Old but reliable. Review on Nokia 5146

With all the talk now of all the ’new’ phones on the market, I thought I would shove my 2 penneth in on an ’old’ mobile phone!

I have had my phone now for 2+ years and within

that time it has been through a lot!!

Nothing seems to phase this little phone, which is about as little as I would like a mobile phone to be! (I still manage to lose it in my bag).

The phone itself has many useful functions, an address book with a 99 name/number memory. This could do with being a bit larger, as I use it a lot for work, but it suffices.

There is a messages section, an inbox, where new messages are received, outbox, where messages can be stored, great for those funky picture messages that appear! And a write message section. I find that the screen is just the right size for typing messages (4 lines of text appear, as opposed to 2 on some phones).

There is a call register section, where a log is kept of the last 8 numbers, that have been missed, received or dialled. The missed call section acts a little bit like 1471 on land lines, although withheld numbers do not appear.

The settings section allows you to alter, call waiting, speed redial, language, not recommended however, I got in a bit of a mess with this one!!! In this section you can also set your PIN, a handy feature to stop people making unwanted calls if your phone is lost, stolen or ’borrowed’!!!

You can set a divert on your phone, if someone rings your mobile number you can set it to divert to your home phone, or other, although beware with this, as any call you divert - (I am told this by my network) then you are liable for the cost!

There are also three games to play, when hanging around or just when incredibly bored!!! Memory, a block of squares which hide a symbol, you turn over 2 squares at a time and try to match them up, simple but blummin infuriating!

Snake, as it sounds, guide a snake around the pen, eating food to make it longer, touch the sides, or the snake itself and you lose. Again maddening but can be entertaining especially is imagining that the ’food’ is your boss!!

Logic, this is the one that has kept me amused far longer than the others, in that it is more difficult, but yes I have mastered it, maybe its time to move up to level 2? What do you think?

Enough of games and onto the calculator, no explanation needed here! Again with the clock facility. This has a handy alarm clock, which will even ring when the ringing tone is switched off! The only drawback with the alarm is that it doesn’t ring for long enough! It is also too easy to switch off, by pressing the main ’navi’ key!

Last but not least, the tones section, allows you to set the incoming call alert, off, ascending, silent, ringing or beep once. There are 5 levels of loudness that can be selected here, I find that level 2 is adequate for everyday use. You can also select from 30 ring tones. in the tones section you can switch the warning tones off, for example, when your battery is getting low and that annoying beep at 3am, you can turn it off!!!! Also you are able to turn off the irritating keypad tones too! I wish that every phone and person with them would discover this bit! I know text messages are the ’thing’now, but it is real annoying to have beep beep beep beep you get the picture???

I have looked at having a new phone, but haven’t found one that meets my expectations, or one that I think would be as durable, ( mine has actually been in the bath and although it still works just fine I really wouldn’t recommend it!