The Camera : Imags & Video Quality : Nokia 3120c

Features
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2MP Camera + LED Flash
640*480 Video Recording @ 15fps


Nokia 3120 classic is low budget phone which you can buy arround SL Rs. 12,000/= in Sri Lanka which is around 100USD. Its a normal phone with a Fixed Focus 2MP (Mega Pixel) camera.

I didn't expect much when I bought this phone, but its camera was stunning. Images were very clear and videos were... WOW! :)

Imaging
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To tell about its camera, it has a 2MP sensor. Unfortunately it is Fixed Focus. Because of this images are not crisp-clear. But they are of very good quality and is more than sufficient for me (as a Engineering Student).

The camera is good for taking images in the range 1foot to about 10 meters. Of course you can do more, but its quality is best only in a short range. This is because its a Fixed Focus camera. When there is plenty of light, the images turn out to be very good, but if light conditions are low I prefer to use 'Night Mode' instead of its in-built flash.

The best thing about this camera is that it can be used to get photos of notes/books/newspaper articles etc. It comes very handy for students at times. When taken in a distance about 1 foot, letters are very clear and would even be usable in OCR - for text recognition.

Video
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The video quality of this phone is just stunning for its price. It has a 640*480 video recording capability and it is very clear when shooting ordinary scenes.

But it is not very effective if you are recording on the go (lets say in a car). The view would look blur if a sudden move is done or taken from a moving environment (moving car).

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Conclusion

Ingeneral the camera is awsome for the price. There may be better phones, but no phone would have rigidity and quality for such a low price.

Well-done NOKIA :)

Crash Test : Nokia 3120 Classic

Have you every wondered what would happen if you drop your phone many times?

Unlike any play-boy in the market, Nokia has the hardiest hand phones under its brand-name. Thats the very reason why I go Nokia always.

In contrast, I'd know many people who had their Sony Ericsons / Samsungs / HTCs / iPhones down the garbage after its very first fall (not very rigid). In the other hand Nokia phones are generally rigid and can take a lot of shock, humid and water splatter than any other phone in the market.

So what about the Nokia 3120c?

It is as rigid as any phone could be, but...

There are problems about the camera focusing after a lot of falls. A friend of mine who uses the same phone said me that he had concerns about his image quality after about 40 drops.

I checked the phone my self. Its housing was a mess but the phone was in good working condition. The images didn't also seem to be bad, but I agree that it wasn't in a position to take snap-shots of fine prints (books, papers etc)...

What else you need? A clay brick wouldn't have lasted 40 drops ;)

Themes & Wall-Papers : S40 Nokia

Themes make using the Nokia 3120classic interesting. There are tens of thousands of themes but finding good themes is difficult.

For the last couple of months, I have been able to collect some nice Themes for Nokia 3120Classic (Screen Size 240*320)

It is not possible to post them here because Blogger doesn't support file hosting capabilities. Send me an e mail and I will send you them via e-mail.

Some of the themes I have include good wallpapers and themes on:

Operating Systems:
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1. Vista / 7 (
2. Ubuntu

Nature (True and Computer-Designs)
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1. Water Falls
2. Wild Life
3. Cities
4. Historic Places (Sri Lanka, Australia, India, China, Russia, Iran)

Animals & Pets
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1. Movie Stars
2. Cats
3. Dogs
4. Birds
5. Fish

Weapons & War
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1. War-Ships
2. Fighter Jets
3. Submarines
4. Guns & Tanks

Religion & Related
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1. Islam
2. Christmas
3. Places of Worship

Write to me and I will send them to you by e mail. Tell me what type you are interested in so I need not to send unnecessary files.

Note : There may be delays because these days I am bussy with studies. But I will keep in-touch soon.

Write to : mzjdeen@gmail.com

Organizer

The organizer of Nokia 3120c is equipped with an alarm clock, To-do list, Calendar, Notes, Calculator, and Count down Timer, a Stopwatch, and dictionary.

The calendar
The calendar in this floor is sufficiently good enough for day-to-day activity. For each day you can add multiple types of notes such as reminders, meetings, calls, birthdays and memos. If you know how to use these features properly, it can be used to organize your day.

To-Do List
The to-do list enables you to create to-do notes and organize them according to priority.

Notes
this phone enables you to create multiple notes there are each one is 3000 characters in length. Although the length of the note is not massive, it comes handy and sufficient most of the time.

Calculator
The Calculator has modes “standard calculator”, “scientific calculator” and “ loan calculator” inbuilt to it. The scientific calculator has a large variety of features. It would not be a replacement for an scientific calculator but would come handy when a real scientific calculator is not present.

These are the features that have grabbed my attention. There are many more features and I believe that they are common to all devices that can be called as cellular phones.

