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.