Feature Filled Nokia
Written: Feb 14 '01 (Updated Feb 14 '01)
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Pros: Fabulous, packed with features, a joy to own.
Cons: WAP (give it two years)
No voicedial, keypad cover. A bit big?
The Bottom Line: This phone has it all, a huge screen, a Navi Roller, a modem, WAP, and a spring-loaded keypad cover. Well worth the money, but a little large by today’s standards.
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| airspring's Full Review: Nokia 7110 GSM Cellular Phone |
I‘ve been lucky enough to be the owner of one of these phones for a few months now after first being used to a small Philips Savvy, though I’ve had no regrets about changing.
The features of this Nokia are definitely the major selling point. This phone has everything a ‘busy business user’ and the rest of the population could possibly ask for and probably more all set out in the usual Nokia way. It sports WAP (which I never ever use at all so I won’t bother to comment-on;) vibrating alert, which makes the user aware of an incoming call or the arrival of an SMS virtually silently expect for the feel of the phone vibrating. The screen, a major asset to the 7110 is huge, twice the size of the Philips Savvy DB, the size all mobile phones screens should be perfect or WAP navigation and text messaging. In-fact I’ve only seen one phone with a screen of matching size and that was a new Sony.
There is a calendar, which may notify you of your appointments and reminders. There is a modem, so you can connect the phone to a Psion or Palm personal digital assistant for web browsing and email; (it’s about 9 bit/s the modem I think, not great I know but the phones is a little aged now.) The phones comes completed with predictive text messaging, which is a time saving in-built dictionary taking educated guesses at words you’re trying to input. It’s a form of artificial intelligence I think, and if you can get used to it, it will allow you to compose a text message in no time at all.
The 7110 also has several games, a calculator, and an infrared terminal which allows your phone to communicate with other infrared devises, such as phones, PDAs, laptops and some compatible printers. The facility allows you to send data and you’ll use it more than you think, especially for printing out the your phonebook via an infrared printer, which is very handy.
There are thirty-nine ringing tones! (I must beg you to choose ‘Low’ as your choice of ringing alert tone, as the rest are nothing but irritating and make people cringe when they hear them. Though classical ones aren’t too bad I suppose.)
The call sound quality on my particular model is not particularly brilliant I have to say, though I have a feeling it’s a problem localised to my phone only, (I must have dropped it.) The volume on the speaker is bad, and makes phone calls in loud environment a difficult task. I have set the volume setting to be as high as possible and it still isn’t loud enough to be used in everyday places, such as the street, or shopping centre. A call has to be made in a particularly quite place for you to hear the person you’re talking to properly.
The battery life on the 7110 is quite adequate; most charges last me at least 4 days, with it being switched off at nighttime and with me making a few short calls. Charging time is over a couple of hours which has to be expected I suppose, though the battery is Lithium Ion and has the added advantages of not building up a ‘memory’ every time the battery is topped up; it can be expensive replacing the battery every few months. There are various batteries available for this phone, all with varying life and charge times. I personally have the ‘Slim Line’ battery which although may not have such an extensive life as its larger brothers, it does happen to reduce the overall weight of the phone to an expectable 145 grams. Other batteries will alter the size and weight of the phone, which is understand, it is however a choice trade off between weight and life for replacement batteries.
The actual weight of this phone is not too bad really considering the amount of features it has. As I have already mentioned the weight is about 145 grams which is not really anything to be concerned about, and the size is too not much of a problem. It can easily be fitted into a trouser or jacket pocket and not be a burden. (I have mine tucked neatly into my trouser pocket for most of the days in the week and I find it perfectly comfortable.) However today with the advent of newer smaller and lighter phones such as the Nokia 8260 (8210 if you live in the UK,) and that funny looking Motorola flip phone, this 7110 is beginning to be regarded as a little bit of a …brick. This is fair comment I feel as the phones is rather large though, not as bad as some other phones I could mention.
The menus on this phone, and indeed on all Nokia phones, is a hidden wonder. In my opinion Nokia operating software is the very best available, the menus being so easy to use and properly navigate. All the functions and settings are in their logical place in the menus structure being where you’d expect it to be. There is also a small numerical guild at the top right of the screen which indicates the position your currently at within the menus.
The ‘profiles’ setting allows the user to customize the phones settings for different aspects of their life. Allowing the phone to ring and vibrate for when you’re in the car when the setting is set to ‘Loud;’ and then when set to profile ‘Silent’ not make a sound for when you’re in meetings or the office.
This particular model of Nokia is blessed with a gimmicky sliding panel that covers the numerical keypad. This sliding panel is spring-loaded and can be made to move from covering the keypad at some speed whenever a small triggering button is pushed at the top of the unit. This is very appealing to people when they first hold the phone and begin to use it, and appears to be one of its major selling points as incoming calls can be answered quickly if the front keypad panel is moved quickly. (If you’ve seen the Hollywood blockbuster film of 1998, The Matrix, you’ll have seen in it the use of a few prototypes Nokia phones, most memorably one with very same spring-loaded panel action as the 7110.) The downside however is the spring used in the mechanism can cease from working after a time, which means having to either make do with manually pulling the keypad panel down with your fingers, or getting the spring fixed.
Even though this mechanism is very obviously fragile, I’d have expected better durability from a Nokia. Having said that though, the rest of the phones build is first rate, very robust and sturdy withstanding a few drops onto a hard surface. The antenna is particularly flex-free.
Another far more useful aspect to this phones is the Nokia exclusive Navi Roller which is a small horizontal, half imbedded into the face of the phone, rotating cylinder which helps with navigation of the phones phonebook and the rest of the menus and it also acts as another button. It really is a ‘love it or hate it’ kind of feature, thankfully with more people ‘loving’ it than ‘hating’ it, as it allows very fast and easy access to the phone.
In conclusion, this phones does have a few minor short comings, mainly the volume of the speaker (on my model,) the fact the keypad cover spring mechanism can break easily, and that it is a little large and heavy compared to the Erricson T28 and the Nokia 8210. However there are shortcomings with every phone on the market, and most phones have far more problems than this Nokia. It has every feature you’ll need on a phone for at least the next three years (by which time multimedia phones will have made their debut.)
Go and buy this Nokia, it’s one of the best phones available and I know you’ll be happy with it. (Trust me I used to work for a mobile phone Company.) It looks quite pretty too.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): ?
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Epinions.com ID:
airspring
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Member: Mark O'Shea
Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 3 members
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