I’ve been simply itching to write this post, since ages, but was a bit busy to actually sit down and give it time. Finally, on a Sunday afternoon, that alibi no longer holds water.

Mom went to the UAE, for work, and on her way back, bought me a mobile phone. I didn’t really want one and had not specifically asked for one, but it was a pleasant surprise to be gifted one. My ideal mobile, earlier, had been a simple, black and white display, monophonic ringtone, just-call-and-SMS kinda phone. What I got, was something totally different. She got me a Nokia 3109c…c stands for classic.

My Nokia 3109c

Well, I did not take pictures of unpacking it, and of the bundle, but I’ll tell you that it came with no frills…not even a pair of earphones. Thank god they included a charger. They also had a manual, half in English, half in Arabic. Actually, in the case of both languages, it would be at the beginning of the book, since Arabic is a right-to-left language. The battery is a BL-5C, one that Nokia has been providing for a long time, and also one that was in the news.

I had a bit of trouble inserting the memory card. It involved sliding the card into the part of the lock which came up while unlocking the card slot. I though that it was to be directly inserted into the card slot area. I tried to be delicate with it, because I knew that I could easily damage both the phone and card beyond repair very easily.

Since this is my first phone review, expect it to be pretty haphazard.

First Impressions

Well, before I switched it on, I decided to give it a proper physical analysis. The phone feels sturdy. It exudes confidence, that it can survive a one or two-story drop, and live to talk about it. I’m not joking. Compared to a lot of ultra-entry level stuff being offered by Nokia in India, this is has decent build quality. The colour I’ve got is the same as that in the picture – 2 tone gray, with silver navigation keys.

The keys are large, easy to use, and you can pretty much enter text with your eyes closed. I’ve seen some other mobiles with cramped keypads, and have learnt to hate them. The D-pad is a bit of a let down. I’ve seen a similar D-pad in other Nokia models, and I find that this one a bit unintuitive. Just seems a bit too fragile and well, click-click-click…no organic soft touch to it. The center button for selection is fine, though.

The charging port is not the old Nokia one, rather a smaller one, recently launched by Nokia. There’s a USB port as well, which required the DKE-2 cable from Nokia. Or you could get a twin from China for a few bucks less.

I did not like the way the battery compartment cover comes off. You have to use your nail to press slide a button and yank up the cover from the same grip. Then, you need to just get hold of the sides of the cover and somehow get if off. Very un-Nokia-ish. By the way, the phone supports a microSD card. I’ve got a 256MB one. I have no idea what caused Mom to buy it, but thanks Mom!

And the thing I absolutely dread about the mobile, is the volume buttons. They’re situated on the right side of the mobile, and they seem as if they’re gonna come off in a few weeks time. Plus, there’s no camera. Mom though it would not be wise for a schoolkid to have a camera phone. She should know I’m not a perverted ass. By the way – Nokia 3109c + Camera = Nokia 3110c

Fire ‘em Up

I put in the battery, charged it for several hours, as the manual says you should, and switched it on. I was caught unawares, coz the 3109c vibrates when switched on. Nevertheless, I’m used to it now. Well, let me go through the features one by one.

I can make calls with it and send SMSes. Big deal…any phone can do that. I can also check my mail, through POP3, IMAP and send mail through SMTP. Thing is, that for some reason, it couldn’t connect to my GMail account. It wasn’t as if it was giving an explicit error message, but it just waited for something to happen. By the way, I’ve got a lifetime prepaid, with a validity till 8th April, 2011.

The phone book automatically generates voice tags, which I can’t change. So Indian names get pretty badly skewed, like Ponnappa for example. One thing I like is the Call Log. Rather than having separate missed call, dialled calls and received calls registers, this phone integrates all of them together, and I can access it by pressing the ‘Call’ button in standby. It’s all given in chronological order.

The phone’s got 4 default profiles, and 2 user-configurable ones, besides the flight mode. You should be knowing this, but Flight mode simply switches off all transmissions, but you can use your phone, in the sense, play games, listen to music, read received messages etc. This allows you to use the phone while…well…when you’re in a flight of course!

The only problem I notice in the way profiles are managed, is that, if I need to change my ringtone, I’ll need to modify each profile individually. This has the potential to become a pain in the ass.

The phone comes preloaded with 2 themes – Nokia Original and Marbles, both of which suck. While experimenting with these 2, I ended up unlocking a hidden theme. All I needed to do, was to enable a theme, and then, as the phone was applying it, press the End key several times, to exit to standby. This caused the theme to be incorrectly applied, and the phone reverted to the original theme, a deep blue-themed Nokia theme.

