Nokia 6301 Cell Phone

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As more than one phone manufacturer has discovered, it’s never easy following up on a design classic. Even the elegant and well-featured 6301’s maker, Nokia, has fallen afoul of this challenge before, but in this case there is little cause for concern. In this article we take a close look at the 6301 to see if it is a worthy successor to the previous model.

The 6301's immediate predecessor, the unsurprisingly named 6300, has become something of a legend in phone circles. Fortunately, in building the 6301, Nokia have wisely elected to retain all the features that made the older model such a success.

The most significant modification is the addition of Wi-Fi VoIP capability, but this is no minor upgrade. WLAN/UMA on a cell phone marks a major development point in the evolution of the cell phone, allowing free voice and data calls to be made over a home or office wireless network, or at one of the now-ubiquitous wireless hotspots that dot the landscape.

Features

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. To start at the beginning, and for readers not already familiar with the 6300, the 6301 is a satisfyingly slim and elegant silver phone, built in Nokia's classic candy bar form factor. The stainless steel construction gives you a welcome sense of weight and durability when you pick it up. This feels like a phone built to last. It offers all the usual features you would expect from a mid-range cell phone, including:

• 2 mega pixel camera with 8x digital zoom and video capture capability.
  
  

• Superb 2" 240 x 320 pixel TFT display offering 16.7 million colors.
  

• Integrated music player and stereo FM "visual" radio.
  

• 30MB internal user memory plus Micro SD card slot for storage expansion up to 4GB.
  
  

• "Enhanced" battery offering up to 3.5 hours talk time and up to 350 hours standby (but more on this later).
  

• Triband coverage, with SMS, MMS, email, instant messaging and Nokia Xpress audio messaging.
  
  

• Bluetooth 2.0, USB, and the aforementioned WLAN connectivity.
  
  

• Flight mode, for safe onboard use of non-connective functions such as the music player, games and organizer application.

A selection of attractive extras are included in the box. One of the first things you'll notice, thanks to its size, is the charging dock, which is designed along the lines of a PDA or MP3 player cradle and reinforces the feeling the 6301 gives of inhabiting the middle ground somewhere between a home cordless phone and a classic small-form cell. Nokia have also kindly included a 512 MB Micro SD card and stereo earphones, so when you buy the phone you're getting a fully functional, ready-to-go MP3 player thrown in.

Next: Design and layout >>
 

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