Guest tsutton Posted September 29, 2009 Report Posted September 29, 2009 [teaser]My review on Nokia 3720 Classic Following from the 1st review I did with the Nokia E52 and E55 phones, I am pleased to have done my 2nd one - the Nokia 3720 Classic! Before we start, let’s have a look inside the box, bear in mind that this is still not released for UK so the contents inside the box may change. Nokia 3720 Classic phoneNokia BL-5CT Battery (3.7v, 3.9Wh, 1050mAh)Nokia Stereo Headset WH-101 (HS-105)Nokia 1 GB microSD card (MU-22) Charger - AC-8E High Efficiency Charger (Euro 2 pins plug)Manual/User Guide In my earlier review of the Nokia E52/E55, I expressed my concern about the lack of information from the time you power on the phone. Well with this one, it's different. From the time I powered it on, it did a little "vibrate" and then instantly displayed the Nokia logo, did the infamous “joining hands” animation a few seconds later before loading up the home screen - all in about 13 seconds - 7 seconds quicker than E52/E55. Does it mean the phone is quicker? Nope. In fact I was actually disappointed about its performance. It's a bit on the slow side, taking a while to open applications, even accessing some menu takes a while to open but hey, this is a Classic phone with no-frill hardware. It's just a simple mobile phone that does its job. Right, let get this out of the way and get started with the phone specifications and the rest of my review.[/teaser] Phone The phone design is a "Classic" which measures at 115 x 47 x 15.3mm, weighting at 94g, about the same as Nokia E55 and comes with Numeric keypad which is leak proof. The display panel measures at 2.2" which gives you the resolution of 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA, up to 16.7 million colours). It has a dedicated volume keys on the right side of the phone - useful for media player & radio. Memory The 3720 comes with around 20MB of free memory however it does come with 1GB micrSD memory card fitted, which includes a copy of Nokia Maps. This phone can support up to 8GB microSD. Home screen By default, the home screen is blank. It just shows you the signal strength, battery icon, time and date along with bottom menus. That's it. I'm not sure why they set it as the default home screen. You can fix this by going to "Go To" soft key -> Home Screen and it will bring back the usual home screen, where you will have easy access to the following:Shortcuts to applicationsCalendarNotesMedia PlayerRadio Camera The 3720 comes with a low 2 megapixel camera (1600 x 1200 pixels) with 4x digital zoom and LED flash. I find the image a bit grainy and video is even worse, a bit jerky during play back which could be because it only can record up to 11fps which is pretty low compared with other phones. But it still does take pictures and record a video which make it usable. Messaging and Communication It comes with very basic support of messaging/communications. They are:SMSMMSE-MailOpera web browser The phone comes with Opera web browser which allows you to surf the Internet. The phone also comes with a media player, which can support .MP3, .MP4, .WMA, .AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ for music playback. It came with two music file which is "No Enough - All You're Meant to be - Boyce Avenue" and also "She Wants To Be Adored Lovers - Winston Giles" And it has Stereo FM radio inbuilt which you can listen via the 2.5 mm Nokia AV connector. But I find it annoying that I have to open the cover to plug the jack in. And even annoying is that even I set it to play radio via the phone's loudspeaker; I still have to plug the headset cable in because it act as antenna. Connectivity Since this phone is a very simple phone, it's not surprising that it doesn't come with WiFi. It can do GSM up to 7 hours but if left on standby, it can do 450 hours (about 18 days). However it does have the following: CSD HSCSD GPRS, Multi slot class 11 EDGE, Multi slot class 11 TCP/IP supportCapability to serve as data modem Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 Automatic switching between GSM bands Bluetooth version 2.1My Thoughts Nokia says this phone is "its most rugged mobile handset to date". What does it mean, you think? Nokia goes on saying that "Nokia 3720 classic, an IP-54 certified mobile phone designed to resist water, dust and shock. Following the footsteps of Nokia's highly popular 'rugged' devices of the past, the Nokia 3720 classic is encased in durable materials and is entirely sealed to protect the inner electronics." Awesome. A mobile phone that is designed to resist water, dust and shock. Perfect for someone who wants a basic phone that will go anywhere with you during your camping holiday, doing the walks around the countryside or going up the mountains without having to worry about damaging your mobile phone. Fallen off from your pocket? No worries, its shock resist. Dropped your phone in water? No worries, its water resist. You get the idea. However, who decided it was a good idea NOT to include GPS support?? I mean, this phone is designed to be a rugged handset. What does "rugged handset" mean to you? For me, it means you will be doing some crazy things while outdoors that involves dirt, water, dust. And where would you find that? Out in the sticks, away from your home town. That's where GPS will come in handy. And it would be nice to see GPS included with it. But no, Nokia decided not to include it. Yes, you could use Bluetooth GPS to go with it, but that's another device to carry. And another battery to charge. You can see where I am going with this? I feel Nokia has missed the opportunity to make this phone better. However when they say it's the most rugged handset, they do mean it! The battery cover is not a simple click & slide, it's actually clipped down hard and you need a coin to "twist" the screw to lock it down even further to create a seal around it, protecting the battery from dust and water. The keypad feels very covered, yet you can still feel the "click" upon pressing the keys. The rear cover of the phone feels solid and doesn't scratch easily. Nokia even made some videos to show how tough these phone are. One of them can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNrx-lDYB4c Pros [*]Shock resist [*]Water resist [*]Radio [*]Fits in my hand [*]Comes with 1GB memory [*]Torch Mode is useful [*]Bluetooth [*]Nice phone design Cons [*]No "standard" Mini USB, just MicroUSB [*]Poor camera/video quality [*]Jerky video playback [*]Small phone memory (14.4MB free) [*]No WiFi [*]No GPS [*]Have to open the cover in order to plug the headphone jack Our friends at Mobiles.co.uk [a] have the Nokia 3720 Classic listed as 'Coming Soon' - be sure to register your interest - Nokia 3720 Classic[a] I hope I have covered what you need to know about the phone. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me any questions - I have this phone on loan until Sunday 4th October, so you only got a week for you to ask me any questions!
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