Phones.com » Cell Phones » Review of the Nokia 3120 classic

The Nokia 3120 Classic is a monoblock, with rounded corners on its base. The phone definitely isn't going to be a show-off, but it does feel very good in your hands. The 85 grams weighing handset has the potential to be a hefty competitor in its price range. The small weight is acheived with a completely plastic case. The keypad is strong and comfortable to work with. The phone hosts a polished look, with very few controls provided on the sides. The volume control keys on the right and Power / Profile selection key on top are the only spare keys the 3120 Classic has. Above the brilliant (16 M color) display you have the earphone grill, and a teeny-weeny camera aperture to its left for video-calling. An attractive choice of colors makes the 3120 a Classic: Graphite, Plum/Powder White, Deep Red, Chestnut Brown.

This Nokia is no kid when it comes to features. Though priced a bit higher in the market, Nokia has made sure the phone comes with its very own specialities. The User Interface is based on the popular S40 interface, which is easy to operate and has some fan following. People who want a lot of customisation on their phone would like this and the support for popular sound formats for ringtones. There's a good multimedia player Nokia has bundled with the 3120, which supports the MP3, MP4, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ formats. The camera took decent shots, being a 2-megapixel one with an LED flash. Video quality was acceptable, though at CIF resolution only. A stereo radio was present, lack of RDS support was made up with the Visual Radio service. A few things we really liked about the 3120 Classic are: the front camera was a VGA; there was support for Push Email and integrated IM; and the HTML browser was decent. The phone came with 24 MBs of free space for user data, and the card slot supports microSDs upto 16 GB (as of now). A few bundled games, Voice dialling and Java support complete the Nokia package.

The Nokia 3120 Classic is well connected. Lack of HSDPA is no issue for buying at this price, but the dual-band 3G might hurt some. The 3G network support (max. downrate 384 kbps) and video calling support are the biggest plus for this handset. GSM was not compromised with Quadband support, EDGE Class 32 (download rates upto 296 kbps) and improved GPRS. Bluetooth completed the package with A2DP support and EDR 2.0. USB 2.0 facilitates hooking up your phone to the PC for modem functionality or data transfers.

Though the Nokia 3120 Classic is not a smartphone, it sucked its juice faster. We were content with the 1000 mAh Li-ion battery, but Nokia could've done better with the battery life part. A 2.5 - 3.5 hour talk time was expected depending on whether 3G was used or not. The standby time of the battery was moderately rated at about 290 hours or about 12 days.

Most Nokias have been widely known to provide outstanding value for money. This Nokia didn't leave us disheartened, but the 3120 Classic could've been priced lower because a variety of other competitors on the market had tempting prices. The 3120 Classic was no outstanding handset at its price, however this is not a dealbreaker. Those who have known Nokia's superior quality and performance would definitely vouch for it.