to test the reception of the 6300, because I always see a full bar.
Display - I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful TFT screen on a cell phone. I have quite a few gadgets with color TFTs (digicam, Tomtom, PDA), but between those, the 6300 is the clear winner here. At QVGA, or 320x240 on 2", individual pixels are almost indistinguishable. In fact, the only device surpassing it, is my $1000 Sony Alpha 700 DSLR.
Battery life - I read a lot of complaints about the battery life of this phone. After having set everything up and having to recharge a few times because of my endless fiddling, I found the standby time to be pretty impressive. Nokia specifies 348 hours, but this is, of course, a best case scenario. I'm a light user, and I can go for a bit more than a week without recharging. I'd say about 200 hours. This includes a call now and then, a text message there, and daily use of an MP3 alarm.
Extra stuff - Apart from voice and SMS, I have little use for a device of this size. I already have a shelf full of excellent cameras, big and small, so the camera on the Nokia 6300 is for emergency purposes only, which suits it fine given the image quality. Having said that, photos turn out much better if you make a lens hood with your hand to avoid light entering from the sides of the lens. What's excellent about the 6300 is its Java capabilities. It's great to be able to play a game or two when waiting.
Pros
- High quality build, being mostly made of stainless steel
- Good looks, QVGA screen is pure eye candy
- Great user interface
- Java applications run smoothly
- Great sound quality on calls
- Small size
Cons
- Very poor camera
- Directional button feels a bit vague
- Nit-picking: clock font very hard to read
- Nit picking: troublesome USB lid
© Joris van den Heuvel, Fuzzcraft.com