For quite some time I was thinking of upgrading my LG handset(entry level camera phone) with something more advanced. The useless collection of phones and and pre built numbers which forced you to buy at high prices from reliance almost made me shift to GSM, but as a guy who uses Roaming facility quite often, I stuck to reliance. After all who else offers Roaming at 0.75p/minute for incoming and outgoing calls.
While just looking around at a Nokia outlet, I saw the 6265 CDMA. Started searching the web as well as reviews from India.
The phone was good, nice price(15500) but most reviewers from India did not give very high ratings. But then there were some really good reviews too.
I decided to take the plunge.
First visit was to a Nokia "Hotspot" outlet. They had the lowest price with bill and warranty(15200). Tested out a set and found that the camera had a strage problem. When I shot a white wall, center was white with blue all around.
The sales guy was extremely rude and suggested that there is nothing wrong with the camera and its there will all phones. Showed him couple of SE phones at his shop which did not have this problem, but he still was adamant and told me I could choose not to buy this phone, but I shouldn't eat his head.
I walked out, I don't think I will visit that shop ever again.
Next I went to the Authorized Nokia Priority dealer in Noida who was selling for 15600. He came down 15500 but refused to drop down the price further. I decided to take the plunge since I had already spend about 200rs of fuel traveling around delhi phone hunting.
Did not take any accessories. The phone came with a headset and a CD of Nokia PC suite, which I have decided is a completely useless piece of junk, and somewhere I suspect that this software is the reason for horrible reviews.
Anyways I took the plunge, and here follows the detailed Saga
1. The Phone :
A good phone should be able to call numbers and receive calls with good quality sound. This phone does that. It does this even inside Lifts where my LG used to drop calls. And headset SQ is also good.
On the usability front, after little tweaking of menus etc., you have a winner too. So the score it gets 9/10
2. Extra's on the phone :
A Rs.1100 phone will give you everything you need to make calls and send sms's its the extra which justify the additional 14000 odd Rs.
The phone has an excellent Radio player and a great media player along with a very basic music player. It even comes with a voice recorder, 2 Mega Pixel camera and a video recorder. SQ is good and so is image quality. Email browsing is through Nokia browser which sucks, so I have installed Opera Mini with which I am very happy. The Phone offers 20 presets on FM radio which is excellent. Can read mp3 and AAC files long with 3GP. I use Super video converter which can convert almost all video's to Nokia 3GP format.
Definitely worth the bang. The best part is that unlike some other phones you can use any mp3, AAC or phone recorded file can be used as a ring tone. Plus you can use jpg's as wallpapers, It also comes with some decent themes, but you can always download from the web if you run out of themes.
The only gripe is that you have no way of specifying whether the wallpaper should be in potrait or landscape mode. Apart from that the Screen is excellent too, bright and easy to read and great as a small compact picture viewer.
To store all this you can use the 64MB miniSD which comes with the phone or plug in a 1GB card(1075Rs). I did not get a 2GB card as some people on net suggested this phone has problems handling 2GB cards. 1GB does the trick for me.
All this makes a neat little package and I will give it a 8/10.
3. Off the phone, the PC connectivity :
Now we are into brave territory.
You got moolah? Get a Nokia CA-53 cable for 1600(original) and for bluetooth get a dongle which has WIDCOMM drivers as standard, not Bluesoleil ones as these don't support many features like Audio gateway etc., But even that will not guarantee PC suite connectivity, and you may have to use other applications.
But is it a problem? Not for me. A lot of struggle and things are working just fine!
Read on :
The next trip after the phone was to get accessories. Nehru place gave me a DKU-2 cable and a 1GB SD card from toshiba(this one is an original with lifetime warramty) and I got a simple bluetooth dongle from noida. If you are planning to buy a dongle, do some research and get one which comes with WIDCOMM stack and not the IVT(Bluesoleil one).
First step was connecting the phone via cable. Connect the phone and it asks wether it wants to be a mass storage device. If you say yes you can see your SD card as a drive and transfer data via any application, all you need to do is drag and drop.
If you say no to mass storage mode, the phone is in "Data enhancement mode". This is where it is supposed to work with nokia PC suite. Well mine does not. I don't need it either, PC suite does not have anything which I don't have with third party applications. But anyways I struggled a lot and was unsuccessful. Nokia makes lousy software, period.
All third party phone management apps work with this, except Nokia's PC suite.
Next step was some bluetooth hacking. WIDCOMMs protocol stack is great and I can use my laptop as a "headset", connect via modem, or serial port etc., etc.,
I get some excellent net speeds too via Reliance R-connect, both on bluetooth and Via cable. 90Kbps, which is pretty pretty good (Reliance claims 110kbps max). The cost is a little on the high side (60p/min day, 30p/min night).
If I do RAW data tranfer via bluetooth I get around 65-70KBps(Kilo Bytes/sec) which is impressive. Cable is definitely faster and I get around 1MBps or whereabouts.
You need to do a lot of googling if you are stuck with a Bluesoleil Protocol stack, and it can get frustrating, so thats why I strongly recommend checking which drivers your dongle comes with.
You can live without PC suite definitely as lots of third party applications are out there, and you don't really need anything advanced.
But to a less tech aligned lay user who expects everything to work when the phone is plugged in, it may be a big disappointment.
Great hardware let down by shoddy software.
My rating 4/10.
Summing it all up :
If you are brave, love to download third party apps, are willing to experiment, then buy this phone and get cheap datacable's and a cheap dongle and enjoy.
