Nokia 6300 – Truly Beautifully Simple

When Nokia designed their slogan for the Nokia 6300 – “Simply beautiful.  Beautifully simple.”  - they meant business!  The 6300 has been pared down to the absolute essentials for a camera phone.  While the sheer simplicity of this phone might not be for everybody, if you are looking for a simple camera phone solution here’s what you’ll get with this Nokia…

For starters, the camera itself can take photos up to a very serviceable 2 megapixels.  There’s an 8x digital zoom built in.  Although there’s no LED photo light and it doesn’t include a flash, the camera does support video recording.

You won’t get far with the built in memory, which weighs in at under 8 megabytes, but there is a microSD slot that will support up to 2 gigabtyes.  Nokia includes a 128 megabyte microSD card, which I would say is the minimum size you need to make this phone functional. 

The phone supports multimedia although it doesn’t include support for some of the popular formats like WMA, but does of course support mp3 as well as several other miscellaneous formats.  There’s a built in music player, and you can get FM radio in stereo with Visual Radio capabilities, and there is a built in video player, as well.  The ring tones can be either polyphonic or real music.  You can even play JAVA based games on this phone.  There is a headphone socket included, which of course enhances the stereo experience.

For those users that tend to be a bit more traditional, there’s a 12 button alpha numeric keypad as well as 5 more buttons for dedicated menu and function use.  The buttons are relatively large and easy to manipulate, and not having to use a touch screen was actually a bit refreshing.

The two inch screen (30 x 40 mm) displays in 24 bits and in as many as 16 million colours for a rich visual experience.  The resolution on the display is 240 x 320 pixels. 

The lifespan of the battery can be a bit of a limitation for power users, but quite frankly, a power user is unlikely to be attracted to buying this phone in the first place.  The battery will last for 3.5 hours of talk time and a little over 14 days on standby.

This phone is capable of surfing the Internet, and includes a browser that supports XHTML as well as support for Adobe Flash media using the Flash Lite technology, which goes a long way towards enhancing the multimedia experience of mobile phone surfing.  You can even stream video.  You’ll also be able to check your email while on the go, and text message, too.  On the delicious side, the phone uses Nokia Xpress for audio messaging, one of the fastest and easiest ways to send voice or sound clips.

The phone include the award winning Nokia suite for managing your personal information, as well as support for USB connectivity.

The 6300 is a solid and well made choice for a simplified camera phone, and as long as you have an understanding of what the phone can and cannot do before purchasing, as far as we can find you shouldn’t have any reason to be unhappy with your choice.