Nokia 6210

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I had a Nokia 6150 for about 10 months, and while I found the phone of a reasonable length with user-friendly features, its thickness was a setback. Nokia's R&D has kept the same length for the 6210, but has thankfully increased the screen display by one line of text, hidden the antenna, kept the backlit keypad, and (finally!) slimmed down the phone by 10 mm. And at 114g, the 6210 is also lighter than the 6150.

Features Galore
The 6210 packs in more features into its slimmer silhouette than the earlier 6000 series models. Of the improvements made in the 6210, the more notable are its high speed data transfer at a possible 43.2 kbps (although local operators currently offer up to 14.4 kbps); tracking of Calendar Notes by date; and Chinese SMS (dependant on network operator).

With the built-in infrared port (IrDA) and options on the Messages menu, one can sync business cards from the phone to a Palm O.S.-backed device (e.g. Handspring Visor, Palm, Sony Clie) or EPOC-based handheld (Psion Revo Plus, Ericsson Smartphone R380s). As is expected of Nokia, you can jazz up your virtual card by attaching a picture logo, although I had little luck doing this with WinCE-based PDAs (an attempt was made on Compaq's iPaq 3630). To find out which software is needed for such wireless transmission, see Nokia's Web site or Forum for help.

The phone also comes with predictive text input, but if you want to stretch the use of the mobile's internal IrDA, you can write your long message on your handheld and beam this to the phone together with a picture attachment. Chinese SMS is possible, but success is dependent on 1) using pre-recorded Chinese SMS messages; and 2) the receiving phone having Chinese as one of its preinstalled languages.

The Finnish manufacturer has generously provided for 500 contacts in the phonebook, nearly double the memory space of older Nokias, although still falling short of the 7110's 1,000-entries capacity.

Calendar Notes have been given a boost here. You can backtrack week-by-week with the "View by Week" option (all the way to 1991!), or zero in on a particular day by keying in the date in question. All these can be synced to a PDA so the two devices can share the same information without having to key in the information twice. Memo details can be further enhanced by tagging relevant phone numbers taken directly from the Contacts list.

The missing luxury here was recordable Voice Notes, something I'd grown accustomed to with Samsung and Motorola phones. This is a pretty useful function if you're in too much of a rush to key in details.

Easy WAP-ing
It proved pretty easy to set up the phone's WAP configurations. All that was needed was to key in the required passwords for WAP under "Services", or change "Homepage" settings to a favorite site. The 6210 also comes with an internal modem that lets you surf the Web at an optimum speed of 43.2 kbps (dependant on service providers, but 14.4 kbps presently seems the best speed for local users).

The same gripes about WAP still remain, thanks to the singular lack of content and high usage cost.

Personalizable Fun
Classic Nokia games such as Snake and Pairs have been upgraded and renamed Snake II and Pairs II, respectively. The evergreen board game of Reversi has also been included as Opposite.

Nokia has designed in free software that lets you create your own logo and ringtones. The software installation process provides a choice of downloading between phone and desktop via infrared or (optional) serial cable. The intuitive Composer software is designed like a "music sheet", allowing one to write music directly onto the bars. Manipulation of the notes is a breeze as the navigation bar shows notes of different counts upfront. I also found that I could back up numerous tunes onto my PC or laptop for future download.

The graphics software for logo design, on the other hand, needed more patience. Logo creation is a time-consuming process based on clicking on tiny little squares displayed on the phone's screen in order to form a picture, and re-clicking on the same miniscule squares if you need to make amendments.

Overall, while I didn't encounter any problems with my test unit, newsgroups have commented about possible bugs in the software.

Good Reception and Talktime
Reception was decent enough, except when it came to the "elevator" test. At 36 floors in the elevator, the 6210 displayed one bar for reception compared to Siemens C35i's three bars, even though both operated on the same network. But on the whole, clarity was never an issue.

Talktime has improved at up to 4.5 hours, giving the 6210 an extra hour over those of its more fashionable cousins, the 8210 and 8850.

Value For Money
In the features department, the 6210 shines with its bigger phonebook memory and faster modem speed. And at a moderate street price of S$400, this is definitely one of the better phones out there, and a solid choice if you hate the 8210's flimsy design. The 6210 ships with adapter, software on a CD-ROM and a travel charger that is compatible with the 6150.