Nokia 3110 Review

Overall Rating

Tri-band, still and video camera, sound recording, MP3 player, bluetooth, infra-red and USB. Good battery life (bluetooth switched off).

Ringtones a little quiet in noisy environments. No adaptor included to use standard walkman headphones, no USB lead included.

Have had the Nokia 3110 phone just over a week. Previous phones were both Nokias, 3310 and 1112. I wanted an unlocked tri-band phone for use on my odd transatlantic trip. (Experienced travellers advise purchase of a SIM for a local network in the US.) I have been happy with my previous Nokias but all the Tri-band models have included many other features and were consequently expensive. Was also looking to switch to the O2 network as everything else has a very poor reception where I work.

Spotted this one in a branch of Tesco, 60 PAYG reduced to 45 if you do 25 worth of general shopping. (Tesco use the O2 network in the same manner as Virgin use Vodafone.) Went home to think about it and found it reduced to 45 on the Tesco web site if ordered online. Saved even more money by having it delivered free to pick up from a local Tesco store. The package came with 10 airtime included and reading through the small print found another useful offer. Buying another 30 of airtime lets you apply for a free unlock code. This took 4 days to arrive and worked first time. Included with the unlock was a bundle of 50 free texts. Having transferred my address book from my old Vodafone SIM, I was able to text my entire address book with my new number for free. An excellent deal, then.

The camera is capable of reasonable snapshot results in good light. There is a night mode but no flash. Quality at low light levels is not inspiring. There are tell-tales of digital sharpening artifacts and the sharpening cannot be switched off. These are only fair criticisms if you make the comparison with a dedicated digicam, though. Its a perfectly fine camera for a phone. Same comments go for the video.

I fitted a Kingston 1Gb memory card so I could load up some music. Usb cables are readily available from E-bay (Type A to micro type B I believe.) It is the same as the Sony Cybershot cable we have in our office (which I used while waiting for my own to arrive). If you plug into a modern PC (running XP or Linux) the phone will be identified as a mass storage device. For full functionality you will need a package called Nokia Suite which can be downloaded for free from the Nokia web site (about 20Mb). This allows you to rip from CDs into MP4 format to your phone, manage your addressbook, backup to your PC, send texts from your PC, download photos and videos from the phone, connect to the internet etc. etc... I have used Nokia suite on infra red and USB and both worked fine (although USB is much much faster).

I have nothing else with bluetooth yet, so haven't had a chance to check out that feature. As this feature is bound to use more power, I leave it switched off. Will add comments on this feature when I have tried it.

The music player works fine but I can't really comment on sound quality. The phone comes with a single mono earphone and NO adaptor to connect a standard 3.5mm headphone. There is a switch in the lead giving four contacts on the 2.5mm jack. When the button is pushed, the resistance changes from open circuit to 40 ohms, so I am reluctant to use a conventional 2.5 to 3.5 stereo converter (for fear of damaging the phone). Annoyingly, Maplin are quoting 28 days before they have these in stock again so I've had to order one from Hong Kong on e-bay. Will comment on sound quality when I can hook-up my Sennheisr 580s!

Good phone at a good price. Also pleased with my dealings with Tesco as a service provider (did I mention the 3 "best friends" at half price for calls and text?). All good.

Members' Comments onBig Black Fred's Review

• BobTech on 24th Feb 2009

  I agree with this review because... My experience with this phone is very similar to his.