An Extremely Versatile Phone
Written: Mar 29 '04 (Updated Nov 01 '08)
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Pros: Tons of features, camera, radio, well-designed menu system
Cons: Not the best display around, keep having to re-select dictionary in text messaging
The Bottom Line: If you want a versatile phone and having a camera and radio is important to you, you won't get much better than this.
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| captaind's Full Review: Nokia 3200 |
Firstly I’d like to thank Howard Creech for adding this to the database so promptly.
Well, before you all start thinking I’ve come into money and could buy a shiny new phone (well 2 actually as I’ll be reviewing another one soon as well), it’s actually because the wife and I both got free upgrades recently. :-) So there.
So Get On With The Review Already…
The Nokia 3200 is a stylish little thing, not the smallest or the lightest on the market, but not all that far off either. Over the years Nokia is a brand I’ve come to trust as they always seem to produce user-friendly and most importantly reliable pieces of equipment. The 3200 is no exception (though obviously it hasn’t had to withstand the test of time yet!). It isn’t the most advanced phone on the market and probably in every area you can find a phone that’s better in certain ways, but it’s solid in every area and loaded with features. And if you’ve read that review – okay I admit it, I’ve taken to some of the features I previously classed as “gimmicky”. I can’t help it, I’m a victim of society… or something…
One of the best things about this phone is that it sports one of the new breed of lithium batteries – this takes under 3 hours to fully charge and, unless you are using it really heavily, you probably won’t need to charge it more than about once a week! This is a great improvement on every previous phone I’ve had. Speaking of features, one I found completely by accident the other day (not much of one for reading manuals, I’m afraid) is that you can actually use your phone as a searchlight – there’s a small but fairly powerful light at the bottom of the screen you can access by holding down the * key.
Speaking of keys, the keyboard is a little different from my old 5210 model. The keys are all “double” keys – depending on whether you press the top or bottom of the key you’ll get 1 or 4, for instance. This actually only took a couple of minutes to get used to, which surprised me – especially as I tend to not look at the phone at all when I’m using predictive text messaging.
There are 3 preset covers you can use and changing these is very easy. You can even create your own covers, though I haven’t actually done that as I like one of the preset ones.
The display is crisp and the colour saturation reasonable, though I’ve seen better. The screen resolution is 352 x 288, which isn’t bad (I remember my beloved old Atari ST with its 320x200 resolution and 16-colour display – and thinking it was wonderful… how things change), and the polyphonic ringtones are certainly better than the old, ear-splitting monophonic ones, though the MIDI files you can play on it only tend to be low-medium quality. Part of the reason for the graphics and sound not being quite as good as some other modern phones stems from the fact that it only has 1Mb memory – but this is going to be enough for most people.
The menu system is your standard, simple menu with the nice option of using icons instead of text. It’s an extremely user-friendly phone and if you leave it on a menu screen without selecting an option, information regarding that menu will pop up on the screen. Reception seems greatly improved over my old 5210, although it’s still not perfect – obviously this depends to a large extent on what service provider you’re using. (I’m with T-Mobile – so there may be some slight differences with this phone if it’s provided by a difference service provider – but essentially the functions will be the same so this review should be applicable no matter who you use.)
I’m not going to go into great depth about every menu option as that would make the review ridiculously long, but I’ll list all the menu tree as that’ll give you a good idea of what this phone can do.
Messages
Submenus:
Text Messages
-Create Message
-Inbox
-Create SMS e-mail
-Sent items
-Archive
-Templates
-My Folders
-Delete messages
Multimedia msgs.
