my 6230b review

[Treatz]

after having the 6230b for a week and a half now as my daily use phone i would now like to comment on it's performance.

First off, while this seems like a "new" nokia it really isn't. the only new features on this phone from a normal series 40 is the centre key, which takes getting used to, but once you got it you wonder how you worked the old series 40 interface.
Other then the 65k screnn/mmc cards/EDGE and camera this is a regular nokia which some may find good because there is little learning curve, others may find this bad because it's "been there done that" nokia.

the packaging is clean and business like. it's not a gawdy phone like Nokia seems to love producing as of late and I'm glad. I would not use a 7610 because the keypad is abhorrent.

so, let me focus on some key areas:

Reception:
this phone is a RF tank. it easily makes and receives calls in weaker areas, and more importantly, it sounds good doing it. I was so tired of crap nokia's like the 6200 and all the series 40 units (7250i was the exception) that sounded like garbage. they Hissed way to much and weren't loud at all. I can safely state that this 6230 is getting back to basics. Basics being GOOD sound quality I loved my 6590 for it's sound quality but always wanted more out of it. A colour screen, a camera, midi/MP3 ringtones perhaps.. but I wasn't gonna "upgrade" to a 6200/3100/3300 or other series 40 4096 nokia because as a phone I personally found them to stink because of the hissing. the 6230 sounds very good and bests my 6590 for sound quality which if finally a step in the right direction.

this 6230b comes with the mysteriously missing "field monitor" with the Field monitor I can now get accurate readings for the SEEG and don't have to pay attention to the "bars" because as everyone knows, "bars" is a very scientific way to run comparisons.

cantina test
most people know that I take phones into my cantina (cold cellar) to see how they perform in poor areas. being underground and solid concrete it's a good platform for me to test from. with the 6230b in the cantina I called andyVx and had a conversation with him without any efforts. the audio was fine, and didn't seem to break up at all. it was crisp and clean and quite loud. this phone passes the cantina test with Flying colours and I have no problems stating that this unit is a RF machine according to my preliminary tests. If this changes, which i doubt, I will update this review

PC4
many people are of the opinion that PC4 will amp a GSM850 phone up to 2Watts momentarily. this is wrong.
when i'm in the cantina doing these tests the Field test shows *5.
according to the nokia field test manual in the 450/850/900 bands a *5 is 33DBM. 33DBM is 2 watts. not only that, it maintains this *5 rating until I leave the cantina and go ot the front door where the power transmission will drop significantly to a *6 or *7 rating meaning 31DBM(1.3W) and 29DBM(0.8W) respectively until it changes over to 1900 with much lower power outputs of anywhere from 1W to 0.2W

http://www.ausmobile.com/modules.php...eq=getit&lid=1

http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/dbm.php


Camera
the camera is actually very impressive. it's easily the best camera phone that I have personnally owned/used. the daylight pics come out pretty good and the night pics come out good to.
i've put a few samples of daylight pics followed by night pics. Night pics come out a lot better with the "night mode" on. this night mode actuallydoes something vs the T616 night mode which is really more of a toy

These are examples of Daytime/indoor pics.

some sick car I found arond the shop


a beautiful corporate logo


Yes, that is a VBOX in the picture

here are some examples of dark pics with night mode engaged


this picture was takek in almost pitch black the 3 shadows are me, AnalogTrail and Hart om

parking lot
general parking lot pic with night mode on

here are the final 2 examples of dark pictures without and with nightmode


no night mode here


exact SAME picture taken with night mode on.

so as you can see, the camera is decent, and the night mode actually does something.

if you're one who buys a phone because of the camera quality the 6230b won't dissapoint. and with MMC memory card storage you can store the pics, and a hell of a lot of them.

Bluetooth
the bluetooth implementation is top notch on this unit.
there are a few things I don't like however.

firstly what i do like:
Range
the range of the BT is very good on this unit. the above picture of that sick black car I took when I was outside, I then sent it o my PC via BT while still being outside. That's very impressive with 2 walls in my way and 15 feet of distance.

the bluetooth setup/menu's are pretty straightforward and easy.
the pairing processses are normal and easy so there's no problem there.

what I found cool was when I paired my desktop PC with my 6230b I can go into my BT menu, select my PC and "connect" to it. I can then play MP3's and other audio through my PC speakers. that is a very cool toy. I assume if I hook up a mike I would be able to have a conversation using my PC as the phone connected to the 6230b via bluetooth.

the transfer speeds are FAST
i was sending files of my 6230b to my PC and was maintaining a 65KB/s transfer rate (windows dialog box) and when I send from the PC to phone it hovers around 35KB/s. Either way i'm impressed with the speed of BT transfer.

BT Synch.
I synched my 6230b with outlook using the free nokia PCsuite. it was painless and straightforward and it will synch with your calendar/contact lists/notes so it's a very good tool for the business user.

