Nokia 3200 review

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Nokia has come up with some, how shall we put this, interesting handsets this year. Some have been complete bulls eyes – like the 7250i, others have stiffed like the 3650 and there’s a few, like the 6600 smartphone, for whom the jury is still out.

After putting the boot into the company’s handsets more than once this year it something of a relief to find a Nokia phone that is an absolute winner. Meet the girl phone par excellence the Nokia 3200.

If this isn’t the handset of choice in the budget camera phone market this Christmas I’ll be staggered. Vodafone has clearly chosen well with this one.

Essentially it’s a budget rehash of the 7250i, arguably Nokia’s best handset this year. Here’s what you get for very little cash.

Design

No new territory here for the 3200 sports the standard old school Nokia candy bar design. Nokia is however taking customising phone covers to the max with this handset. You can pretty much put anything you fancy behind its plastic fluorescent casing. How cool the phone looks is down to you.

Usability

Well it wouldn’t be Nokia phone if there wasn’t some quirky feature. In this instance is the keypad. Instead of each number having its own button, two numbers share the same switch. And yes it is as chaotic as it sounds as is sure to slow down serious texters. You kind of get used to it though.

The interface is classic Nokia territory. You toggle between the various menu options by pressing a four-way rocket switch, with side switches taking you deeper into the applications.

Screen

Compared to its rivals the screen is a little second rate. It has a 4k colour display with 128×128 resolution. Still the small size of the screen means it isn’t too much of a handicap. Just don’t go comparing it with the screen of the Sharp GX30.

Features

The headline feature is the handset’s integrated camera, which takes low res 352×288 images. Still at least you know that each image you take you can send straight away without having to edit it. There’s also a self-timer, though using one on a mobile phone seems a near impossibility. The pictures look fine on the screen too. Other facilities include an FM radio, XHTML web browser, 16 polyphonic ringtones and infrared connection.

The phone is also triple band too.

On the debit side it only has 1Mb storage – but as the photos are so low res this isn’t going to matter too much.

Edge technology

The handset is also one of Nokia’s first to be compatible with Edge technology. It is basically a 3G hybrid that triples the speed of data rates of GPRS connections. Edge is likely to reach at least certain parts of Europe next year. Incidentally it seems all of Nokia’s handsets from now on will be Edge compatible.

Overall

So it is a budget handset with quirky keys a low-res camera and limited storage. Why is it a winner? It just looks and feels like one. It is a logical step on from the candy bar handsets that Nokia has been selling mainly to women and kids very successfully for the past three or four years. The fact it is likely to be very cheap certainly helps too.

If you want a very cheap camera phone it is either this or the 02 X1 in our book.

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19 comments

  • The Nokia 3200 is a VERY GOOD phone. It’s a good all around phone. Period. The phone is jammed packed with features so there should be something in it for everybody. The price cannot be argued with. Some people say it’s expensive, some say it’s cheap but I say the price is just right for a phone which some classify as being like a SWISS ARMY KNIFE.
    I see some of you complaining about the Nokia 3200 camera. In general, cell phones cameras can be a nuisance at times because of the lag in screen movement when the user moves the phone. I was a bit disappointed with the Nokia 3200 camera at first. I learnt that it does take good pictures, you just have to know how to. First set the PICTURE QUALITY to HIGH and second, be VERY STEADY when taking a picture. Even with the standalone digital cameras, if you are NOT STEADY the picture will be blurry. Follow my advice and I’m sure you will be more pleased at the quality of your pictures.
    I don’t care what anybody thinks, in my opinion the screen quality is excellent. The colours are rich and accurate. I have compared it to other 4096 (12-bit) 128×128 screens and the Nokia screen beats the ones I have seen. For example, the Sony Ericsson Z200 has a 4096 128×128 screen and it can’t come close to the Nokia 3200 screen. The amount of colours the Nokia 3200 produces seems more than 4096 to me. Pictures shown on the 3200 are crisp, detailed and colourful. I have not gotten the chance to compare it side by side with a Nokia 7250i but some have said that the Nokia 3200 has a better picture quality. Nevertheless, the Nokia 3200 is clearly a better buy than the 7250i because it has more features, most noteably the FLASHLIGHT. The 3200 also has EDGE which the 7250i doesn’t have. You just cannot lose with the Nokia 3200, it has all the features you could ever want in a phone, some features you may not want but the bottomline is that it has everything a multimedia cell phone could have. I know it doesn’t have bluetooth (which I don’t find to be vital, prefer IR) and it doesn’t have a videocam BUT then again, if it had all these, it would be far too expensive. What it doesn’t have I don’t find to be a disappointment, what it has, I find to be a treasure.

    P.S. For the user called ROY who wrote saying that he would like to have a 1280×1600 screen for his phone. Maybe he should check out the price tag for a screen like that THEN I’m SURE he would kiss his 128×128 and stick to it.

  • to connect the 3200 to the pc you have to activate the infared on the camera first and then youll be able to connect to the pc using the software on nokia’s site.

  • I think it’s a problem with my computer, but I can’t use any software to trasfer pictures to or from my phone via my computer. They give very vague instructions on how to use the IR technology and seeing as I’m a teenager and female (the target buyers, I would have thought) it’s not very easy for me to use. Mind you, I’ve had it an hour… I’ll work it out, If anyone can offer any help however, I’d be grateful..

  • I bought the phone today, so did my gf and my sister.

    We paid 1 NOK for the phone (0.083 £).
    No, it’s not a typo, it’s a sponsored phone (bundled with netcom)

    I guess they earn more on the monthly fees (16.6£ x 12).
    We can use all the fee for calling (0.28£ per minute), or sms (0.05£) or MMS (0.2£).

    though, the regular price in Norway is over 2000++NOK, 166++£ that is.

    if I where to pay 2000 for a phone, it would not be this phone. I just bought this, as my nokia 8850 “died” and I’ve been using a motorola timeport which really sucks.

    I think this is a good phone for people who dont want to use too much cash on a phone, and therefore I think most young people will buy it. it looks a bit wierd to me, I dont really like the “double” buttons.

    I would rather see that nokia redesigned a phone like this in the 8850 casing, that would be a winner.

    I think people from 12-18 will like the design.
    ps. here people have phones from around 10yrs old. My friends sister got her first phone when she was 6yrs old (back when nokia 3210 was a common phone).

  • I have bought the nokia 3200 a week ago. Hey i thinkz its brilliant you says da res is low but atleast itz stil coulouur nyway its crap it sought of reminds me of a penis whree the tourch is, Ye preety freakey like a long sausage~!

  • My friend just got the 3200, and its pretty good, with one exception-the camera. The pictures are of quite poor quality and are blurry.

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