Almost all phones of today can be seen boasting about their features from java to MMS and EDGE but the Nokia 1100 does not boast of any adrenaline pumping features. It is the cheapest available phone available in the market from the stables of Nokia. It is pretty smaller than the older brick-sized 3310 and 3315 and at the dimensions of 107 x 46 x 20mm and weighing around 86gms (with battery) the phone delivers what it is supposed to do-make a call. Infact it goes behind the make-a-call thing and includes SMS, reminder, alarm clock, picture messaging, calculator etc.
The build quality is very good (I have crashed my phone almost 20 times) which will sometimes make you feel careless for your phone. The monochrome display has a resolution of 96 x 65 pixels which is capable of displaying the text as either 4 lines or 3 lines of text. The display quality is good enough to read in broad daylight, though the greenish-yellow backlight is almost unusable during day.
The 1100 supports GSM 900 & GSM 1800 and the antenna doesn’t show up to make a hole in your pocket. The network selection can be set to either automatic or manual. The internal memory isn’t quite large at 50 contacts and 50 SMS entries but it does its job for a casual user.
The way the messages are handled makes you wonder what the people at NOKIA came up with-the message memory is sometimes full at 45 and other times at 55(perhaps long messages are counted as 1 but take up space of 2 or 3 messages). There is an option for speed dialing too, but it seems that you cannot turn off the speed dialing (it shows as off but will still work). The call management features include all the basic one like automatic redial, call waiting, call hold and call divert.
The claimed battery timings are to be 400Hrs as standby and 4.5Hrs as talktime, though in my case it came out to work for appx. 48Hrs which is pretty good. The flashlight is a very good addition but isn’t strong enough to make your neighbour blind and all it is helpful is to navigate in perfect darkness. The anti-slip-grip may not behave exactly as how it is supposed to do but it does feel good for sure.
The sound quality is average as you will have no problem when there is little ambient noise, but if you are in a bus (especially the ones between NOIDA and Ghaziabad) then you are better off telling the person to call you again. There is no speaker been included but then it is a budget phone after all. There are nearly 35 inbuilt ring tones most of which appear as if they were composed to make you deaf. There is space for addition of 7 ring tones with the ability to create tones by self using the inbuilt monophonic composer if you really think you can beat Himesh Reshammia’s music. It also features a vibration alert, which means that you’ll never miss a call even if you stand near a jet’s engine.
The silicone keypad, unlike all other phones, is made up of continuous sheet with small bumps at the place of buttons. It is big and soft, thus making it very comfortable to work especially for the SMS junkies. Infact the keypad is the best I have ever seen on any phone and will work without a problem even for people with large fingers. T9 input is provided for English, Hindi, Indonesian and Pilipino which works as good as for any smart phone.
Though there aren’t any ‘cool’ games, there are still 2 been included namely snake II and space impact+ .profile can be customized by changing the ring tone, ringing volume, alert type, rhythmic backlight, screen saver etc. An addition of profile timings would have been greatly acclaimed and would have made it possible to sleep when you forget to change the profile.
All in all, a really sturdy phone with some nifty frills thrown around and still not making a hole in the pockets.
Nokia 1100 review
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