nec n343i review

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Picture courtesy of The Smackdown Hotel.

Average Ratings

Value for Money	5.5/10
Reviewer Rating	4.9/10
Overall Rating	5.3/10

36% Recommended4 out of 11 Reviews

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By TOMLEECEE on 17th Dec 2005

TOMLEECEE's Ratings

Reviewers Network	O2
Time Phone Owned	Less than a Week
Screen Quality	8/10
Battery Life	9/10
Features	8/10
Reception	8/10
Style	10/10
Value for money	10/10
Overall value	9/10
TOMLEECEE's recommendation

Good Points

Brilliant design
Lots of features
Quite cheap
Large screen
Very easy texting system
Very thin and light
Has iMode

Bad Points

Small memory
Camera isn't brilliant

General Comments

As far as mobile phones go, the NEC N343i does everything you'd expect. It has the ability to send SMS messages, has a camera, and does pretty much anything you'd want. The real attraction of the N343i however, has got to be the price. On O2 Pay As You Go (PAYG), this phone will only set you back £59.99 or even less if a) you're already an O2 PAYG customer and b) trade in your old handset. I did both and got this phone for the bargain price of £39.99.

Then, when you take into consideration the features you get from this phone, you realise it's a pretty stellar package.

The look of the phone is a bit special - it looks like a cross between a mobile and an iPod - and it's remarkably slim when compared to other mobiles. The whole thing has a very futuristic look and is finished in white and silver. Very cool, and very now. When you use it, the keys glow blue and lend a very 'icy' look to the handset.

The 65,000 colour screen is quite large, and the menus are very simple to navigate. Key presses are responsive, and the texting function is good. The texting function of a mobile is probably the one you'll use most frequently on PAYG, and differs depending on which phone you've got. Nokia phones tend to be very good, whilst O2's own-brand phones are dire. The NEC is easily on a par with the Nokia, with very quick composition possible if your fingers are fast enough.

The camera is fine for a mobile in this price range, although obviously not as good as say a Samsung D600. However, that mobile on PAYG would cost about £250 more than the NEC. That said, the quality is certainly better than some phones I've seen, and is perfectly acceptable.

The ringtones are a bit limited (you only get 13 passable classical tunes built in), but the 40 level polyphonic speaker gives good quality, and you can also compose your own or download them from the internet. To be fair though, I wouldn't down mark the NEC for its ringtones, simply because my phone is always in silent/vibrate mode anyway.

Now for the main selling point of the N343i - iMode. iMode is not something you would normally get on a sub £60 PAYG handset, and for it's inclusion here I applaud O2 and NEC. But what is iMode? iMode is the new generation of GPRS or 'mobile internet.' At the touch of the iMode button, the internet pops up instantly - much faster than regular GPRS - and offers improved picture quality and much more than GPRS ever could. Hundreds of companies have pooled their resources to create unique iMode web pages that can be browsed for instantaneous news, sports, games and travel info etc. These companies include commercial heavyweights such as Sky, Sega, and BBC etc.

I tried iMode pretty much as soon as I got the phone up and running (to check the Man United score), and had the information in about 20 seconds from pressing the iMode button - it's that quick and easy to navigate. And is much, much better than O2 Active or regular GPRS.

In a nutshell then, the NEC N343i is one cool phone. It's packed with features (although there is no Bluetooth, even though it's stated on this page), and while not as advanced as some phones on the market (but let's be honest, most new phones blur the boundaries between phone and entertainment device), it is an attractive proposition for anyone who is style conscious on a budget.

Here's a rundown of the features:

Camera (not video - stills only)
Ringtone composer
Calender
Stopwatch
iMode
Scheduler
To Do List
Notepad
Calculator
Voice recorder
Java Games (1 built in)
Polyphonics (13 built in)

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