Nokia 1600 > Reviews (29)

The Nokia 1600 is one of the basic mobiles you would want to own if you can't be bothered to keep up with technology. The phone was introduced to the world in the year 2005 which is a few years back as I bought the mobile in the year 2007.
I only bought the Nokia 1600 mobile for the reason that I dropped my Nokia 6230i in juice; therefore it stopped working which was rather sad.
I had to look for a mobile quickly though I already had my Sony Eriksson K750i then. So why do you need two mobiles? Well I owned two sim cards and people contacted me on both of the mobiles, which is why I needed a mobile phone.

I bought the phone in one of those street phone shops. It was the last one therefore was from display. The normal price of the mobile was £35 but because it was the last one, It cost me £30 and it was unlocked which meant that I could put any sim card into the mobile.
The mobile was silver and grey in colour and very slim unlike other Nokia mobiles e.g. Nokia 3410, 3510 etc.

--------Modern Features Which The Nokia 1600 Does Not Have--------

Because the mobile is meant to be basic, it means that it doesn't have lots of new modern features like other mobiles out there.
It does not have:
Bluetooth --- you can not connect to other mobiles or computers wirelessly, in reasons that you might want to put some data on your computer or connect to other mobiles to play games with other opponents.
3G --- you can not play video items on the mobile or connect fully to the internet.
Infrared Port --- you can not connect to other mobiles or computers wirelessly in order to send data, play games etc.
USB --- it doesn't have USB connection which connects the mobile to the computer so that it may transfer data or charge the mobile via the computer.
Camera --- you can not take or store pictures onto the mobile
Memory Card Slot --- you can not put a memory card onto the phone which enables you to get a bigger memory and save lots of documents (music, pictures, Microsoft office documents etc.) onto the mobile.
WAP --- (Wireless Application Protocol), can not access the internet or your network provider's intranet.
Mega Pixel colour --- the colour resolution of the Nokia 1600 is not that good as this mobile actually has 65k colours. One mega pixel is worth a million pixels

-------------------MEMORY---------------

This mobile is not for you if you are looking for a mobile which has a big memory. The Nokia 1600 only has around 4MB of memory.
You can only store up to 200 contacts which is not a lot when comparing to my K750i as you can store 500 contacts on it. This also suggest that if you are a business person you might also want to consider buying a different mobile to this one as you might have lots of contacts to store, which could exceed 200.
The memory also remembers only ten of your last received, dialled and missed calls which I don't have problems with really because I hardly use the feature.
The Nokia 1600 has 25 ring tones including the popular Nokia Tune. It does not have some of the old Nokia tunes such as "kick kick etc (don't really remember all the names of their old tunes)", it has two alarm alerts though you can still use the ring tones as an alarm alert.

It has two clock alerts and three message alert tones. However, you can still compose five of your own ring tone using the composer feature which is found in the Extras menu.
All the ring tones are polyphonic.

------------SECURITY----------

The main thing I like about Nokia mobiles is that they have tight security on them. Of course with mobile you can chose to put a pin code on your sim card or on the mobile. What I mean is you can change your security setting which is found in the Settings menu and enter four digits or more of your on that you will remember and always enter whenever you turn on your mobile.
However, with this Nokia mobile you can also set it to ask you for a pin number whenever you want to unlock your keypad. Instead of just pressing "unlock and the star button" you will press unlock and enter the pin number.
The good thing is that you can put the pin number incorrectly for as many times as you can and it will not block you mobile like it does at the beginning.
You can also set it to lock the phone after a certain time e.g. after 10seconds (mine locks after 10seconds of standby), 15 seconds one minute etc.
This feature is really good as you don't always have to think about locking your keypad after you finish using it. One thing I noticed about this feature is that it will not lock the keypad if you are reading a message, writing a message playing a game etc. It will only lock if the phone is left on the Homepage (the main screen).

-------------MESSAGING----------

On the messaging menu you have Inbox, Message counter (tells you how many messages you have sent since the day you had the mobile or since the last time you reset the messaging counter. My messaging counter right now says 1690, because I have not reset the counter since the first day I ought the mobile it means I have 1690 messages.), Message settings, service com editor, create message (were you write you message if you want to send one), sent items (shows you the messages you have sent to other people), drafts (unfinished messages), chat, picture messaging, distribution list, delete messages and screened messages.