For the less tech inclined it can be a little frustrating, so make sure you buy Original cables and you can go and hold the Nokia service center guy's neck and make him do your install.
7/10 - For non tech inclined
8/10 - For the geeks
I am definitely loving it!
While just looking around at a Nokia outlet, I saw the 6265 CDMA. Started searching the web as well as reviews from India.
The phone was good, nice price(15500) but most reviewers from India did not give very high ratings. But then there were some really good reviews too.
I decided to take the plunge.
First visit was to a Nokia "Hotspot" outlet. They had the lowest price with bill and warranty(15200). Tested out a set and found that the camera had a strage problem. When I shot a white wall, center was white with blue all around.
The sales guy was extremely rude and suggested that there is nothing wrong with the camera and its there will all phones. Showed him couple of SE phones at his shop which did not have this problem, but he still was adamant and told me I could choose not to buy this phone, but I shouldn't eat his head.
I walked out, I don't think I will visit that shop ever again.
Next I went to the Authorized Nokia Priority dealer in Noida who was selling for 15600. He came down 15500 but refused to drop down the price further. I decided to take the plunge since I had already spend about 200rs of fuel traveling around delhi phone hunting.
Did not take any accessories. The phone came with a headset and a CD of Nokia PC suite, which I have decided is a completely useless piece of junk, and somewhere I suspect that this software is the reason for horrible reviews.
Anyways I took the plunge, and here follows the detailed Saga
1. The Phone :
A good phone should be able to call numbers and receive calls with good quality sound. This phone does that. It does this even inside Lifts where my LG used to drop calls. And headset SQ is also good.
On the usability front, after little tweaking of menus etc., you have a winner too. So the score it gets 9/10
2. Extra's on the phone :
A Rs.1100 phone will give you everything you need to make calls and send sms's its the extra which justify the additional 14000 odd Rs.
The phone has an excellent Radio player and a great media player along with a very basic music player. It even comes with a voice recorder, 2 Mega Pixel camera and a video recorder. SQ is good and so is image quality. Email browsing is through Nokia browser which sucks, so I have installed Opera Mini with which I am very happy. The Phone offers 20 presets on FM radio which is excellent. Can read mp3 and AAC files long with 3GP. I use Super video converter which can convert almost all video's to Nokia 3GP format.
Definitely worth the bang. The best part is that unlike some other phones you can use any mp3, AAC or phone recorded file can be used as a ring tone. Plus you can use jpg's as wallpapers, It also comes with some decent themes, but you can always download from the web if you run out of themes.
The only gripe is that you have no way of specifying whether the wallpaper should be in potrait or landscape mode. Apart from that the Screen is excellent too, bright and easy to read and great as a small compact picture viewer.
To store all this you can use the 64MB miniSD which comes with the phone or plug in a 1GB card(1075Rs). I did not get a 2GB card as some people on net suggested this phone has problems handling 2GB cards. 1GB does the trick for me.
All this makes a neat little package and I will give it a 8/10.
3. Off the phone, the PC connectivity :
Now we are into brave territory.
You got moolah? Get a Nokia CA-53 cable for 1600(original) and for bluetooth get a dongle which has WIDCOMM drivers as standard, not Bluesoleil ones as these don't support many features like Audio gateway etc., But even that will not guarantee PC suite connectivity, and you may have to use other applications.
But is it a problem? Not for me. A lot of struggle and things are working just fine!
Read on :
The next trip after the phone was to get accessories. Nehru place gave me a DKU-2 cable and a 1GB SD card from toshiba(this one is an original with lifetime warramty) and I got a simple bluetooth dongle from noida. If you are planning to buy a dongle, do some research and get one which comes with WIDCOMM stack and not the IVT(Bluesoleil one).
First step was connecting the phone via cable. Connect the phone and it asks wether it wants to be a mass storage device. If you say yes you can see your SD card as a drive and transfer data via any application, all you need to do is drag and drop.
If you say no to mass storage mode, the phone is in "Data enhancement mode". This is where it is supposed to work with nokia PC suite. Well mine does not. I don't need it either, PC suite does not have anything which I don't have with third party applications. But anyways I struggled a lot and was unsuccessful. Nokia makes lousy software, period.
All third party phone management apps work with this, except Nokia's PC suite.
Next step was some bluetooth hacking. WIDCOMMs protocol stack is great and I can use my laptop as a "headset", connect via modem, or serial port etc., etc.,
I get some excellent net speeds too via Reliance R-connect, both on bluetooth and Via cable. 90Kbps, which is pretty pretty good (Reliance claims 110kbps max). The cost is a little on the high side (60p/min day, 30p/min night).
If I do RAW data tranfer via bluetooth I get around 65-70KBps(Kilo Bytes/sec) which is impressive. Cable is definitely faster and I get around 1MBps or whereabouts.
You need to do a lot of googling if you are stuck with a Bluesoleil Protocol stack, and it can get frustrating, so thats why I strongly recommend checking which drivers your dongle comes with.
You can live without PC suite definitely as lots of third party applications are out there, and you don't really need anything advanced.
But to a less tech aligned lay user who expects everything to work when the phone is plugged in, it may be a big disappointment.
Great hardware let down by shoddy software.
My rating 4/10.
Summing it all up :
If you are brave, love to download third party apps, are willing to experiment, then buy this phone and get cheap datacable's and a cheap dongle and enjoy.
For the less tech inclined it can be a little frustrating, so make sure you buy Original cables and you can go and hold the Nokia service center guy's neck and make him do your install.
7/10 - For non tech inclined
8/10 - For the geeks
I am definitely loving it!
