Many Alternatives to this Unimpressive Soap Dish!. Review on Nokia 3530

Hmmm, are you thinking of buying this phone? Well let me tell you one thing... Its got much better looking, cheaper and feature loaded alternatives! Hey it depends on your choice but let me tell you my own brush with this flashy blue phone!

First of all I bought this phone way back between the end of 2003 and beginning of 2004 when the concept of color phones was new and camera phones was a dream never dreamt about by cellfone owners! It had cost me nearly Rs 8000 for this piece but I had been captivated by its looks. One thing about cellphone dealers is that most of them wont show you the phone unpacked for you to test it. Its difficult to find some who do and allow you to play around with it before purchasing it. So one thing you gotta do before buying a phone is to test a friends or relatives phone and see if you like its shape, menu, ease of use, durability, features, camera, ringtones, messaging, size, weight etc. Anyways lets get on with the features of the phone.

~The Phones Screen~

The Screen of a Cellular phone especially a color one is the most important part of the phone itself! So please read on to get the details. The screen of the 3530/3510i is basically same and both of them support 4096 colors (4K) which is a very limited range and thus the picture you see is not at all clear or sharp. You may ask me what do you need a high quality screen for in a non-camera phone? Well I can ask you why do you need a color phone? Why arent you satisfied with a Nokai 8850 or a Nokia 3310? Hmm, get my point? You see if you have a color phone which supports color on its screen you gotta have a good one nonetheless! So overall the screen is trashy, only able to display low quality, small, unimpressive and boring pictures as wallpapers or screensavers! My Verdict On It : SCREEN IS BELOW AVERAGE.

~Size~

The worst part of the phone is the huge size. The dimensions are : 118 x 49.6 x 17.1 mm which compared to the phones on the same price range is too big and I would rather go for a Sony Erricson phone which have smaller sizes with slimmer shapes. The phone is not very elegant with its huge size and therefore looks a little bulky to hold. God only knows what all is been put inisde this huge thing. The screen size is also very small compared to its size. Since this was the first color phone with MMS(MultiMedia Messaging Service) the technology used was new and size was unfortuantely standard then! So youre stuck with a bulky soap shaped phone. My Verdict On It : SIZE IS TOO LARGE FOR COMFORT. After all size does matter!

~Menu~

The menu of the phone (Phone Book, Messages, Tones, Profiles etc...) are the same as other non-color/color phones but the icons are very dead looking as the screen can only support 4096 colors maximum which looks very boring after a while. It has a Message Counter which counts the number of messages recieved and sent which I think no other phone has, but its useless. I have to agree that Nokia menus are very good and easy to use. But again since there is no creativity on Nokia's part the menus are the same except in the Nokia 3650/6600/7650 which have larger screens

~Memory~

The memory of the phone is very low about 900 kb which makes downloading of applications, games, wallpapers, ringtones very limited. MMC Card : The MMC card slot is a place where you can add more memory to the phone but there is not MMC slot here to have the memory expanded to a higher level. Memory Type : The memory in the phone is shared by all the resources like Games, Ringtones, Messages, Phone Book, calender, notes etc. so half the memory goes into these only.

~Games~

There are 4 pre installed games fed inside the phone before you buy it. They are : Air Glide, Bowling, Sky Diver and Backgammon. I personally think Sky Diver is the best of the above 4 and Bowling may come second. But since there is hardly any memory in the phone we have to resort to playing with these games only and you have no choice to download more games via serial or WAP/GPRS. When you try to download a game/application all you get is a disconnected phone without the game. On the Advertisments I saw that Nokia were saying that you can download games via serial/wap/gprs but how wrong they are. If I had time to sue these people I would have really gone and launched a Consumer Report and dragged these Nokia people to the Courts and I wouldn't have left them thats for sure!! But since I cant do that I leave the choice to you

~Connectivity Options~

There is hardly any connectivity in this phone except by Serial, which you have to buy from a Nokia shop. The serial cable is pretty expensive so if you dont wanna buy that all you got is WAP or GPRS from which you can download some ringtones and wallpapers but NO games and applciations like what Nokia says on its websties and manuals. So dont get fooled by these people and Never Buy this phone. The phone has NO BlueTooth/InfraRed ports and therefore you cannot share pictures with your family and friends. BlueTooth is also not provided in this phone which enables you to sync your phone with the computer wirelessly at a large distance.

~Extra Functions~

The extra functions on this phone include all the regular ones you see everywhere like the Alarm, Stopwatch, Remind Me Notes, Calender, dates and time. Its all regular but only in color in this phone!!!

~Warranty/Guarentee~

We all know how big and popular Nokia has become and how its huge and plush Serivce Centers have opened out like weed everywhere. But we must agree that Nokias service is excellent and they provide excellent technical help whenever you need it. The phone comes with a warranty that will last you for just a year (1) so you can treat your phone badly for a year and still get it replaced for a new one but after the year has ender boo hoo you gotta take care of it because if somethin goes wrong you gotta pay. But every phone comes with a single year warranty so we really cant argue with that.

~Battery Life~

For all you heavy chatters and talkers out there this phone is good because of its battery is pretty good, if you let it be in stand by mode it will last till about 14 days and talktime is about 3-4 hrs.

~Basic Information About the Phone~

General Network: GSM 900 / GSM 1800

Introduced: 4Q, 2002

Status: Available

Dimensions: 118 x 50 x 17 mm, 98 cc

Weight: 106 g Display Type Color graphics

Size: 96 x 65 pixels - 4096 colors - Screensavers with clock - Wallpapers - Dynamic font size - Softkey Optional Ringtones

Vibration: In phone

Languages Country dependant - MMS (send and receive) - Polyphonic ring tones - Xpress-on covers

Memory Numbers in phone: 500 (3 + 1 text)

Call records: 20 dialed, 10 received, 10 missed calls - Dynamic phonebook memory - Editable message templates - 180 kB for Java MIDlets - 10 voice dial numbers - 100-500

Calendar notes Features: SMS Send/Receive Clock: Yes

Alarm: Yes

Data: GPRS

Infrared port: No

Games: Java games

Thank you for reading my review, please do write comments or post a message on my guestbook on this review of mine!

Vidur.