BT pairings
another thing I like is that on the 6230b you can pair with a device, but not authorise them... what that means is if I pair with a buddy's PC to send him/her stuff I can actually leave my buddy's PC un-authorized.. so, if that buddy wanted to send me stuff or connect to the net using my 6230b as a modem, eventhough we're paired it would ask me "allow "buddy's computer" to access device" if I say no it obviously rejects the request. this is pretty nice feature because I really don't want peole sendikng my phone all this crap. so I only authorise my PC and MY devices and leave my buddy's devices as un auth.

headset use
the one thing I like about the nokia is that when I turn on my BT250 it instantly says "connected with BT250" and will play the ringtones on the phone AND headset. not only that, it will play MP3 audio on the phone and headset to, so you can use a BT heaqdset as your earphones to listen to MP3's.
the one thing that bothers me is that all SMS tones/beeps go to the headset.. the only thing you'll hear from the phone is the ringtone, when it's ringing.. this is something I hope nokia fixes in future software.

another thing I dont' like and I still give SonyEricsson credit for is that when a call comes in, logically, if I press talk on the handset, the handset should pick up. I don't like how I press talk on the handset and the audio goes to the headset. the Sony is smart like this where if I press talk on the handset, the handset takes the call, if I press the call anser button on the BT headset the headset takes the call.

Although, in the 6230b's defense you can select options/handset to take the call on the handset.. the only problem is once you do that it drops the headset and you'll have to go back into the BT menu and "connect" to the headset, or, press the call button on the headset to establish the connection. not overly a pain, so I don't complain about that to much but it would be nice for Nokia to implement the SE standard for picking up with handset/headset

aesthetics
the phone looks clean and classic, a little on the boring side for some I will admit though. i never liked those see through flashy phones anyway so I prefer conservative styling. to me, I'll take a 6230b over a 7610 anyday.

buttons the keypad on this 6230b is so PRO it's nice and "clicky" and requires minimal pressure. it's hard to explain, you really have to click around on it to get what I mean. Hart om, OhHenri, Efrant and Carsmovies can probably back me up here. the keypad is a dream for people like me who are heavy into SMS.

speaking of SMS, this is typical Nokia T9 here. it's easy to use, easy to opperate. within seconds I was flying around withSMS like i was back on my 6590 and I wil admit, it feels nice to use a phone that can keep up with me again so I dont' have to wait for my SMSing. however, the SE still wins in my books for T9 implementation because you can store alphanumeric text like T616, V600, 6230b and it will remember it. you can also see your dictionary of custom words which is pretty pro.

screen
being the first series 40 out of the gate that I can think of with a 65k screen is refreshing. it's a good screen, shows colours very nicely, and is reflective so you can actually see it outside. althou 128x128 is still small by today's standards i'm not compaining as the additional features make up for the small screen

Call ID
one thing that bothers me about the 6230b is the call ID.
whenever you get a SMS or miss a call a white box pops up and says "1 new message" or "1 missed call" but when somebody calls me, there is no white box at all. it also shows the # like this

+1416555121
2

I don't get this at all. there is more then enough room to move the # over a little to the left to fit the whole # in the screen. you'd think this 6230b being "american" would recognize US/CDN formated 11 digit numbers... oh well

another beef is that when the call comes in, it's not in that same white box that a SMS/missed call is. SO, if you have a background wallpaper on it just goes over that. If the wallpaper is dark you can't see the # at all. that's a glaring oversight in my opinion.

also, the ability to change the colour of the text used for the menu would be nice. that way I can set a black wallpaper and use white text.

Battery
battery isn't the greatest, it's not typical nokia.
i'm not faulting the unit though because it has so much more then the normal nokia. with EDGE, bluetooth, 65k screen, MP3 ringtones i assumed the battery life wouldn't match my 6590 anyway. i can easily get 1 day out of it, and most of you know I'm a heavy user on GPRS/EDGE and bluetooth so one day of heavy usage is enough for me. I guess the Average user that only makes some calls and SMS with no data usage could bet 3-4 days out of it. it's hard to say because I really use my phone a lot.