As for tones, I didn’t like the inbuilt ones. The phone can apply as a ringtone, anything it can play. This includes AAC, MP3 and MP4. As I had a memory card, I transferred some music through Bluetooth from Mom’s laptop. The reason I didn’t use the USB cable was that I didn’t have one at the time. So I dumped music from my iPod onto the laptop, and then transferred it onto my phone.

My phone also featured Nokia’s Active Standby feature. It allows me to put some frequently used items within easy reach. In my case, when the phone is in standby, I can access the music player, some shortcuts, and my calender, through the D-pad. The only downside is that regular D-pad tasks, like accessing the phonebook, writing messages are not possible. But you can either add these tasks to the Go to menu, accessible by the top-left nav key, or add them to the list of shortcuts in active standby.

Oh yeah, and the phone features Bluetooth and IR, although I haven’t yet figured out how infrared works. I can find the port easily enough (on the left side), but I have no idea where to find it on my mom’s phone, which also boasts of IR connectivity.

Unfortunately, this mobile can’t play FM radio. But that’s not a big problem, because I’ve loaded up my memory card with music. Now, you’ll be wondering, how much music can be put on a puny 256 MB card. Well, I’ll tell you, a lot! If you know which format to put it in. I recommend MP4. It offers great sound quality, at a measly bitrate of 48 kbps. That’s not a typo. If you have softare to convert to MP4, well and good, if not, download PC Suite from Nokia. Be sure that you download the right version for your phone.

Once you’ve set up PC Suite, make sure it’s not set to start each time you start Windows, because that’ll just eat up valuable RAM. Once you start PC Suite, click on the File menu and uncheck Invoke at startup. Then, start the Nokia Music Manager. In the NMM, go to Options -> Settings. Under the Conversion tab, select Always Convert, and select the appropriate bitrate. Then, add music to your collection by first searching for music on your PC (hint: press Ctrl+F). Once you’ve added music from your PC, you need to move them to your collection. Check the files you want on your mobile, and click on the bottom-right button. This converts the files and keeps them in a separate folder. Then, connect your mobile, and select those songs from your collection, and click on the same button, except that when you select files from your collection, it’ll transfer them to your phone, and not convert them, because they already are.

The music player is decent. Assuming your IDv3 tags for your music are in order, it allows you to browse your music by Artist, Album, Genre, or Track Name. You can also create Playlists in the Music Manager from PC Suite. Sweet! (bad one…:-P) The control is by the D-pad, and it’s pretty good. No album art though. But that’s OK. The phone also has video support, but I haven’t tried it. I think it needs to be in 3GPP. Not sure though. Haven’t tried it.

By the way, I find that Nokia really makes good looking utilities. I was really impressed by the look and feel of all of the PC Suite software, even the installer!

The phone also has an equaliser, with 5 presets and 2 user-configurable presets. The phone also has an option for Stereo Widening, although the effect while using the loudspeaker is negligible. Maybe while using headphones, there might be a noticeable difference. Both of these options can be accessed under the Media sub-menu.

The phone has the standard organiser stuff – a calender, a to-do list, an alarm clock, a stopwatch, a timer, a calculator and an application for storing notes. By the way, I extensively use the calender, to schedule daily reminders for me to take my medicine. This way I never miss a dose.

Among the inbuilt application, there are 3 games – Canal Control, Snake III and Sudoku2. Canal Control gets a bit boring, to be honest. Sudoku has 100 preset puzzles, but I’m yet to complete them all. Snake III is my favourite, by far. It’s…well…Snake…in 3D! And the look on the poor guy’s face when he bumps into a wall, it’s priceless!

Among the other applications, there’s a World Clock, that doesn’t even include New Delhi in it’s list of cities. Stupid thing. There’s Catalogs by Nokia, which, I guess provides catalogs for shopping. Not for me. Sensor is interesting. It requires Bluetooth to be on, all the time, so that means less battery life. Sensor looks around for other Nokia phones with Bluetooth who have Sensor installed, and you can see their profiles.

And last but not least, there’s the web browser. That works. I can even view my blog! Heck, I can even write posts! But I’d rather not spend the money, since I’ve got a PC at home. I tried going to GMail for mobiles, and it told be to download an app, which I did, but GMail still isn’t working on my phone.

Anyway, it’s a brilliant phone and I like it. My brother hates it though, telling me it’s too boxy in shape, but I don’t have a problem with that. It’s just plain candybar.