Home » Mobile Phone Reviews » Nokia 3200 May 13, 2008

Nokia 3200 Review

First Impressions

When I first saw this phone I thought it looked as if it was aimed towards the younger market, it seemed a handset that would be easily personalised with its cut out covers. Out go the old type of express on cover, in comes a cover, which is totally user designable. I was able to send away for a nokia cutter, a tool for cutting out the templates with ease instead of using scissors and cutting round fiddly designs. This phone to me had potential but was let down terribly by its main selling point – the camera.

Nokia 3200

Size & Dimensions

Features

Construction

The build looked pretty strong but in reality I found it to be very flimsy. To change the inserts you obviously had to remove the front and back fascia, this was easier said than done. Mine was very stiff and snug fitting and I was concerned that the front in particular was going to snap. The 3200 came with a hand strap, which threaded through holes in the top of the handset. I thought this was a nice touch as this isn’t the type of phone that you would want to put into a leather case. The overall design I particularly liked, there seemed to be almost unlimited scope to personalise this handset with its cut out covers, although I think this would have been purely for the novelty value. The included templates in the box enabled you to design your own covers although only plain paper is supported with this.

Nokia 3200 Held

Keypad

The keypad features nine buttons, The top round button that is the phones Navigational key, is 4-positional, while to the left you have the call button and the menu button, while to the right you have the end call button and the go to button. The actual number keys are oval shaped and have two digits per button, this looked ok but for texting it was really awkward as you had to be very careful as the buttons needed to be pressed very concisely.

Menu Structure

The menus in this handset are set in a grid view or a list view, the icons in this phone are not animated, just static, but the menu as with most nokias are very easy to use and navigate. The menu is set out into main headings with sub menus inside.

Camera

The onboard camera was what first attracted me to this handset. It had a quoted resolution, being just 352*288, with three degrees of quality, high, normal and basic. The camera is on the back of the phone, with the screen acting as a viewfinder. There is no cover on the camera so I was concerned about the lens getting scratched, and also dusty. The camera I felt was such a big let down. The first pictures I took were on a bright sunny day, the pictures came out of a poor quality, very grainy and they seemed distorted, particularly peoples faces and noses, even for the low resolution I felt that the pictures could have been far better.

Nokia 3200 Photo

The Display

The 3200 features Nokia’s standard 4096 colour screen display, which is a tiny 27*27. In comparison to a lot of other models this display is tiny and of a low quality. Indeed the pictures taken with the onboard camera appeared very blocky and the colours appeared very wishy-washy. In my opinion the screen was a very big let down. The display can be customised by several different colour schemes, a grid display or a list menu structure and of course the many different wallpapers that are available everywhere, or by using one of the pictures taken with the onboard camera.

Nokia 3200 Screen

Memory

TThe memory is shared, The following features in this phone may share the memory: contacts list; text and multimedia messages; images and ringing tones in the gallery menu; voice recorder; calendar notes, and Java games and applications. Using any such features may reduce the memory available for any features sharing memory.

The following features share a memory of around 1MB

Nokia 3200 Bits

Entertainment

The 3200 comes with a couple of games, bounce and virtual me, this application allows you to enter your exercise routines. The better you do, the more options you get. Do well enough and you’ll be able to make your Virtual Me into a passable replica of yourself or at least the person you’d like to be. Bounce is an addictive ball game, guide your ball through the mazes and over obstacles to get to the other side, quite addictive I thought if you like playing games.

Battery Life & Signal Strength

The battery is quoted of a standby time of up to twelve days. With average use I had a standby of approx six days, with just minimal calling and usage of the features. The signal strength was excellent, with no calls being lost, and the clarity of the calls was excellent also.

Nokia 3200 Back

Summary

This phone seemed like a good idea at the time, but as the camera was the main reason I bought this phone I was very disappointed. I think this handset would appeal to the younger youth market, who would find the camera perfectly adequate for such things as MMS which worked perfectly, or for caller id as the camera isn’t up to much else. The build I would say was ok for a budget handset but frequent removal of the fascias I think would eventually lead to a weakening of the fascias. I would not recommend this handset for someone who wanted a quality camera and more than average features.