Reception king!
Written: May 16 '04 (Updated May 18 '04)
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Pros: Great reception, tough, many features, very cheap
Cons: annoying power button, not small, erratic battery performance
The Bottom Line: This phone generally wins on all the important fronts and only "annoys" on minor details. As such, I must say that this phone is an excellent value.
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| cs982005's Full Review: Nokia 3590 |
Intro:
I am relatively a new comer to the cell phone world as I got my first one only in the year 2000. However, I have used many of my friends and relatives and as such I have come to realize that there are two things worth noting before reading this review:
1. I do not use any electronic organizer because I find that most of their features are present in most cell phones (the most necessary ones anyways)
2. I am still a firm believer that a cell phone is simply, A CELLPHONE. Meaning, the main reason we have/use them is for making calls on the go. As such, this review is intended mainly to review that fact (and related facts).
So now, on with the review...
First and Foremost... Mobility:
As I mentioned, (supposedly) the reason we buy cell phones is to be able to talk on the go. A cell phone provides this by the following criteria:
1. Reception: This phone has without a doubt one of the best reception levels I have ever seen. I live in the 21st floor in an apartment building and I also park in an underground parking and my 6185 used to have trouble in both places. As a matter of fact, every single person I know who ever came to my underground parking had at best terrible reception (if at all, not any being more likely). The 3590 on the other hand allows me to send and receive calls in my car in the underground parking with no issues. In various occasions I was able to maintain a conversation during the entire 21 floor flight in the elevator with only occasional voice break-ups.
2. Battery-life: Supposedly, this phone has a stand-by time of around 6 days (replace each day with one hour of talking). However, my experience has shown that it is safe to say that you will definitely survive through one full day with at least 3 hours of talk-time if starting from a full charge.
3. Coverage: This phone is digital dual-band GSM only. This means that it will not work in areas that only have analog signals. Being dual-band, this phone will not work in Europe or the Middle-East either (you need a tri-band phone for that). However, I have used this phone in the general Toronto area (Ontario, Canada) and almost everywhere within 2 hours drive (including Buffalo, NY) and it has worked perfectly.
4. Hands-free operation: This is important for drivers, and I must say that the headset for this phone is very functional. It is very light/small to carry in your pocket (or purse if you're a lady). It uses an ear bud for the ear-piece which is good because it is the least irritating to the ear. It also has a collar-clip to prevent the ear-piece from being pulled out of your ear if the wire gets into something. Finally, the phone can be configured to automatically answer calls when the headset is attached, and it does so after letting it ring for a short while to give you a chance to decline the call if you like (and yes, the auto-answer setting doesn't have to be changed, it will automatically go back to normal answering mode if you detach the headset and then once again go back to auto-answer if you re-attach it)
5. Voice quality: This is a purely digital set, which means that the voice quality itself should never change (complete break-ups, however, are excepted). I am usually forced to keep it at the highest volume because anything less will make you struggle to hear an averagely-loud person. The headset is much louder, however, and allows a much clearer conversation. Unfortunately, the mouth-piece is very sensitive, and as such tends to transfer too much background noise to your party.
Looks/durability:
Compared to most phones available today, this phone is not the best-looking/smallest. It is smaller than my old Nokia 6185 (which at the time I got it was considered relatively small). It doesn't have an external antenna which is a good thing because it makes it more likely to last longer (I have eventually broken the antenna on my 6185 and believe me, it was no more than a paper-weight until I got it fixed, which is a relatively expensive repair I must add). It doesn't have any kind of a flip-over piece (something I find very irritating) nor side buttons (which I always accidentally press). So in short, the phone looks very basic, with no protrusions of any kind. I consider this as being very functional. However, others may think of it as bland/boring. Finally, the top, bottom, and button-sheet are all easily replaceable for those who like alternate face-plates/etc.
The body is made from a somewhat malleable plastic which also allows it to last and to withstand stronger drops. However, I found the factory button-sheet to be very flimsy, as buttons (specially ones in the bottom row) tend to tear at their base when you -say- take the phone out of your pocket.
Features:
Despite being an entry-level phone, this phone is not short on features in any way. The B&W LED display is fairly large and high-rez. It allows for lots of information to be displayed at one time. There is also a new set that replaces this one (3595) which is pretty much identical except for having a color display.
The phone comes with memory for 199 names, allows for multiple phone numbers per name with categories like home/work/cell etc., plus having the ability to add street and email addresses to your contacts.
The ringer supports polyphonic ring tones (which are not as good as -say- those of the LG4600) but they are relatively good and definitely much better than the basic ringers of other phones. The phone itself comes with 32 tones and supports adding others (however, it provides no means of programming them manually... I have researched on the web also for any "hidden" feature that allows this and it seems to me that none exists).
Another cool feature is voice-dialing, which I have found to work pretty well as long as you try to minimize the background noise before uttering your party's name. It is also very easily accessible (involves only a single long key-press) which is also very good. Hey, what's the point of voice-dialing if I still have to hit 2000 buttons before I get it to work!
SMS messaging is supported two-ways. However, I have been unable to send messages to recipients of certain networks overseas. The phone allows for predictive text entry with options to minimize button-presses which I have found to work very well.
Finally the alarm and calendar/reminders work very well together. I was disappointed to find no means of listing all reminders like my old 6185 but it's not a big deal. Other features like games and a calculator are present as well (the latter being the more important).
Aside from SMS, no other communication is possible with other devices like blue-tooth or IR. This may be an issue for some people but for the mainstream they are not really needed features.
Issues:
This phone generally works very well. However, I am not completely satisfied with the battery performance of this phone. It tends to behave in a rather "erratic" way as it tends to provide very misleading power readings sometimes. Also, I have seen this phone a couple of times lose power very rapidly (really, not just based on the power meter) which can happen in very inappropriate times.
Another somewhat major issue is the power button, as it requires a lot of force to connect since it is:
1. At the very of the top side of the phone
2. Completely flush with the top side
3. Very insensitive to pressing
There are a couple of other very minor issues, the first one is the ringer being relatively quiet, although this also depends on which ring tone you are using. Also, putting the phone in silent mode causes the vibra-alert to be disabled, which basically means that you'll only know if a call is incoming if you happen to be looking at the phone and see the backlight flashing. Finally, charging while using the headset causes a severe buzz to be heard by the other party.
Conclusion:
This phone generally wins on all the important fronts and only "annoys" on minor details. As such, I must say that this phone is an excellent value. This is even more pronounced when purchased with a plan as many come with it almost free (I personally paid $0 for it with a 2 year contract). This is still true for the color display version (3595). Great!
Recommended:
Yes
Recommended for: Adventurous Technophiles - Tough and Durable
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Epinions.com ID:
cs982005
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Reviews written: 3
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