Nokia's 8310 is a stylish looking phone with particular appeal to SMS junkies and anyone looking for a high end GPRS phone.
The Nokia 8310 is a stylish phone. You could even refer to it as "sleek". It comes in a futuristic looking silver box. Opening the lid reveals another silver layer, with a window proudly displaying the phone. That kind of presentation sets a pretty high level of expectation.
The 84g phone has a three colour "tridimensional" design, which actually looks pretty good. It measures 97mm long, and has the typical Nokia button layout, as well as volume buttons on the side. We found the buttons on this phone to be a lot easier to press than on other Nokia phones we've tested.
It has GPRS and WAP, which we've come to expect from high-end phones, although Nokia claims it's the first phone it has produced that can handle GPRS transmission speeds of up to 40.2kbps.
The SMS feature has been bolstered on this phone, recognising the ever-increasing role our thumbs play in communication. You can save messages in archives, or "my folders", and create templates for future messages. You can record voice messages, and choose settings for info messages and the like. The "message settings" section is pretty cool. This allows you to create a profile, include what format you want messages sent in, what network, and whether you want delivery reports for your SMSes.
The phone claims to hold up to 250 calendar notes and 500 phone book entries, which should be enough for even the most ambitious of social butterflies. It's also possible to record up to six voice notes, to a combined total of three minutes. Each note can be given an individual alarm. That's great if you prefer audio to visual cues. The phone also has the ubiquitous common speed dialling function activated either by keypad or voice.
The Nokia 8310 also has a radio, although we found the sound quality wasn't as good as the Nokia 6510. Of course, we can't comment on the relative quality of the signal received, but we will note that when we brought the volume down from the highest level the sound quality improved. Our ears also didn't hurt as much at lower volumes.
It's unusual for the games on a phone to rate particular mention, but this time it's worth it. Nokia have removed Bantumi and replaced it with Snowboarding. It's an odd game that we found difficult to use. On the "Big Ramp" we simply went down the ramp and fell off the end, time and time again. It will no doubt appeal to some people, but we packed it in and went back to reliable old Snake.
The battery life of the 8310 fell short of the 6510, lasting almost exactly four days of normal usage. It is advertised at between 2-4 hours talk time and 100-350 hours standby, or 10 hrs as a radio.
All in all, the 8310 is one of the best phones Nokia's released for a while. The RRP is reported as AU$979, which is quite expensive, even for a GPRS enabled phone. If you are going for that sort of connectivity, this is a good phone to buy.
Nokia 8310
Company: Nokia
Price: AU$979
Distributor: Nokia
Phone: 1300 366 733
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