Nokia 3410 Review

Overall Rating

Only £29.99 - excellent, study, basic phone!

Might not be around much longer!

I've never been a person to have a contract mobile phone as the phone company is lucky if I spend £10 in 3 months. My first phone was a Motorola Montreal (One2One), the I went on to a Siemen's C12 (BT Cellnet), then it was a Nokia 5146 (One2One/T-Mobile), and the latest my Nokia 3410 (T-Mobile). This had to be the phone which i've had the longest (over 2 years now).

I got rid of my first phone because it seriously did look like a brick and was quite hard to use. The second, I had only a few months and sold it to one of my friends, and then the Nokia 5146 fell from a height too many times and ended up breaking so I had to look for a new one. The first time I got my Nokia 5146, the Nokia 3410 was just new out and I really wanted one without an aeriel. When that one broke, I got the 3410.

I have no idea what the difference is between the 3410 and the 3330 or 3310 because they look exactly the same but the 3410 has the noticable difference of it's buttons joined up. This can actually be quite annoying if you are looking to buy a new cover because the covers are mostly for 3330/3310 although there are the occassional ones which are compatible with all three.

I got this phone for my Christmas 2002 which meant my money I was to receive was significantly lower than my sisters. The phone at that time costed £69.99 from Argos because it wasn't a contract one. I got the phone a few weeks before so started playing with it until mum took it off me and wrapped it up.

The first and third phones I received came in a big box with a smaller one within it containing the phone and its charger etc. but this one only came with the small box. The box has in huge letters across it T-MOBILE as they had not long since changed from One2One.

Anyway, this phone is still going strong and is still in excellent condition, even though I don't treat it that well. You have the ability to physically customise it by changing its covers (usually costs about £7). I haven't bothered to buy any for mine since I have several from my old phone which I keep giving to my dad for him to change the look of his phone (Nokia 5146).

What you get: Within the box, there is a charger, the phone, the battery, the simcard, the e-top up card, (not sure if there was a handsfree in mine), and bits of paper/books telling you the PIN and PUK numbers, Conditions of use and of course, the user guide.

Safety Warnings: Of course with mobiles there are a number of things you should and should not do e.g. It is now against the law to use your phone whilst in the drivers seat of a car, not to use it in a hospital/petrol station/planes where it could cause danger, it can interrupted with interference affecting the performance of the phone, don't try and repair the phone yourself!, don't fun it under water (or in other words - don't drop it down the toilet - It has been known to happen! OOps!).

As with other phones you can make emergency calls even if there is not a SIM card in it although that is the only number you can call. Another thing to say is - the phone has to be charged to make emergency calls!!

Speaking of charging- when you first buy the phone, the battery is flat so you do need to charge it before use. My advice to people when further charging the battery for everyday use, is to only charge it when the battery is completly flat or if this is not possible, only re-charge it a few times when half charged. If you don't wait till its charged, the battery will begin to think that that is all the space there is to charge so you will be left with a much shorter life/talk time.

Customisation: As said before, you can buy other covers etc for the phone, but if you want to internally chage it, there are a range of 'Profiles' eg. silent (where the phone doesn't make any tone noises), loud (NOTE: This is very loud!! - so don't use in a library!), and others such as discreet. You can also customise it so that you have a personal message on the screen when you first switch it on. You can have logos, picture messages, mono ringtones and even games (NOTE: check compatibility if you want to download as not all work).

What you get in the menu: First of all you have messages - here you can store up to 10 messages within the inbox and outbox. When you go to 'Write Message' you have 459/1 in the right corner - this tells you you have 459 characters left and the 1 tells you that you are sending 1 message. If you use all 459 characters you will be sending 4 messages and will be charged 40p (If using T-Mobile where text messages cost 10p). You can send text messages with different profiles (as a text message or as an e-mail etc).

Next in the menu is 'Call Register'. Here it tells you what calls have been made by you, received by you, or missed by you. Also tells you how long the total calls have been or the last call has been.

As described before you have the 'Profiles': Discreet, Loud, My Style, General and Silent. Each can be customised if you like the settings of one but decide you don't want it to vibrate etc.

Next is the 'Settings'. Here you can change your ringtone, vibrate, message tone, keypad tones, warning tones, the back light and the screen saver. You can change the time, date, call divert (voicemail, other phone), redial, speed dialing, call waiting (This still doesn't work on my phone), and if you want people to see your number - doesn't apply to text messages. Phone settings - Language: English, German, French, Italian, Dutch or Turkish. Here you can also choose your network and welcome note.. Keyguard settings allow you to protect your phone by using a PIN number. You can activate it so that it comes on only when you switch on your phone or when your phone is left idle for a langth of time - personally I find the latter VERY annoying because mine was set to 5 seconds so I had to keep re-entering the password! Then you have the chance to change your codes or restore the settings back to normal - note - you will lose the scores on games if you restore settings.

The next part of the menu takes you do Downloads. This allows you to connect through WAP and download Tones, Games or Images.

Next comes Reminders. This can be used as an alarm to remind you to do something and will beep, or can be a set of messages which remain to remind you of something until you delete them.

Games: Here you can play the games already on your phone or download more. The preset games are: Snake II, Space Impact, Bumper (Pinball), Bantumi, and Link 5.

Applications: Here you will mostlikely find the games you have downloaded although a few end up under 'Games'. On this phone you have 180kB of memory. I have downloaded 4 games and have 69kB of memory left.

Extras: Alarm clock - very handy!
There is also a calculator, stopwatch, countdown timer, ring tone composer - can be very fun!, picture editor, and screen saver. The screen savers are saved on your phone, some are animated and if you get another you can replace the ones on the phone already.

Services: This is the WAP section. You can go to the Home page (mine is T-Zones), Bookmark any pages you want, Your service inbox, or go to a certain address. I have tried several times to check my hotmail or yahoo e-mail but this is still not possible through T-Mobile. Check your e-mail provider for more info.

Interactive - Info services where you can receive text messages for news, sport, weather, lottery, share prices and exchange rates. Text chat where you can join a chat room and chat with other people by text, Send a group text (to lots of people), Horoscopes, jokes, Virtual flirt, sports quiz, trivia quiz, Penalty 1/2 player, russian roulette and get a Huggie (Virtual pet) but I can't get this to work on my phone. All these services cost me about 25p for each message although it may differ on other providers. Then finally you have the voice services - voicemail numbers etc.

And that's it!! I have tried a lot of the services on the phone and all have been very good (except when there have been problems dealing with the companies sending stuff to the phone etc.) The reception is excellent on the phone but that just depends on what phone company you are with (T-Mobile tends to go on the blink a lot so you are left without a signal for a day or so). The battery life on mine is excellent because I always fully run it down. I have mine on constantly and it usually lasts 3 -4 days before needing recharged (only occassional use). One thing I have noticed compared to my other phones is that once the battery had run out, you are not able to put the phone back on again for a few minutes. As soon as you put it on, it will go off again which can be annoying! I don't have the actual weight or measurements but i'd guess it is about 4 inches, by 1.5 inches. Mine weighs 112g!

I want to get a new phone, just to update it but there are now a lot more out there since I got my first one and I just want a basic one (no camera etc.). If you also feel the same I would really advise you get this one as it is a basic phone with everything you will need!

Price: This phone really has gone down in price so you can get it for £29.99!! I wouldn't wait too long though if you are going to get it or you may find you can't get it anywhere!!