Nokia 1600 > Reviews > Nokia 1600 - Handy Little Phone

Author's product rating:   

Look & Feel	Satisfactory
Durability & Robustness	Satisfactory
Reception quality	Excellent
Battery standby time	Excellent
Value for money	Excellent
Range of features	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Basic, but good for people not used to using mobiles
Disadvantages:	-

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

When it comes down to me and my phone, I can quite easily say that I am addicted to texting. I must send at least 50 texts a day and it got to the stage that with my main contract phone I was going way over my 1000 free texts and my mobile bill was quite extortionate. Thats when I realised I had a problem and need to obtain help quite quickly. Do I A) Try and cut down on text messages that I send or do I B) Get a cheap phone on oay as you go so I can monitor how much I am actually spending and to a value that I am happy with. Well option one to me was not an option really, it was a sensible suggestion, however I don't do sensible when it comes down to texting.

I had already got an Orange pay as you go sim card, with a really good deal on the extras that I could have using it, so all i needed to get me text happy again was a spare phone. A colleague of mine is always swapping phones and offered me one of his. I was just looking for something cheap and cheerful that kept me happy when I had to use my back up plan, so I took him up on his offer and he bought me the Nokia 1600 into work the next day.

The Nokia 1600 is a very basic phone however would be ideal for someone just starting to use a mobile phone. I find that the technology these days is a little too advanced for the likes of our dear old grandma's, mine has my last Sharp phone that I had and ideally she would be better off with the likes of the Nokia 1600.

Not extremely stylish to look at and something I wouldn't choose as my main phone. They come in various colours however the one I have is grey and black. On the reverse it has the Nokia and also the orange logo to establish which network it is meant for. On the front, it is just a basic key pad with average size buttons, not too small like some phones which I find hard to use because I have long nails. With all the numbers and letters the same which is basically generic these day, a button for scrolling throughout menu's and the dial and hang up buttons on it.

This particular phone does have a colour screen however the images on it when scrolling through the various menu's are like something from clipart and a little animated. This phone goes back a long time though so would have been relatively modern in its hay day.

The menu's are substantially for what I use this for. The messages section has the ability to hold up to 80 messages within its inbox as a capacity, which for me is nearly a days worth of received text, the outbox clears itself when it needs more space. One thing that I don't like about this phone is it only tells you that the capacity is full when it is completely full, delaying any new messages to come through, because you do have to trawl through every single message seperately to delete them, rather than having the option to delete the entire inbox.

The Phone Book is adequate, it does have quite a large capacity for storing numbers, I aren't sure how many it does store but I have a lot in there and it is still taking more. Finding numbers is easy as you can search on the first letter of a persons name and it will take you to the start of your phone book list beginning with that particular letter. The phone also offers speed dials however I rarely use the phone for calling people as I free minutes on my contract phone and never ever use all of them up.

The phone doesn't have a great deal of settings on it however again it is adequate. It does have poloyphonic ringtones on it, however the tones that are available are a little bit too over the top and there are only two really that I would use. You change change the colour and background of your screen to fit your mood. Various other settings that are available are the clock, security, giving you the ability to choose who you answer your calls too. Call counters and messages counter. These options I use regularly to make sure I aren't going way too overboard on the phone. Also having a calculator, stop clock and other features that are only used once in a blue moon.

The phone is also set up so you are able to go straight through to your service provider or to contact them to find out how much credit you have got left. They will send you a text message confirming this.

I find the battery life to be very good on this phone and rarely have to charge it more than once per week, however I out this down to being because it hasn't got all the latest technology which must power the batteries down quickly.

Overall, I think it is a great little phone for older people or to use as a secondary phone. It does the business!!