----------------CONTACTS------------

This is basically the place were you can manage all your contacts in your phone book. You can choose either to copy your contacts into your phone from the sim card or copy them to the sim card to you phone. You can also chose to copy them one by one or all of them at the same time.
When I started using the mobile I copied my sim contacts on to the mobile and the transaction was very easy and quick.
You can also chose you top nine speed dials, which you can turn off if you want. Adding contact is very easy and straight forward so as deleting the contact. I tend to type the number on the main screen and click the save button and it will ask you to enter the name of the contact rather than going on the contact menu as it seems far too long.

--------------------GAMES-----------

Unfortunately this mobile comes with only three games and you can not download any new games to it.

The games consist of the legendary snake game which has eight levels. You can also change the game type to classic, modern (you can chose to have a tunnel, mill, apartment, rails etc. in the game which makes it a little bit harder) or Campaign (a challenging game type, the snake has to eat certain amount of food before it goes to the next level).

It has a soccer League game which is rather confusing to play as the mobile screen is too small and the player of the opposite team are rather fast when playing and it can stress you out a little bit as it is hard to score. I have got used to the game now though which is good (practice makes perfect remember?).
The soccer league game has three levels (Easy, medium and Hard). Before you play you have to choose your team, you can chose from Brazil, France, Spain, China and Argentina (don't know why they did not put England though I have a few good reasons in my mind).

It also has the game called Rapid Roll which is a weird one. I have never heard of the game before and when I played the game it was quite interesting at first but after a few games I got bored as you can't even survive the game for a long time.
The game also has three levels (Easy, medium and Hard).

If you think you might not know how to play any of these games, well don't worry as they are instruction on how to play each game which is pretty handful. There is also a setting to turn off or on the sound of the game and the shakes of the games as well (vibration).

-------------EXTRAS--------------

This mobile also has A demo which shows you how to use some of the features on the mobile such as how to change the themes and ring tones, how to send a text message, set an alarm, answer a call etc.
I have actually used the demo when I wanted to know how the Speaking clock works. It was very easy and helpful; when it shows you the demo there is no voice to guide you only a silent video.
The mobile has a basic calculator which is very easy to use. It has A converter were you can convert currency, temperature, weight, length, area and volume.
In this menu you will also find a count down timer and a stop watch.

With this mobile you can change the right selection key shortcut. You can put as many options as you want. This helps as it means you don't have to browse the phone a lot to get to the feature that you use a lot. These features can however, be things like alarm clock, calculator, reminder, games etc.

The mobile has a speaking clock. Basically if you press the * key for a few seconds a lady voice will shout out the time. For this feature to work you have to set your time correctly as it will shout the time that your mobile is showing at that time.
The feature will help you if your time is not displayed on the front page of your mobile as you have the choice of displaying the clock or not.

The mobile also has the reminder feature which basically reminds you of everything you are planning to do e.g. shopping, go to a meeting, birthday anniversaries etc.

You can either chose the reminder to be silent or loud. If you chose loud you can chose the date and time of the reminder and also put a ring tone as the alert tone. If you chose the reminder to be silent it will not ask you to enter date of the reminder.

-----------------PACKAGING-----------

The mobile came in a small bluish box which had a picture and the name of the mobile printed on it.
Inside the box were the mobile, battery, charger and manual. The mobile did not come with a sim card as I did not buy it from a specialized network shop e.g. 02, T-Mobile, Orange or Virgin Network etc.
The headphones were also not included which was rather sad. I asked the sales person how much will the headphones cost me and he said £7.00 which was a lot.

------------NOTE-----------

-The keys of the mobile are really soft and the numbers and letters printed on them are not too small.
-The navigation around the mobile is very easy to get used to and is not too complicated.
-The battery life of the mobile is quite average. I normally charge my mobile after abut two days. Comparing to my Sony Erickson K750i, I charge it after four days which is quite a lot.
-If you the mobile a lot in one day it will only last up to five hours. The standby time of the Nokia 1600 is just over 400 hours.
-You can change the mobile cover and the covers normally cost £5.00 each from phone shops.
-Since I started using this phone I have not had any major problems with the mobile at all.
-It has a loud speaker, which is really loud when put on maximum volume.
-You can change the wall paper.
-I would recommend the mobile to first time users or possibly to parents who want to buy their kids a basic mobile.