Nokia 1100 – First Impressions. Review on Nokia 1100

As my exams stand postponed, I got this opportunity to celebrate my dad’s birthday on a grand scale. And what better way to do it than to gift him a cell phone as I know that he desperately wants to replace his 3 years old Nokia 3315. So I decided to gift him this new cell phone, which I know will suit him very well.

I had actually wanted to buy Nokia 2100 for its ease of use and similarity of menu system with Nokia 3310/3315 but then since Nokia has discontinued it, I had to go for this model. My first impressions are pretty good, though somehow I end up comparing it to the good old 3310. Let’s analyze this phone as I see it sitting pretty and charging on my table.

When compared to Nokia 6610 or Sony Ericsson T105, the Nokia 1100 is on the heavy side. It looks a bulky phone for its size. Looks wise, it is decent. The showroom I went to had three shades available: sky blue, light grey and black. I chose a light grey colour, for it looked the best among the three shades.

The keypad is tight. I have to use my fingernails to press all the keys, maybe it will ease out with constant use. Being a Sony Ericsson user, I found it a bit hard to adjust to the keypad, especially when composing a SMS. I notice that its software even supports Hindi language and you can compose your messages in Hindi as well.

Unlike most other phones of any company, this phone’s menu system is slightly different in that Nokia decided to put the Messages menu before the Phone Book menu. I actually don’t understand why they did this. Perhaps they thought that a Nokia 1100 is better suited for SMS messages than for making outgoing calls.

No voice dialling features in this phone, although speed dialling is available on keys 2 through 9. The SMS menu starts off with the write message menu which is as expected supporting long messages up to 460 characters. Here I end up comparing it to my T105, which can compose messages longer than a 1000 characters! The phone doesn’t have its own SMS memory and you will have to take care that all the outgoing messages will get stored in the Sent Items folder, which will inevitably eat up any memory available on your SIM card. So it is better to clean out all messages in the Sent Item folder after some time. Not too many Picture Messages when compared to 3315, although the pictures are refreshing and new, can be used as screensavers too.

The Contacts menu is your phone book and managing it is a cakewalk, and in fact doesn’t even warrant a mention in this review. The phone has memory space for 50 phone numbers and you will have to switch the memory from SIM to phone to store numbers in it. Similarly, the Call Register menu too is a cakewalk and for most users of Nokia, it’s as easy as Apple Pie (to use a bit of Siddhuism)!

The phone comes with 36 built-in ring tones with an option of 7 downloadable tones. Rhythmic backlight will add more fun and frolic to this otherwise dull phone. It has only 2 games – Snakes 2 and Space Impact + which is lesser compared to 3310/3315. The most interesting use of this cell phone is its flashlight. I have seen some people use its flashlight in complete darkness and although it is not too strong, still it will give you a clear vision of close by surroundings.

The user manual says that the battery can stand up to 400 hours on standby and gives up to 4 hours of talk-time. This is actually disputable since no phone will live up to these kinds of expectations, and even if it does, then such high performances do not last for long.

Where does this phone lack? Well, I think the most basic feature that lacks in most low-end Nokia phones is that the call time is not available on screen during the call and we have to look through the Call Register menu to look up the time of the last call. This is true for this model too.

Also, I end up preferring a Sony Ericsson for its feature of Minute Minder, wherein a beep sound occurs at the end of every minute. That can help the user control the calls easily by keeping a tap on the minutes talked. It would have been an added bonus if this feature had been available in an 1100.

Nokia claims that this phone is scratch-proof, dust-proof, has an anti-slip grip and is long lasting. Well, time will tell how true these claims are. Overall I am satisfied with this lower end phone. It as all the features of a basic cell phone and is well suited for the entry level user. Costing just Rs. 2700, it wont pinch your pocket. As for me, I am an advanced user, soon going to upgrade to a camera-phone.