Near Nirvhana with Nokia

Over the past few months I have been looking for a solution to end my relationship with my favorite phone the Nokia 6310i. The phone has been a beauty for me for many years. It could do everything that I wanted and above all else, communicated with my Palm Pilots 'all of the time.'

During the early days, my faithful Palm Tungsten T would surf the web flawlessly using the bluetooth connection and when the memory of the phone was full in the address fields, the Palm was an amicable substitute with its bluetooth connection to dial friends.

When I purchased my lifedrive, I was a little disappointed that the transition was not seemless, but this ended when Palm came out with a few phone updates that corrected the issue and I was satisfied. So, when an unfortunate stool finally broke the faithful Nokia 6310i, a phone that was dropped, flung, stomped-on, drenched and sat-on (accidentally, of course) finally gave its last electronic blurb, I knew that it was time to move on.

Although "The Brick" (as it has been affectionately called) still continued to work and despite the constant berating that took place from my coworkers, friends and family for carrying such a "large" phone, I enjoyed the seemless nature of it. What made matters worse was the fact that I could not find a replacement and carried the broken "brick" around for almost five months before replacing it.


The Contenders

I looked at the RAZR and, with all of the discounts available, thought that this would be a worthwhile replacement, however the RAZR was actually slower than "The Brick." The menu system was akin to starting Windows. Although the bluetooth connection was nice, it felt clunky and slow. Cute, but not practical.

Next, was the Sony Ericsson. There were many model numbers to choose from but even though they were all nice, with a decent menu system, I could not find a bargain among them. And my rule is: If I have to pay a house payment for a phone, I am afraid that it will not do. So, cute but too expensive.

I looked at a few Samsung models next, but could not find any that came close to matching "The Brick." Most did not support bluetooth, but all had magnificent screens. Infact, I would have to say that just about all of the Samsung phones that I tested had magnificent screens and excellent print and video quality. But again, if I couldn't use it with my Lifedrive, I couldn't use it - period.


Enlightenment.......

Then it came! A glow, the parting of the clouds, an angelic sound through the quagmire of despair. Could it be? ..........

I perused the store looking at a small form factor phone. Odd, was the fact that the phone was a flip phone. Why? Because Nokia is not known for making flip-phones. They, and I say this proudly, MAKE BRICKS !!! BRICKS THAT WORK !!!! But this was beautiful. Akin to seeing the girl of your dreams from a distance and not being able to open your mouth to say hello. It flipped, it's menu system was very intuitive. The address book was familiar, the menu system was familiar and of course bluetooth and infrared all in one package. I turned on my lifedrive and in no-time flat was connected to the internet through the phone. I was able to upload my address book to the phone without making any modifications in the address book sequence. It saved vcards accurately. It's bluetooth connection to my Lifedrive, dare I say it, was actually faster than The Brick. And it timed out after lack of use after 3 minutes, instead of randomly as it had done previously on The Brick, while surfing the internet.

The Nokia 6102i is a splendid phone. It has a small form factor and works FLAWLESSLY with the Lifedrive. There is absolutely no need to download any additional software to update the bluetooth connection. Its affiliation with the address book works flawlessly. There have been some reports that the picture quality is not that great, but for me, I bought the phone to speak to others, not to take pictures.

A real plus is that you can send all of your photos or movies taken from the phone to your Lifedrive via bluetooth or via infrared and clear the memory that way. Additionally, the phone comes with software that connects to your computer which can do the same. Additionally, you can transfer multimedia files from your lifedrive to your phone and vice versa all wirelessly. I have even surprisingly surfed the web via a bluetooth connection with my Lifedrive connected to the phone and conducted a call via the speaker function of the phone.

Worth taking a look, I think that this phone is a worthy successor to the 6310i if you are in the running for a new LIFEDRIVE-Compatible phone. There are many phones that are probably better, but for the incredibly discounted prices that are now out, this phone is very hard to beat.

LDD.