Value for money. Review on Nokia 6303

I bought a Nokia 6303 classic for my parents recently. Although I personally prefer using Sony Ericsson phones, I wanted to buy a Nokia handset for my parents. The reason being that Nokia phones are well known for their superior call quality, ruggedness and good battery backup. Also, my parents are familiar with the user interface of Nokia phones, so it would be easier for them to start using the new handset.

Before handing over the phone to my parents, I decided to use it for a week in order to check out the various features and get a feel of the user interface and the settings.(More importantly, I wanted to gain the required knowledge and hands on experience to be able to write this review)

The first thing that you will notice about this phone is its sleek design, large display, decent keypad and a sturdy steel body. It is slightly heavy for its size, but the additional weight gives you a sense of the handset being well built.

Nokia 6303 classic is a total value for money phone. It may not be a feature rich phone, but it gets the job done. It is a tri-band phone with GPRS and EDGE connectivity. It has a 3.2 megapixel camera. It also has FM radio, music player and a memory slot for expandable memory upto 4 GB. The data transfer modes include bluetooth and USB. It also has a flight mode for use in places where usage of mobile phones is prohibited.

The body of the phone looks very robust and sturdy. The battery cover fits quite well. Under the battery you will find the SIM card holder and the memory card slot. Expandable memory is hot swappable.

Nokia 6303 classic has a 3.2 megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom and full screen viewfinder. The camera user interface is well designed and easy to use. The 2.2-inch TFT display has a QVGA resolution and displays 16 million colours. Picture quality is decent in daylight and not so good in the evenings. It has a flashlight, but it does not have a dedicated camera button.

It has a FM radio and music player. FM reception is not that good and sound quality is strictly OK. The handsfree supplied in the package is of a very cheap quality, but thanks to the 3.5 mm audio jack, any headphone can be connected to it. Bluetooth with A2DP profile is also present.

The user interface is decent. Navigating through the menu should not be a problem even for people who are not that tech savvy. There are lot of shortcuts provided in the menu. The direction keys can be customised to point to the most frequently used functions. By default, these keys provide one touch access to commonly used features such as camera, phonebook, calendar and messaging.

The sound quality during calls is good. The battery backup is good. These are the things you generally expect from Nokia phones, there is nothing special about that.

Now coming to the minus points.

First of all, this phone is triband, not quadband. I don't understand why a new model at this price could not have quadband support.

The ringer volume is a bit on the lower side, the vibration is also not that strong. Also, the loudspeaker is placed on the back side(near the camera). If the phone is placed on a soft surface(like a bed) facing upwards, you would almost definitely not hear it ringing.

The user interface is a bit slow and things take some time to open/close. But this is acceptable for a budget phone.

Considering all the pros and cons, I feel that Nokia 6303 classic is a very good handset and I would definitely recommend it to anybody who wants to buy a feature rich phone in the 6K-7K price range.

Although it has camera and music features, I would not suggest this phone for music lovers or camera freaks as they would be disappointed by the average picture quality and sound quality.

All said and done, Nokia 6303 classic is a value for money handset.