Misc
i'm gonna put everything else here that I can think of that really didn't deserve it's own subsection:

MMC cards:
i once thought having removable media was just hype. now having removable media myself I can say it's very convienient. No more looking for stuff to erase when you just have to have that new ringtone/pic. no more limits. I grabbed a 128mb Sandisk MMC card for dirt cheap and stuffed every image/ringtone/mp3 ringtone I had creaded for my V600 on there and i'm still only at 30 megs used so this MMC card will last a long long time

MMC media organization
like any memory device you can create folders on the MMC card so you have some order instead of one MMC card with 1 billion files in it. my beef with the MMC cards/media directories is that there is no multiple file select so if you want to move files around you have to do it one at a time, or, you have to use the PC suite. i wish nokia would allow file "tagging" like on the V600 where you can press 0 and tag a file and continue on, and then move/delete/copy all tagged files

EDGE
as a EDGE modem this thing rocks. i routinely get speeds of 150+kb/s and have personally peaked at 188kb/s. The EDGE record holder is balto_2002 right now with 194kb/s but I will catch him so watch out.

also, EDGE works while wap browsing, so as you can imagine, this 6230b flies through HOFO.

organizer
the organizer is pretty simple stuff with an alarm clock/calendar/to do list/notes/wallet.
I like the alarm clock because you can set an alarm for days of the week, so for exmple, i have the alarm set to monday/tuesday/wed/thurs/sat cause i work those days. it's nice ot have a recurring alarm. I don't know if this is a "new" feature cause I haven't used nokia in a while though

Speakerphone
the speakerphone works well, the other people can hear me and I don't have to go into my "speakerphone" voice of slight yelling to be heard. the volume of the speaker is good in a quiet room, but anything else it becomes pretty useless. I have a feeling the manufacturers do this on purpose so you don't go around annyoing everyone like those MIKE phones tend to do on Direct Connect

[hofo_mofo]

i cant wait to do my Nokia 9500b Communicator review

thanks don :

[JP]

heh, the recurring alarm is a "New" feature, up to and including my 6820, this was never an option

i want this phone now, the pic quality is great

thx treatz

at first i thought it'd be a colorful 6820, but that's not the case.

i wish MMS/Picture messaging and a wap browser without premium plans would work on it though

[Mooncookies]

Great review!

[kalok]

NICE.. nothing else i can say about it...

kalok~

[YNOTT]

You da man Treatz, nice detailed review. I have wanted this phone for soooo long ! I'm still holding out till they are readily available. Btw , nice car, looks just like my bro's...lol

Mooncookies, if I was rich I'd buy you this phone for my hostility earlier...

[kalok]

Originally posted by YNOTT
You da man Treatz, nice detailed review. I have wanted this phone for soooo long ! I'm still holding out till they are readily available. Btw , nice car, looks just like my bro's...lol

Mooncookies, if I was rich I'd buy you this phone for my hostility earlier...

YNOTT.. why don't you change brand.. i mean.. change to moto or SE.... aren't you bored with a nokia....

like treatz saids.. it's been there done that

kalok~

[Mooncookies]

Geez that's very kind of you to say.. I feel bad because sometimes I get carried away with my mouth.. I guess we all have our moods and stresses and sometimes take them out in the wrong way.. happens to the best of them I spose..

Originally posted by YNOTT
Mooncookies, if I was rich I'd buy you this phone for my hostility earlier...

[efrant]

Excellent review! I would have to agree with everything you said.

My only two major complaints: Not quad-band and MMS doesn't work w/ Rogers.

Nitpicks: No screen brightness adjustment, can't disable the clock screensaver, and the screen scratches easier than any other phone I've had.

[YNOTT]

Originally posted by kalok
YNOTT.. why don't you change brand.. i mean.. change to moto or SE.... aren't you bored with a nokia....

like treatz saids.. it's been there done that

kalok~

I was very close to making the move, but after playing around with a T616, and a V300, I still personally prefer the Nokia interface.

[kalok]

Originally posted by YNOTT
I was very close to making the move, but after playing around with a T616, and a V300, I still personally prefer the Nokia interface.

the reason you prefer nokia's interface it's because you are used to it. play longer with a T616 or V300... you'll like them

me, it's been awhile i haven't touch nokia.. maybe i should make a come back on nokia...

kalok~

[schism13]

Im considering selling my 7610 due to lack of reception, stereo sound, and a quiet ring tone i cant hear half the time.. I may get a 6230 but there is a few questions i still have.. and am hoping some one here may be able to answer it.. first is there real player? If i were to put a movie onto the MMC would i be able to just watch it or how does that work on the series 40? What program is used to play it.. does it have to be .3gp or can it be .rm too? Second question is how loud is the speaker phone? Is it clear and loud? My N-Gage's speaker phone was perfect for me.. is this comparable to it? Thanks everyone

[balto_2002]

Wicked review, I totally agree with what you said, using this phone for about 3 weeks and it is SICK the RF is unreal, have signal in places my 616 didn't

And come get me treatz lets see you hit 200k

[ptsun]

nice
u should make a website

i can put it on my website haha

[JP]

i have a feeling the 6820 and 6230 (b versions) have similar signal because I know that my 6820 has superior signal than my T637.

My 6820 was a little fuzzy at times though, like at night when making phone sex with my girl, if she wasn't saying anything, it'd be almost like dead air. if she spoke, i'd hear fuzz. i believe this is a network feature though