C3-00 Sim Free Mobile Phone - Dark Grey

I am reviewing my original review here; First I do like the Phone. It is new and looks and feels good in the hand. My one problem with it is that the phone was advertised and had a written description, plus a photo of it, showing a QWERTY keypad. The one I received had an AZERTY keypad. Maybe not a deal breaker for some, but when I contacted the seller I was told that they just sold the phones and that the keypad was not their concern. Surely this is false and misleading advertising. Also the phone was originally locked to Orange which would lead me to believe that the phone was flashed to unlock it, hence the AZERTY keypad. I would have given it 5 stars, but I have subtracted one for the misleading description, one for the wrong keypad, and one for the unhelpful attitude of this seller. If the attitude of the seller changes I will update this review....ANOTHER UPDATE>>Using this phone now for almost six years now, i have grown used to the keyboard long ago and have to say it is the best phone i have ever owned, and was a great buy. Great signal, battery life and call quality. Now it has finally started to miss calls sometimes but after almost 6 years use i cant complain. An update to this review; The seller has since contacted me, and is trying to get me a C3 Mobile phone with the QWERTY keypad, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt in the meantime, and am adding another star while I am waiting.

The phone is solid and still looks nice and shiny after 18 months. The battery life is excellent and doesn't seem to have declined. The battery tops itself up fairly quickly too. The keyboard is comfortable and easy to use - much better than standard mobile keys. Won't sync with Mac OS. Nokia didn't develop cross-platform software and, AFAIK their software will only work with Windows (not sure about Linux). Nokia used to rely on Apple's iSync, which used to work but is now incompatible with Mac OS. Nokia's Discussion forums are full of questions about this but Nokia have left things stagnating and merely recommend using iSync (which is fine if you use Snow Leopard, or older). Bluetooth is a similar story. It used to connect to my iMac but now won't saying 'Service not supported by other device'. USB connection/flash removal only works on my iMac as a Mass Storage. This is the only way that I can transfer photos + music. Contacts & text messages won't sync. The photo quality is quite poor. I've taken some passable pictures on sunny days but in anything less than good conditions people look like they've been caught on a CCTV camera. So with these incompatibilities with Mac OS, it's impossible to sync contacts, text messages, etc. The Wifi won't connect to my wireless router and claims that my security key is wrong. (It's not). The display is quite blocky but easy enough to read. All in all, I have a basic phone (call and text) with a nice keyboard and a good battery.

I only need a mobile phone for calls and a text every now and again. Tried an LG smart phone but it didn't like to sense my finger swipes and also packed up a week outside it's guarantee. Always had a Nokia dumb-phone prior to the LG so went back to Nokia (C3-00 this time. my Wiafe has the forerunner the Asha 201. It's lasted very well indeed so I decided to get the almost indentical replacement). Always found Nokia battery life to be excellent, and the C3-00 seems to follow the trend. Also speaker-phone volume is good (can hear it ok in a noisy environment). Nice compact size and the querty keypad is good to use. However, beware when handling as it is very smooth with rounded corners, so can easily slip thro' one's fingers. Wanted to get a flip-case for it but unable to locate one on the internet and had to settle for a pouch, which doesn't solve the issue of dropping it when using it out and about. If I marmalized this new phone, I don't think I'd find a better replacement, although there is a similar style Blackberry available (I prefer the Nokia querty pad layout, but personal taste obviously).

Bought this as a first phone for my daughter (age 11) who wanted a blackberry style phone with keyboard. This is a good value, well made, quite sturdy feeling phone with good features - ideal as a first time phone. Good camera, web access, simple to use interface, clear speaker and good screen size and resolution. For the price, I can't fault it and my daughter loves it.

