Spec Khaki

July 27th, 2010 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Spec Khaki

Nokia 6303I Classic – Negligible Updating

Product upgrades and updates are always welcome and we often get plenty of those with older mobile phones released just as newer technologies have made it to markets but would have delayed the introduction of new products. Finnish phone maker Nokia is not new to the practice as it has often taken old but successful products some rehashing and updating with the letter “i” appended to their brand model numbering. Take the case of the successful 6303 Classic released last May 2009. Nokia has just announced its update with the new Nokia 6303i Classic.

There’s nothing remarkable much less groundbreaking with any of the feature updates, nor are any new ones. In fact, looking at the spec sheet of the new 6303i compared with the earlier model gave us pause to shrug it off as just another excuse from Nokia to come out with a new budget phone this early. There’s really no reason for it.

Classic Updating

For starters, about the only upgrade is the internal memory from a nearly useless 17 MB to 55 MB, as if the increase matters to multimedia mobile phone users in the market. But you could squeeze in a couple of rudimentary games in the roomier memory. Then the microSD expansion card can now accommodate 8 GB where before it can only do 4 GB. Big deal, that’s something Nokia should have done with the older model in the first place.

It makes us wonder if companies really tame their products to give them more room to upgrade later just to milk its markets. But it gets worst after this. After upgrading the memory part, Nokia downgraded the VGA video recording with a decent 15fps in the 6303 Classic to a mere QVGA at 8fps in the new one. Unless what we see in the specs is a typo error, this phone has got to be a joke.

This is a tri-band GSM/GPS/EDGE on 2G. Local data transfers get Bluetooth 2.1 and microUSB 2.0 support. It sports a conventional candybar measuring 108.8 x 46.2 x 11.7mm and weighs a pocket-friendly 96 g. You get a 2.2-inch QVGA TFT LCD display with 16 million colors.

Multimedia comes with players for mp3/wav/eAAC and WMA audio formats and H.263 and H.264 for video formats. Stereo FM radio with RDS is standard and you get Bluetooth A2DP for wireless stereo headsets as well as the industry standards 3.5mm headphone jack.

You get a top-notch 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash but video recording is a mediocre QVGA at 8fps and QCIF at 15fps. There’s a 1050 mAh Lithium-ion battery that powers the handset for up to 8 hours of talk, 30 hours of music playback time and up to 515 hours in standby. Software-wise, it carries Nokia Maps 2.0, instant messaging support, the usual email clients as well as a WAP 2.0 HTML browser with Flash Lite 3.0 support.

Availability

The Nokia 6303i Classic is scheduled to reach its markets worldwide before the first quarter ends. Nokia is pricing it at a SIM-free €105 before taxes and subsidies and will come in various colors you can choose from – steel, matt black, chestnut, illuvial pink, white on silver and khaki on gold.

6303 owners may want to look into this if they think it’s worth moving up into the “i” model though we doubt it. This is a fairly capable feature phone on its own if we didn’t know it was upgraded, downgraded from a previous incarnation. But no matter, this is a good handset for your kids.

About the Author

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