It glows-in-the-dark and its backlights flash in sync with the ringtone. It's sure to be a hit with teenagers, but does it have any practicality packed in with these cute gimmicks?The case of the 3100 features glow-in-the-dark strips and is available in light blue, white or red (although the latter looks more like pink to us). Its brightly coloured exterior makes it look more like a toy than a communications device although the semi-transparent cover adds a nice finishing touch.
Another groovy feature is when the phone rings, the keypad flashes to the rhythm of your ringtone. The 3100 perfectly synchronised songs (fast and slow) to the flashing of the keypad during our tests. A vibration alert can also be set and the polyphonic ringtones are quite clear, even at the highest volume.
It seems Nokia has put the 3100 on an exercise regime when it's compared to predecessors such as the 3315. It snubs the plump stereotype of other 3000-series handsets and measures only 42.8mm x 101.8mm x 15.2mm. Even at a light 85g it still feels sturdy in your hand.
Three java-based games are preinstalled on the 3100. There is a colour-enhanced version of the classic Nokia game Snake, called Snake EX2. For racing fans there's a game called Beach Rally that shows off smooth graphics while you cruise around at pretty impressive speeds. Mobile gamers that enjoy a more laid-back pace will find Nokia's Bowling game right up their (ahem) alley. Unfortunately, the mobile does not have any wireless connectivity so all of the games are single-player.
You can extend the collection of games or applications through the integrated XHTML browser and saving these to the available memory on the handset. On our test model, the games took up a total of 129KB, leaving 479KB of memory available for additional games and applications (no applications come preinstalled).
The 3100 supports MMS and can make use of Nokia's Fun Camera--an oddly shaped 640x480-pixel camera that is sold separately and attaches via the Pop-Port connector at the bottom of the handset. MMS is integrated well and it's simple to compose a message with an image, audio and text. Templates can be used for sending SMS messages and multiple recipients can be specified.
A variety of animated screensavers and wallpapers come preinstalled and look pretty good on the supported 4096-colour screen. You can adjust the brightness of the screen but we found the default setting was ideal.
The rubberised keypad is very comfortable to use and quick to compose messages. Number keys in a row are joined allowing your finger to slide from one straight onto the next. There is a four-way rocker below the screen that can be used for shortcuts when the phone is idling.
The right softkey can be assigned to bring up Contacts or the Go to options. Go to is a submenu containing links to commonly accessed items, such as Inbox, Silent, Missed calls, Select game, etc. There are many other shortcuts you can choose to display in this submenu and the 3100 allows you to organise these to suit your needs.
Through the profiles menu you can set a time for the selected profile to expire and restore the previous setting. It is good to see this enhancement in the profiles menu but we think having a schedule for profiles to activate automatically would have been better (eg. 11pm-7am = Discreet, 7am-11pm = General).
We found voice quality to be fine and the volume can be adjusted with ease during calls. The handsfree speaker also performed well even in noisy conditions. The Nokia 3100 is a tri-band mobile phone meaning it can operate on GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz bands, so travellers will be able to use it in Australia, Asia, Europe, North America, South America and Africa.
The Nokia 3100 is sure to be a hit with teenagers and those after a cute and versatile little handset. Mobile phone users who also have a taste for gaming will want to check out the Nokia N-Gage.
Nokia 3100
Company: Nokia
Price: AU$449
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 1300 366 733
..uhm just wNa ask about SGH-V200.. can we change its wallpapers an oL.. u knw use the pix u get was wallpapers on ur fon. and anotha thng.can u download new tones and pix? email me pls