If your intention with this phone is to talk only, then you found an awesome phone. If you intend to use this for anything else, look else where.
Phone call quality : Grade A-. The most important aspect of a phone is, of course, phone call quality. 6301's call quality is very very good. The receiver is not very loud, but good enough. On the other end of the calls, no one has complained. I've tested with friends who use ATT (iPhone), Verizon (various Motorola, Blackberry), and none of them complained about the quality. I did noticed, on occassion, slight static. In addition, when making the call, while waiting for the other party to pick up, the ring seems to fade. Overall, I am happy with the quality. The VOIP feature is very good. Setup was automatic.
Style : A. This is of course subjective. Beauty is in the eyes of beholders. Given that, I like the thinness, silver plate.
Battery life : D+ . If you turn off WIFI, bluetooth, and speak for about 45 minutes total, your phone can last about 3 days, which is acceptable. However If you turn on wifi, don't expect the phone to last too long. Yahoo/AOL/Msft IM users, be sure to turn it off on this phone; this application also drains battery quickly. On the other hand, the battery recharges quickly. Total charge time from total empty to full is about 60 minutes.
Multimedia : D . FM radio application is buggy. On occassion, the radio would "stop automatically". Now checking with TMobile website, there are no updates. Yet on Nokia there is a firmware update. Amazingly, my phone has version 5 and Nokia is already on version 8 . Update the firmware and I am still encountering problems. Instead of stopping, FM radio is like listening to a bad skipping CD. The tuning is also not responsive. MP3 playing is very good. The problem is MP3 libraries, why does the phone constantly "update song libraries" is beyond me. Headphone is passable, but not something to write home about.
Camera : D . Unless you are in absolute emergency, for example, taking accident pictures, get another camera. The picture quality on this phone is horrendous. Wait, I take it back... The outdoor pictures are actually decent. Any indoor pictures, bring your own light source.
Built-in applications : B. Nokia comes with a suite so you may synch your contacts, calendar. Since this is a java based phone, there are many games you could play.
Memory : F+. Can only support up to 4GB which is reasonable. However, the problem is reading/loading anything from the card. To load picture/application/mp3 list from the card, it takes at least 10 seconds! And that is just to list the application. So to run a java game, it would take 10 seconds to just list the game (and I must stress, I only have 2 games installed on the card), and another 20 seconds or so to load the game. I am 100% positive that the card is in proper working condition, since writing to the card on 2 different laptops took about 1-2 seconds.
Support : D. Tmobile support stinks. They don't even have up to date firmware. I have to goto Nokia. User manual on Nokia is different than the one that came in my box.
Overall, this is a disappointing phone. It has the style and the phone ability. Yet, battery, performance issue kill the usefulness of this phone. One more thing... the volume buttons are practically unusable. They are stiff and no responsive.
New comments added on June 1, 2009: A few things. To improve battery life by 14%, you can buy a BL-5C battery (phone comes with BL-4c -rated 720mAh ) which is rated at 860mAh. However, you'll need to chipped away the plastic at the top.
Display readability under extreme bright sun is very readable. I was very surprised. One rare thing Nokia did very well on this phone.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 50 Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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