Nokia 3120 Classical Voice Recognition

I have been using my phone for some time some time and recently tested out its voice recognition feature. At first voice recognition did not work very good with me. But after some training it seemed to understand the commands I spoke to it. Training was done without the headset as I rarely use it.

I checked it out the devices capability in various environments, some of them which were very noisy. Having a contact list of about 400 speech recognition is one of the most important features of a phone to me.

In calm environments, it recognized almost every name I have spoken. But in certain cases, it seemed not to pick up what I said. It may have been caused by my Asian English accent. But this was never a problem to me.

In my day to day activity, I used the phone is noisy and packed Sri Lankan busses, trains and noisy blocked roads. Results I obtained were poor, but not very bad. Although it shows capability to recognize names I speak in noisy environments, I prefer to use the old fashioned method of reaching them.

Overall performance is good without the headset is ‘not bad’. But not good enough for me.

Quickly Aging Skin

I have used this phone for quite some time and found no serious problem except what I have written previously. They infact are not problems but weaknesses of the phone, well no one can expect a super phone for around 13,000SLR (equivalent : about 120USD).

But with time, I noticed that the nice battery cover seems to be pealing out its skin. Its not a problem afterall. But it makes the sweet looking phone to look horrible later. The front side of the phone is perfect though :).

I suggest you use a pouch if you are getting such a phone, well if you are not happy with it, I suggest you change the casing every once and then. I thought of doing it once the phone is 6 months old.

Helpful software that I use…

The Nokia 3120c been a Symbian S40 phone, it is not handicapped. There are many useful programs that you can use in your phone to make your life easy.

In the case of games, games larger than 1MB would not be accommodated by the pone. Yet some games cause the phone to run out of memory. In other words there are limitations for games.

Some interesting Software that I have used

1. Accounting
   
   1. Light wallet
      
2. Chatting
   
   1. Nimbus
      
   2. E-buddy
      
   3. Mig33
      
3. Information
   
   1. Snaptu
      
   2. WidSet (Embedded)
      
4. Utility
   
   1. BT File Manager
      
   2. Car Manager
      
5. Web Browsing
   
   1. Opera-Mini
      

OperaMini is the most fascinating of all programs I see. It enables us to browse the web like in a computer. It has basic features of an ordinary web browser.

Light wallet is very useful OpenSource free software. It is capable of exporting your ledgers in CSV format and you can directly open it with MS Excel or any such program.

Snaptu is a group of applications that has iPhone like interface. It is similar to WidSet that comes with the phone. Snaptu, which is new, has a long way to go and is getting popular by the day.

Nimbus, eBuddy and Mig33 are chat software that can be used to chat online. Nimbus seems to be convenient than the other 2 for me. You can use it to log on to multiple accounts such as Yahoo, GoogleTalk, MSN, ICQ, AIM, FaceBook and many more.

I use the BT File Manager to copy files from a friend's phone without bothering him/her. It makes life much simpler.

 

Problems with the phone

There are some points that I find as problems with the Nokia 3120. I have now been using this phone for more than 2 months. Here are some problems about the phone. But I don't think they are fatal.

Phone Heating:

The phone heats up soon when used causing discomfort. This is very notable when it is used to make calls, browse the net, play games and somewhat when recording. There is nothing you can do to avoid this according to my knowledge.

I don't think this phone is made for our country (tropical countries such as Sri Lanka, India etc). Because of this the cooling of the pone may go slow. But this may not interfere your day to day activity. I use the headset when making calls so it's my pocket that gets heated and not my ear. But if you are in to mobile gaming, this may be a case. I have no suggestions for you in this matter.

Low Battery Life

I really hate charging phones. I would be delighted if I didn't have to charge the phone for at least one week if it is not used. But the 3120c goes down in a matter of couple days. That's not all; it takes about 2.5 hours to charge the phone from scrap. It's really disgusting.

I inquired from many stores around Kandy-Sri Lanka, but came up with no solution for this matter. Well I guess the saying 'cheep stuff are no good' is somewhat applicable to this phone.

Front Camera

It is not possible for a 3120c user to use the front camera except for Video Calls. I don't know why, but would it have been that difficult to enable us to use if for general purposes other than Video Calls? Well if you don't know any other use of the front camera, here is one, you can use it to check up your make-up when there is no mirror around.

These are the biggest problems that I find in the phone. In case you find anything other than these, drop me a comment or an e-mail.

Internet Experience

Internet is a requirement to the society today. But when it is in you palm when you are on the go, it means a lot more than ordinary internet you would see in a bulky computer.

The 3120 classic is a great phone for browsing the net, but it isn’t the best. It is a 3G phone and will do up to 384kbps in its connections. Its more than enough for ordinary phone use. You can use J2ME (JAVA) applications such as Nimbus, MIG33 and ebuddy for chatting and OperaMini for web browsing.

