Nokia 6230i: First look

Yesterday Nokia showcased in Prague all three new mobile phones that have been introduced on Tuesday and that will be exhibited on CeBIT Expo next week. Contrary to the last presentation this time no smartphone has been introduced; they are all normal mobile phones.

This time they're "normal" also by their design. Nokia listened to the numerous reproaches that the phone designers are meddling too much to how do phones look and as a result there are phones, which are too provocative, but not quite ergonomic. So this time all three new phones are simple and conservative.

This Nokia 6230i first look is short even for a preview article, so don't expect many details in it. You will find all the details in our review when the phone hits the market. In this first look we are focusing on the new things - display, memory, camera…

Nokia 6230i: bestseller recycled

Here it comes: an innovation of the best present classic Nokia mobile phone. The 6230i model features a megapixel camera, better display, more memory and some useful functions.

It looks like Nokia 6230

Design of the phone is the same as at Nokia 6230; it's different just by small details. Just a detail in fact: a confirmation button, which is accentuated in the middle of the main control key. Now it's not necessary to press the whole key, which sometimes led to errors. We can find one more difference at the camera lens legend on the back - 1.3 megapixels.

Different keypad and camera legend

The most visible innovation is the display. I didn't measure it but it seems that size is the same and it's also active, displaying 65K colors, but the resolution is different. Instead of the old 128 x 128 format the new Nokia offers 208 x 208 pixels. The difference is visible at first sight, the new display is very crisp. White color on the display is not turning into any shade and an illumination is regular.

Assuming that the display size hasn't changed (as it seems so) it means that this is the sharpest display that can be found at any mobile phone. 5935 pixels per square centimeter is a lot.

The display

Display backlight switched off and on

Nokia should definitely support the new display with better graphics. Even though they write about 3D menus, at the tested piece it was the same old interface.

The same menu as before (for now)

The big change is the higher capacity of the internal memory. Instead of 8 MB at the older model new Nokia 6230i offers 32 MB - four times more. Like with the original 6230 model, there is an MMC memory card inside, which again can't be exchanged while the phone is on.

The memory card is related with the function USB Mass Storage, which I personally tried. After connecting the phone to a PC via cable and enabling USB in the menu, the PC shows the Nokia memory card as another hard drive. Right in a file manager you can copy MP3 files or other data on it. Transfer of 20MB to the phone took about a minute; during transfer it's not possible to use the phone. Otherwise the phone is quite fast, even though I had to wait at several occasions when working with pictures.

Of course I also tried how the 6230i takes pictures. It depends much on luck, as with other phones. Sometimes a picture is good, other time it's terrible. I'd appreciate more camera settings, especially manual exposure compensation. By the way, Nokia uses a typical resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels. You can see the pictures taken in less than ideal conditions. I also shoot two scenes with the Nokia 6630 smartphone for comparison purposes.

Pictures taken by Nokia 6230i

Same pictures taken by Nokia 6630 (note the slightly different format)

Nokia 6230i will most probably replace the original model 6230 - they won't be sold together. The new model will be sold initially for around 350 Euro (excluding taxes and subsidies).

First impressions: It should have been like this since the beginning, but anyway Nokia 6230i will be a very good phone, attracting many people. Display definitely could be bigger; perhaps Nokia could have been using a big display as it is in 6170 or 7270 models instead of higher resolution.