-Create message
-Inbox
-Outbox
-Sent items
-Saved items
-Delete messages
Voice messages
-Listen to voice messages
Voice mailbox number
Message Settings
-Text messages
-Multimedia messages
- Other settings
Service Commands
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Call Register
Submenus:
Missed calls
Received calls
Dialled numbers
Delete recent call lists
-All
-Missed
-Received
-Dialled
Call duration
-Last call duration
-Received calls’ duration
-Dialled calls’ duration
-All calls’ duration
-Clear timers
GPRS data counter
-Data sent in last session
-Data received in last session
-All sent data
-All received data
-Clear counters
GPRS connection timer
-Duration of last session
-Duration of all sessions
-Clear timers
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Contacts
Submenus:
Search
Add contact
Delete
-One by one
-Delete all
Copy
-From phone to SIM card
-From SIM card to phone
Settings
-Memory in use
-Contacts view
-Memory status
Speed dials
Info numbers
-Info
-Services
My numbers
Caller groups
-Family
-VIP
-Friends
-Business
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Settings
Submenus:
Profiles
-General
-Silent
-Meeting
-Outdoor
-Pager
Tone settings
-Incoming ringing alert
-Ringing tone
-Ringing volume
-Vibrating alert
-Message alert tone
-Keypad tones
-Warning tones
-Alert for
Display settings
-Wallpaper
-Colour schemes
-Screen saver timeout
-Display brightness
-Menu view
Time and date settings
-Clock
-Date
-Auto-update of date & time
Personal shortcuts
-Right selection key
-Select Go to options
-Organise Go to options
Connectivity
-Infrared
-GPRS
Call settings
-Call divert
-Automatic volume control
-Anykey answer
-Automatic redial
-Speed dialing
-Call waiting
-Summary after call
-Send my caller identity
Phone settings
-Phone language
-Memory status
-Automatic keyguard
-Welcome note
-Network selection
-Help text activation
-Start-up tone
Enhancement settings
-Headset
-Text phone
Security settings
-PIN code request
-Call barring service
-Closed used group
-Security level
-Access codes
Restore factory settings
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Gallery
Submenus:
View Folders
Add folder
Delete folder
Rename folder
Usage rights list
Gallery downloads
-Graphic downloads
-Tone downloads
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Media
Submenus:
Camera
-Standard photo-Portrait photo
-Night mode
-Self-timer
Settings
Radio
Voice Recorder
-Record
-Recordings List
-Replay list
-Send
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Organiser
Submenus:
Alarm Clock
Calendar
Calculator
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Applications
Submenus:
Games
-Select Game
Game Downloads
Memory
Settings
Collection
-Select application
-App. Downloads
-Memory
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Services
Submenus:
Home
Bookmarks
-Various T-zones links and user-created bookmarks – obviously the default bookmarks will vary from network to network
Download Links
-Tone Downloads
-Graphic downloads
-Game downloads
-App. Downloads
Service inbox
Settings
-Connection settings
-Appearance settings
-Security settings
-Service inbox settings
Go to address
Clear the cache
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Go to
Submenus:
Contacts
Calendar
Radio
Create MMS
Create message
Alarm clock
Gallery
Voice Recorder
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Whew, that took some time, let me tell you. There are a few tertiary menus but including those would be complete overkill…
As you can see from the menu tree, everything can be fully customised, which is one of the things I like about the phone. Other things worth mentioning are:
Good Things
The camera is extremely easy to use and sending it to an email address via multimedia messaging is very quick (you can take a picture on your phone, send it, and receive it in your email inbox in literally less than a minute). The only thing you’ll have to watch is how much your service provider is charging for MMS! Ou can choose between low, medium, and high jpg compression.
The radio works well, with good reception and fidelity. Naturally it needs a headset before you can use it.
There’s a loudspeaker mode that means you can use it pretty much as a hands-free without having a hands-free kit. (However since I have one coming in the post – free again (innit great?!?) this isn’t something I’m likely to use greatly.
Though not quite as robust as the 5210 (which was practically bomb-proof), it’s certainly not going to stop working if it just takes a little knock. Which, given my tendency to drop my phone every so often, is a good thing.
Having 4-directional cursor keys is quite a boon (when was the last time you saw that expression in an eps review?!??), especially on text messages when you realise you’ve made a mistake earlier in the message.
The better resolution (than older phones) means more lines of text can be on screen at a time, meaning more of a message / more menu options can be seen at once.
The calculator has been slightly improved now, with functions like square and square root added. (Don’t expect to work out cosines and suchlike though.)
The GPRS is quite fast and reliable. As usual, it’s decent content that’s the problem…
Bad Things
Though there are plenty of links to download things, non of them worked. However this is not a fault of the phones, but T-Mobile do not support the feature on this phone at the moment (I’m sure they will in the future). However, if you feel an overwhelming need to waste your money on ring tones, wallpapers, and games, you can do so from the Nokia website.
The games that actually come with the phone are sub-standard. (Almost definitely to get you to spend money downloading more.) There are only to games here, though “Bounce” is actually quite an addictive little platformer.
You often have to end up re-selecting the dictionary in texting – if you finish a message on non-predictive, you seem to lose the option to use predictive on your next text until you reselect the dictionary.
Summary
This phone doesn’t have the best display or sound in the world and it’s not the best one for games or emailing. But it’s solid in every area, and where it really shines is in the sheer number of options and features available. I’m extremely happy with it and though my wife’s phone (which I’ll be reviewing soon) is superior in some ways, it is also more limited in others. So if having a camera and radio on your phone sounds good, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Nokia 3200. If on the other hand having a better display (and being able to take 640 x 480 .jpgs) and more memory (5Mb) sounds more appealing to you, look out for my review of the excellent Morotola v300.
Thanks for reading / rating, and thanks again to Howard for adding this to the Database for me.
CaptainD
Nokia 5210 - outdated today, but still one of the most durable phones ever made (virtually bomb-proof!)
Nokia 6610 - a pretty good business phone, but not the best in the Nokia range.
And a non-Nokia phone: Motorola V300 - not bad, but not terrific.
See also: What You Should Know About Nokia Mobile Phones
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): FREE UPGRADE
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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