I find it more convenient to chat using Nimbus with my FaceBook friends and friends of all messenger networks. Its really convenient and easy as I don’t have to spend time in front of a computer.

Its screen is not bad for web browsing but a bigger screen would give a better thrill in mobile browsing.

But if you are looking for a phone to go online using your Laptop, this isn’t what you are looking at. In this case you can go for a phone of 3.5G.

Overall, the 3120 Classic is fine for ordinary phone use.  But the small screen and 3G internet speeds may not fulfill all your total requirements.

Battery Life

Battery life is something you should not read from me. It is because; it varies depending on usage and signal strength where the phone is kept.

In my environment, signal strength is 2 out of 4 most of the time and sometimes no 3G coverage. This is not a good environment to stay and talk about battery life because the phone is always searching for its network burning extra battery.

But under my conditions and a lot of gaming, the phone can easily last 2 days . Its not much but if you go in to intensive gaming and GPRS it may go down well before 24 hours.

It is said that the phone can easy stand about 10 days 3G standby if signal strength is high. Also should give arround 2:30 hours talktime under 3G and 3:30 hours talktime under 2G. Thats plenty.

I advise you to take your charger with you or charge an extra battery and keep it in your pocket.

3120c First Internet Experience

I am currently using a Mobitel Smart Prepaid plan on my phone, which is entitled to 3.5G HSDPA network that can do up to 7.2mbbs downlink. So the 3120c been 3G can’t handle more than about 350kbps. So it is a drastic difference.

Mobitel says, “Makes broadband feel slow”, in their Internet advertisements. I really felt what they meant by it when I used it for browsing the very first time.

So pal, if you are getting this babe for some high speed internet browsing experience… do not proceed. There are better options such as a Nokia 6120c for your need for high speed internet (the prices are alike).

It supports Opera Mini 3.1 and gives a sufficiently good internet experience on the go. I found it hard to give network access to certain applications. That isn’t a big deal relatively to what it gives out.  

Where to buy your 3120c : Sri Lanka

If you are thinking of buying a Nokia 3120c from its agent, that is Softalogic Lanka Pvt Ltd, you would be disappointed.

Softalogic has been saying people that they don’t have the phone in stock since a long time. The typical answer you might get is “we are getting a shipment in 3 weeks time; we might get some phones with it”. Don’t bother going back to them; it is because that shipment of phones never comes. At least it didn’t for a long time when I was trying to buy it.

So your options lie with the ordinary cell phone shops. I normally don’t recommend a purchase outside the dealer (For Nokia that is Softalogic). But I can’t help because they don’t seem to be interested in this interesting piece of gadget. The reasons are not known though.

I got mine out of the dealer for SL Rs. 13,800/= (Early April). The prices are dropping. There might be a lot of other options for you. But if you are looking for a good Video recording quality, this would be the best option.

Key Pad : Nokia 3120c

The shape of the key board is fantastic. The shape of the keypad enables one to message very effectively and with high speed. The buttons are great and can be pressed with slight force.

When a silicone cover was used as protection of the phone, the performance of the key pad didn’t deteriorate much. But when a plastic housing was used, some minor difficulties were experienced. Here buttons were not easy to press and at times 2 buttons were pressed at the same time. Pressing number 3 sometimes caused exit messages as the both ‘3’ and the ‘Cancel’ was pressed at the same time. But if no protective layer is used, everything should be just as fine

Besides, since when did wearing a condom guarantee 100% satisfaction.

 

Nokia 3120c : Screen : 16M colours TFT - 240-320

The screen of Nokia 3120 is of amazing quality. Having a resolution of 240*320, 16 Million TFT screen puts itself ahead the majority of its counterparts in its price category.

The screen is nice and bright under normal conditions and its quality is praiseworthy. It is doubtful if any other phone could achieve this under given conditions of price and resolution.

Yet there is a problem, when taken out in the sun, readability plumbed. But it was yet useable to some extent. This wouldn’t be a problem if you can find a way to stop the strong sunlight falling in the screen (your own shadow might be useful for this).

Nokia 3120c : A good phone for a low budget

Nokia 3120c is a good phone targeting those of low budget. It isn’t a fancy phone but is sufficient for ever day work.

The first impression I had about the phone was its shape and ease to type messages. The buttons pressed smoothly and the phone was quick in moving through menus and launching programs.

Been on a Symbian S40 platform, it suffers with some disadvantages.  Not supporting high end software and games is the biggest disadvantage I see. Well you can’t expect everything from a cheap phone, can you?

The radio, media player, video camera are some of the features I love. They could have been better, but Nokia seems not interested in giving away things for a low price.

The camera, which is a 2MP with LED flash can take 640 by 480 (640*480) videos in 3gp format (15fps) of unlimited length. This in comparison with other models is very advantageous as most phones come with 320*240 resolution video at 12fps.

In general the phone is very good for its price and I hope to write more about it soon.