Nokia 6030 review: Cheap, yet a show off

Sound and text

Ringing is polyphonic and features 16 voices. There are nearly 30 melodies prepared for you in the phone. Provided you need more, additional melodies can be downloaded and saved into the shared memory of 3 MB capacity. A bit weird are the cracks that can be heard at the very beginning of each sound step, played in the Gallery. Luckily those cracks did not reappear in the ringing.

As for ringing profiles, they allow for modifications. What's more, Nokia offers two places for the user to create a completely new profile of their own. The device also offers time profiles with preset time out options.

Profiles • time profile setup

Nokia 6030 manages text and MMS messages. In the process of writing it informs you about the number of the free characters left. A text messages can be divided into 6 sub-messages. Available is also a standard T9 dictionary, which is possible to completely switch off. Multimedia messages can use up as much as 100 kB at most. There is no email client in the phone.

Message types • T9 dictionary is possible to switch off completely • writing with small letters • a capital letters

Alarm and calendar

The alarm clock can be set to ring repetitively, in a selected interval. It also enables for choosing the days, on which it shall be active. The calendar is once again incomplete. Its menu offers a month view only, which is extremely insufficient. At the same time, this is the function, in which the focus on non-pretentious users should have stepped back into background.

Alarm clock is repeated • selecting repetition days • sleep fill settings

One can choose the day, which the calendar week should start with. Each day can be assigned an event, a note as long as maximum 160 characters, and a reminder, which can be repeated daily, every week, every fortnight, once a month or even once a year. The calendar does not have a task manager.


Month view at the calendar • note view

Do not look for a stopwatch, a countdown, a dictaphone or a mail box in Nokia 6030. The phone only has a standard calculator and a simple currency converter. A bit more complicated converter is installed into the Applications. It offers distances, capacity, surface, temperature and other conversions, incl. a conversion type of its own.

Application converter

Mono FM radio

Those, who may be thinking of buying the new Finnish toy, may start feel undecided by the FM receiver present in the phone. I really don't know, whether Nokia would have suffered losses, if it had implemented a stereophonic radio. To activate the radio, you need to plug Nokia's HS-7 earphones, delivered together with the mobile. Surprisingly, they play pretty well for the cheap phone they have been attached to. Do not expect any audiophile parties, though. What we are offered here is just another pair of common plastic earphones. Anyway, even so, the bass components and the drum beats can be heard clearly, which is - as you all know - far from a common feature of mobiles' basic equipment.

Earphones HS-7 delivered together with the phone • slide clip • there is no radio without plugging the earphones

The phone allows you to save as much as 12 radio stations, including their titles. Automatic tuning is sure enough. The earphones can also be used as a handsfree set. At the point of "confluence" of their wires there is a tiny base with a microphone as well as a button for both accepting and denying a call. Moreover, the mains leading to the converters have different lengths. As a result, you can drop the wire of the right earphone around your neck, so that the earphones alone can lie on your breast, when not used.

Tuning stations in the monophonic radio

No Mini-USB connection

In order to connect the mobile to a computer or to another device, you will have to use a data cable. Other options are not available. The main difficulty is that Nokia 6030 is not equipped with Bluetooth, nor has it infrared port. What's more, the delivery package does not contain a data cable, so you will have to buy it in addition.

When the 6030 model was first launched, there was a lot of speculating about whether the connector, which could be seen on the presented pictures, was of the mini-USB type. Well, I will have to disappoint you, for it is not. What we have here is an interface of Nokia's own, which the Finns called "Plug and Play". I do not understand, where the standard Pop-Port disappeared, since it was virtually identical as far as usage was concerned.

The slot for the Plug and Play connector

The phone is equipped with a built-in hardware modem, which you will, however, hardly have the chance to make use of. The obstacle lies in the necessity of cable connection, which is also the only one available, as well as in the lower speed of the GPRS technology - in this phone of Class 6 only. Web fans will have to do with the 2.0 version of the WAP browser, which also handles simple internet pages.

Internet browser

Let's conquer the world!

The main advantage of the new Nokia is probably the design. In terms of functional equipment we can hardly speak of any miracles, especially considering the fact, that the phone lacks certain basic functions, such as the week and the day view in the calendar, the use of ringing melodies for distinguishing the callers or stereophony of the built-in radio.

I dare predict that Nokia 6030 is going to be a successful mobile phone, which many mobile users will probable get to like. Yet, I seriously doubt the success of this phone will be as impressive as the one of the legendary Nokia 3510i or Nokia 3100, which achieved some excellent commercial results at the time. Besides, it may be worth considering the option of paying somewhat 30 euros more and getting rather the 6021 model, which offers an active TFT display, Bluetooth and a better organized calendar.