I am comparing this with the LG C300 Town that I had before. The C300 is a phone I paid £30 PAYG for at Argos, but it didn't have wifi and it didn't have 3G (unsurprisingly for that price), and I needed in particular the wifi, and once you've used the querty keyboard in this form factor it's hard to go back, so my choices were Asha 302, C3, E5, E6, Blackberry and so on. I didn't need multitasking, so thought I'd try this phone as one of the cheaper ways to get the functionality I wanted. The Good: It feels solid, does what I need it to, build quality is good, battery life OK. The C300 keyboard is one of the best quertys I've tried, belying the low cost of the phone. This phone's KB is just as good, in fact almost identical profile, spacing, push force and sound. Unlike the Blackberries (probably the best quertys), the keys tend to favour use of the thumbnails for accurate presses. It's not a problem, I'm used to it with the C300. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V copy pasting is a nice touch, although following the PC mechanism for doing so is a little clumsy. Observations: 8 seconds to get a very simple web page up on my local WPA network. I don't know if this is standard in the latest wifi phones, but it seems pretty slow. On both phones, typing an IP address is laborious, as you have to switch between numbers and characters so many times. Minor irritations: Not enough customisation options for the home screen for my liking. Not enough alarms. The LG had as many as you wanted. Internet shortcuts you can't delete. Phone is very slightly top heavy, which feels a little strange in the hand. Not sure how to make the network selection default to the wifi if present, I'll wager you can't do that. Now the major irritations: You use the 'down' key quite a bit when selecting menus, but it's not comfortable. The key that you're pressing most of the time should be nice and comfortable to push. The direction rocker on the C3 protrudes about 1mm, is about 2mm in width, but the problem is it tapers over that 2mm, so your thumb is pressing a wedge, and it's doing it frequently when web browsing, selecting menus. It's not comfortable to press an area less than about 4mm width. If you check the direction rocker on the C300 it's wider, and it manages to be just wide enough. Nokia have gone for looks over function. I admit the C3 looks a lot better, but the nav keys just don't cut it. Pity, it may be the reason I ditch this phone in the end, but perhaps I'll get used to using my thumbnail to go 'down'. Please try pressing 'down' on an sample one of these in the shop before buying it. Do it at least 50 times, and see how you feel afterwards. The FM radio requires the headphones to be plugged in or it refuses to function. This is nasty. The C300, whilst commenting that I'd get better reception with the headphones plugged in, at least made a stab at trying to pick up a signal, and very often if I held it right I'd get something, enough to hear some news or something. Really handy for those times when you're forced to wait somewhere, perhaps at a garage, and let's face it, who takes the phones everywhere with them? The volume control on the C3 is the other problem. Not enough variation between one bar and no bars (volume off), it would be nice if it were a bit more logarithmic? Sometimes you want to hear some music, or the radio but don't want other people hearing it. That's all for now, only had the phone a day, but hope this helps prospective buyers.

I considered getting a Blackberry until I saw this phone. It claimed to do just about everything a Blackberry does. It does look very similar to a Blackberry but looks are so misleading. It started off quite well but within days things it was supposed to do just stopped working like alerting me when emails arrived. When you open an email, more often than not, only the heading opens, you cannot read the message. You have to go online to see the message in the browser which is a very slow, painful process. You cannot get any of the great Apps that are available to Blackberry, Iphone or Android phones. It is really rubbish as a smart phone which is what it is pretending to be. So if you are looking for a smart phone or a Blackberry, don't waste your money on this Nokia. Even Apps for Nokia are not available for this model. I wish I had gone for the Blackberry, I won't be buying Nokia again.

Has a querty keyboard, easy to use with al that I require, do not like over complicated so called smart phones, excellent battery life and can be changed with spare battery which I obtained, fits in my jacket top pocket, all in all I can not fault it

This is a great little phone its fast on facebook and other things just like my old c-300 i had 16/20 yrs ago now pink one but i was confused to why they sent it out with no charger so its a good job i had a couple of right chargers part from this vwry pleased photo,s are brilliant what i put on facebook from this phone !usic tones i make,sjust by siting next to my c.d player.. Well worth £39 Alison from Hampshire