Nokia are very good at making low price handsets that appeal to the masses, mainly because of the legendary Nokia ease of use. With the Nokia 6303 Classic, Nokia are once again playing to their strength, producing a sensibly priced handset that comes with a surprising array of features.
The 6303 Classic is a compact little candy bar phone, measuring in at 108.8mm x 46.2mm x 11.7mm and weighing in at a very pocket friendly 96g. The handset is Tri Band GSM, so will work in most areas around the world where there is a GSM network, with the Americas the notable exception.
There is no 3G or high speed Mobile Broadband support here; with the 6303 data transfer is catered for either by GPRS or EDGE. There is support for Bluetooth 2.0 for local connectivity, and this can also support wireless stereo headphones for music playback. Despite having no high speed connectivity on board, the Nokia 6303 Classic is equipped with the excellent web browser normally found on S60 smartphones. This is a great move by Nokia, they have one of the best native web browsers and inclusion on a variety of non smartphones is a real bonus
The screen on the phone is similar to most Nokia models, a TFT screen 240 x 320 QVGA measuring in at a nice 2.2 inches and supporting up to 16 million colours. It seems that when it comes to screen quality Nokia really do have the market to themselves in terms of bright, clear, high colour definition displays.
Internally there is an acceptable memory available of 64MB which can be enhanced with the addition of Micro SD memory cards, with the 6303 Classic supporting up to 4GB in size. This is going to be more than enough to hold a few hundred songs and pictures.
Talking of pictures, the camera on the 6303 Classic is a perfect cameraphone level of 3.2 megapixels, with autofocus and flash. When it comes to cameraphones there is often a misunderstanding that leads people to believe that more megapixels is better. This would be true if your intention was to be blowing up the size of the picture on a PC and printing out large prints of photos taken. And if this is your intention, you may find that a bespoke imaging package is going to be more beneficial to you. For a mobile phone, a 3.2 megapixel camera is always going to suffice, where usage consists of fun snaps when out with friends and family which will either be stored on the phone, sent via MMS or Email, or uploaded to websites such as Flickr or Facebook.
Music wise, the Nokia 6303 is well catered for. Here we find included a stereo FM radio with RDS support and a music player with support for MP3, AAC and eAAC formats. A real bonus for music fans is the inclusion of a 3.5mm audio output jack so you will be able to listen to your music with your own favourite personal headset. Personally, I would like to see more manufacturers include a 3.5mm connector on all mid and high range phones and I am glad to see Nokia picking this up.
Lastly, a surprising inclusion on the 6303 is Nokia Maps. The handset has no GPS functionality at all; however there can still be a use for Nokia Maps here. Firstly, by using network triangulation you will still be able to locate your approximate location, and you can still use maps to find local services, places of interest, hotels, garages, restaurants, etc, and you can still use the software to plot a route from one point to another. A surprising feature to have, but welcome and useful all the same. The more people see services like this on mid tier phones the more they will be encouraged to use it, and that can’t be a bad thing.
The 6303 is an unassuming handset at first glance, yet underneath there is a strong phone rich with features, and one that is sure to be popular with Contract and Pay As You Go customers alike. The official release date is to be confirmed, reports are it will be April/May 2009, for full specifications check out our Nokia 6303 Classic Reviews and check back for the best available prices and pre-order from rightmobilephone.co.uk
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12:22 pm
My phone has 17MB of internal memory not 64MB as stated in the review. Also, in Maps - it is not possible to locate your position using network triangulation - you need to pair a bluetooth GPS module.