Until a few days ago I used my Samsung camera phone (pay as you go) and was really pleased with it. I didn’t really need a contract phone because my usage did not warrant the cost. However, in recent months I have been using my phone more and more and so my daughter persuaded me that I needed a new phone and that I should go on contract with “3” as they had really good deals on offer.
So, she searched their website and I looked at the
phones on offer. My Samsung phone had the slide feature which I particularly liked rather than
flip top so I chose the
Nokia 6288 primarily for this feature and chose the £15 monthly package from “3” which gives me 250 minutes talk and 50 text messages.
Within two days my black Nokia phone arrived and hubby promptly put the battery into the back of the phone and then left it to charge up. It’s bigger and lighter than my old Samsung and I have to admit felt different but I am getting used to it now. I do like the large screen on this phone.
My review is not going to be really technical but more from my personal experience on how I found it easy, or not, to perform tasks. I have never been really “technically minded” about
mobile phones and I am not going to give you the step by step process of each task I have performed. I think that would be totally dull and boring, both for you and me.
I have to admit that I made two errors on my first day of usage. My phone contact numbers were put into the Nokia manually and I couldn’t transfer my Shakira track from my Samsung to the Nokia – I love this song for my incoming calls. Silly me, didn’t realise I could have “Bluetoothed” them. However, I had sent my photos to my Nokia by Bluetooth which was very easy and I was totally proud of myself. The photos located themselves in my memory card. I very easily changed the name of my memory card too. Also, photos etc stored on the memory card can easily be transferred to my pc. A great feature.
One feature that I know I will use in future is the facility to transfer data from the Nokia to my pc - a
CD is included in the package and this needs to be downloaded onto your
PC and the necessary cable is also supplied.
Two 64mg memory disks were included in the package so I inserted one quite easily into the side of the Nokia. On the right hand edge you will find your sound arrows and just set the sound to the level you like. There is also the quick camera button which is much easier than going into the keypad and navigating to the camera function. On the left hand edge you will find the slot for your memory card, push to talk key and infrared (IR) port. At the base of the phone there is the “enhancements connector” – in other words the slot for your head phones and there is the charger connector. The on/off button is located at the top edge of the phone. On the back of the Nokia you will find the camera lens and flash. The camera has a built-in 2mg pixel feature for your photos and video clips and the photos are produced in jpeg format and the video clips are in .
3gp format. A good feature is the fact that you can zoom in (up to 8x). I think the camera features are pretty good for a mobile phone.
As with anything new, I have to play about with it and find out where all the various features are. I realised that my contacts had been stored in the phone and I like them to be located in the
sim card. It was an easy matter to switch them over to the sim card. I also like my screen to look nice so this was my next step. The main screen had the “3” wallpaper as the background and I promptly chose a lovely photo of my 4½ years old grandson to be displayed. A nice flower photo was chosen as a screensaver also. I set the date and time and also changed the font sizes in various functions. I had found the text to be too small to read without my
glasses and was able to change to large font for a few applications, but not all.
There is a nice area at the bottom of the main screen which you can also personalise – and I put in Wearsidelass surrounded by hearts and so it looks nice and pretty.
There is a music player and radio feature on the main screen. I tried the radio feature and at first found it difficult to understand – all I could hear was a loud buzzing sound and this was only AFTER I realised that you need to
plug in your headphones to activate this setting. Obviously, you have to create your radio settings which was relatively easy – I have only created my favourite 2CRFM. You really have to remember that to use the radio feature you must plug your headphones into the Nokia. Oh, and the other thing to remember is that you could be deafened if you have the volume turned up loud, as I was this morning when I tested it out again! However, once the
headphone has been plugged in then there is a feature on the radio setting to switch it to
loudspeaker. The headphones also make the
Nokia hands-free so that you can safely answer your phone when driving although I have to say I don’t like to do this when driving.
The music player is for listening to music tracks etc. and my daughter transferred some songs onto my Nokia and the listening quality is excellent.
One other feature on the main screen is
Planet 3 which connects you to the web. It’s free to browse and warns you if any downloads need payment. It’s through this feature that you can first set up an email account. You can also access your personal usage through My3. It tells you how many minutes you have left remaining for the month and also the number of texts left. I think this is an excellent feature. It can also tell you your account details – which plan you are on, and if you want to buy any
Add-Ons. You can access the internet – a world symbol rotates at the top right hand corner so you know it is connecting to the net.
The navigation panel is similar to most other phones – green for on, red for off with “soft” navigation buttons on top left and right which can perform shortcut tasks.
The one thing that really frustrated me was the text feature. At first, when trying to text a message, it was using predictive text input which was really frustrating.
I had to navigate about the text feature until I found
how to turn this off so that I had “traditional” text input. Let me just explain a little bit about this feature:
Predictive text allows you to input words quickly and it tries to guess the word you are trying to input and gives you a variation – which, in my case, wasn’t the word I was trying to text at all! However, traditional text means that you can input one letter at a time but you have to go through your keypad features until you reach the desired letter. I find this way so much easier and, the more you do this, the quicker you become at texting! I am starting to get quite fast at this but nowhere near as good as my daughter and grandson!
The one feature I don’t like about this Nokia phone is that I have to remember each time I finish using it I must remember to put the keypad lock on otherwise you could very easily press wrong buttons and connect to the web. My other phone used to automatically lock when I slid the lid down. So this is a black mark for the Nokia. The other black mark is that I can’t seem to change the pin code. I have turned the phone off and on and still can only use the pin code issued with the letter from “3” but I do want to change it. Any ideas? The instructions don’t actually tell you how and I can’t see anywhere on the phone how to. I have tried inputting my own code on the pin code feature but it won’t accept this.
I wanted to set up email on this phone and went through the instructions, step by step and everything seemed fine until I tried to send a test email and it failed. I sent an email to “3” through their website asking them what the problem was and I have to say that they phoned me three hours later but, unfortunately, I was on my way out walking the dogs and couldn’t stay until he went through the procedure with me. Two dogs barking was not conducive to trying to sort out my problem with the email. The gentleman said he would call me back and he would definitely sort out my problem – so here’s hoping!
There are lots of other features, such as calendar,
calculator, call logging etc which are very easy to navigate and understand. There is instant messaging but I haven’t looked at this yet until I sort out
my email problem.
The photo feature is very, very good and I love this. I had a problem trying to understand the video feature and, by trial and error, or maybe I was just plain dumb, but I have now come to grips with this and made a few little videos. I can now show my friends my office and my lovely view from my office window!
Oh, by the way, I did try the
voice activation feature – go into contacts and say name and the Nokia is supposed to recognise the name and automatically call the number. I have to say this doesn’t work all the time. I said “Colin” and it said “Cheryl” and phoned Cheryl! It did this with various other names and only got one right so I shall not be using this feature at all. Another black mark.
The games in the Applications feature is a bit naff.
It has Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and I tried this and thought it was quite good. However, after a couple of minutes it asked me if I wanted to continue at 49p for three days. No way would I pay to play this game! You can download games etc but obviously you have to pay for them and so I will definitely not be using this feature.
All in all, I am getting used to this phone and I think I will end up really liking it once I am totally at ease with it. I do like it and, as it was free, with my payment plan (which I have to take out for 18 months) I can’t complain. I think it is just a case of getting used to a new product.
If you want to check out my Nokia 6288 then look on the 3 website:
www.3mail.com
Smart companion 
