(To get the most out of this article, please watch the video above and then read the text below. If you have any comments or questions, please click on the comments link at the end.)
Nokia 3110 Classic
What's it like in real life?
The 3110 Classic is a light, chunky phone with large clearly labelled buttons and a bright screen. It feels very solid, and there's a matt rubber finish on the back of the phone. The direction pad is thin but it works well, and it's very easy to press the selection button in the middle.
Incidentally, in case you're wondering, this phone is called "Classic" because there was a much older Nokia 3110 released many many years ago. The two models have absolutely no technical connection, they just share the same model number.
How is it as a phone?
There were no problems making or receiving calls on the 3110 Classic, it never dropped a call and the sound quality remained constant. Writing text messages was great on the large-buttoned keypad.
Music Player and Radio
The 3110c has a built-in music player compatible with MP3, MP4, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA files. The player is identical to those found on Series 40 music phones such as the Nokia 5300, with a good selection of features and options. The phone's microSD slot supports cards up to 2 gigabytes in size, which is enough for about 500 to 1000 music tracks.
The 3110c is one of the first phones to support the A2DP Bluetooth profile, which means you can use wireless Bluetooth stereo headphones to listen to music within 10 metres of the phone. This works well, and although some people have reported problems with A2DP in general, I had no problems at all.
You can of course also use normal wired headphones. 2.5mm ones (usually in the form of handsfree headsets) will plug straight into the phone, but you'll need an adaptor if you want to use 3.5mm (Walkman-size) headphones. These 3.5mm adaptors are quite cheap and small though, you should be able to find them in any major electronics shop.
As with all phone radios, the FM radio requires headphones to be plugged in to act as the aerial. The sound quality on the radio was good, and you can download presets of all your local stations from the internet to the built-in station directory service. You can download the presets for any location whenever you want, which is useful if you travel a lot.
Camera and Camcorder
There's no dedicated camera button so you have to select the camera application from the phone's menu. However, once you've got it started it's very easy to use, and contains all the basic options such as night mode etc. 1.3 megapixels isn't huge by today's cameraphone standards, but it's easily enough for pictures you want to store on your computer or the internet.
The camcorder video resolution is extremely low, 176x144, and it isn't really worth using at all. Even by YouTube standards the video looks bad.
Other Interesting Stuff
The 3110c has a basic web browser which can only handle very simple web pages, usually just those designed for mobile use. However, if you do use mobile sites it's very quick to load pages thanks to the EDGE connection, and it's easy to read them on the phone's screen.
The miniUSB port lets you easily connect the 3110c to your PC so you can transfer music files, store photos etc. You can also use the phone to provide your PC with an internet connection through the mobile phone network.
Who would like this the most?
The 3110 Classic would appeal to anyone looking for a decent solid handset that can also act as a music player and reasonable camera, but is still within the budget of the average phone user. The relatively large buttons also make it particularly attractive to those with large fingers and/or poor eyesight.
Overall
This is a very low-priced phone, just €140 unlocked sim-free including taxes. It's packed with features like a microSD card slot, miniUSB connector and built-in music player. The phone interface is easy to use, especially if you customise the direction pad control on the standby screen so that every direction matches a commonly-used function. The casing feels very solid, and this phone could perhaps last for many years without breaking. Nicest of all are the keypad buttons, which are large and very clearly labelled.
The Nokia Duck Says: Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack!
Photos (click to enlarge):
Technical Details:
Year of Launch: 2007
Weight: 87g
Battery Life: 370 hours standby, 4 hours talk time
Phone: Triband GSM/EDGE 900/1800/1900
Screen: 128x160 pixels, 262,000 colours
Camera: 1.3 megapixel still, 176x144 15FPS video
Memory: 9 megabytes built-in, microSD card slot up to 2 gigabytes
Connections: Bluetooth 2.0, miniUSB port, 2.5mm audio, Infrared
Platform: Nokia Series 40 3rd Edition FP2
Software Compatibility: Java J2ME, Flash Lite 2.0
Notable features: Big buttons, compatible with Bluetooth stereo headphones.
Click here to see the full official 3110 Classic technical specifications.
1 comments:
To the anonymous reader who posted a long rant about their 3110 not working:
TAKE IT BACK TO THE SHOP!
If you buy something new and it doesn't work, the shop selling it has to replace it or repair it for free.
If you get a broken product that doesn't mean that all of those products are broken. My 3110 is working fine with no problems after about seven months of use.
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