Nokia 7250 SIM Free Mobile Phone - Blue

When taking the phone out of the box, it appears exactly as attractive and compact as you see in the adverts. The blue cover that mine came in seemed perfectly aesthetically designed. Then you notice the weight - it's incredibly light for such a technology-packed phone. However it feels nicely solid, and feels very snug in any trouser pocket. It's only slightly bigger than the 8310, one of Nokia's smallest phones.

The screen is a very bright, vibrant LCD colour display. Although not perfect like a CRT display, the pixels are very small, comparable to a computer TFT screen. For most purposes the screen is excellent, although it could be a bit sharper when displaying images. Menus and text are sharp and comfortable to read.

Images! The camera! It's so quick and simple to use, I have started to take pictures of practically everything, just like in the adverts. Just two button presses are required to take a photo from scratch. The resolution is not particularly great (346x288) but for media messages to other phones it is a good balance between size and quality. Unfortunately it is difficult to transfer the images to PC, without having to buy some expensive connectivity equipment (either IR or a special cable, with Nokia PC Suite). Any image can be used as a background, making it much easier to give your phone that personal touch than before (with small tacky operator logos). Whilst on the area of personalising, polyphonic MIDI ringtones are supported and playback quality is clear and sharp, quite impressive when you first hear it!

When making calls, the sound quality is pretty average but when you use the Loudspeaker feature the phone shines. You can have group conversations as your friends gather round! This doubles up as a impromptu handsfree if you don't mind everyone around you being able to hear everything.

The menus are structured in the same way as all Nokia phones, so previous Nokia users will have no difficulty getting to grips with this phone. The extra < and > buttons on the navi-pad are shortcuts to commonly used items (compose SMS and Calendar), which I have found to be very useful indeed.

Other features include the FM radio, which I don't really use much (it is a phone, not a walkman after all), stopwatch, alarm and calendar. The mundane GPRS and WAP are average on this phone, it is not really designed with web surfing as one of the main features but it is there. Support for JAVA applications means games and programs can be downloaded off the internet.

There is 5mb of shared memory to save all downloaded images, tones and applications, plus media messages. Text messages still have their own memory area with a maximum of 160 total sent/received. The phone book has a generous 500 number capacity, which should be more than sufficient for most users.

The one gripe I had with this phone at first was the button layout, the 'slipperyness' takes about a day or two to get used to but once you do, it's so much quicker and easier to press the buttons on this phone as your fingers just glide over them! Battery life could also be a bit longer, with constant calling it only lasts a few hours. With moderate use (frequent text, occasional call) the battery lasts 2-3 days.

Compared to my last two nokia phones, the 7110 and 8310, I'd say the 7250 beats them both hands down, put together. The minor niggles don't detract from the quality of the phone much at all. The camera might just be a gimmick, but the rest of the features and excellent build of the phone make it an excellent purchase.

The first thing you notice about this phone, apart from it's sleek and stylish good looks, is it's keypad layout. Three seperate rows of keys, blended into the fascia. Why Nokia haven't used this simple design before is beyond me, as for a small phone (and my big thumbs) it's so easy to text! And it is a small phone considering what's inside it. Well, a camera for one thing, and for most people this will be the reason to buy this phone, but just wait for a minute. Are you after a phone just to take and send photo's? Or are you after a phone just to take and send good quality photo's? If it's the second one then get the 7650 or 3650. They take amazing pic's for a phone. The 7250, not so good. While it can handle most lighting, and display good colour, most pictures seem very grainy, and edges are jagged. But that's mainly down to screen resolution, and the 7650 / 3650 having a bigger screen, gets a better resolution. I'm being picky of course, and when such a small phone can intergrate a camera like this, who's complaining?!

But it's not just about taking photo's is it? Well, is it?? Most of us still use good old fashioned SMS messaging, and the 7250 does it just as well as any other Nokia. It displays five lines of text in one screen (when typing and reading), and you also have the option of making one long text by linking messages. The dictionary is there of course, and when sending a picture to someone (photo or not) you can add some text to it. Isn't that nice?

Other extra's include a stereo radio (yes, that's STEREO), infrared, WAP, polyphonic ringtones, wallpapers, and eh, oh yes, loads of space (five megs!!) to save your photo's and java applications / games in.

As you can probably gather from all this, the Nokia 7250 has pretty much everything a modern phone should have (and a little more), but amazingly it doesn't have Bluetooth! For most of you that will mean very little, but for others it is pretty important and something I thought all new Nokia's would incorporate, but sadly, not the 7250. Such a shame. Still, the infrared does it's job well.

All in all I think this is Nokia's best phone yet, and although expensive, it's worth every penny!

The first thing you notice about this phone, apart from it's sleek and stylish good looks, is it's keypad layout. Three seperate rows of keys, blended into the fascia. Why Nokia haven't used this simple design before is beyond me, as for a small phone (and my big thumbs) it's so easy to text! And it is a small phone considering what's inside it. Well, a camera for one thing, and for most people this will be the reason to buy this phone, but just wait for a minute. Are you after a phone just to take and send photo's? Or are you after a phone just to take and send good quality photo's? If it's the second one then get the 7650 or 3650. They take amazing pic's for a phone. The 7250, not so good. While it can handle most lighting, and display good colour, most pictures seem very grainy, and edges are jagged. But that's mainly down to screen resolution, and the 7650 / 3650 having a bigger screen, gets a better resolution. I'm being picky of course, and when such a small phone can intergrate a camera like this, who's complaining?!

But it's not just about taking photo's is it? Well, is it?? Most of us still use good old fashioned SMS messaging, and the 7250 does it just as well as any other Nokia. It displays five lines of text in one screen (when typing and reading), and you also have the option of making one long text by linking messages. The dictionary is there of course, and when sending a picture to someone (photo or not) you can add some text to it. Isn't that nice?

Other extra's include a stereo radio (yes, that's STEREO), infrared, WAP, polyphonic ringtones, wallpapers, and eh, oh yes, loads of space (nearly five megs!!) to save your photo's and java applications / games in.

As you can probably gather from all this, the Nokia 7250 has pretty much everything a modern phone should have (and a little more), but amazingly it doesn't have Bluetooth! For most of you that will mean very little, but for others it is pretty important and something I thought all new Nokia's would incorporate, but sadly, not the 7250. Such a shame. Still, the infrared does it's job well.

All in all I think this is Nokia's best phone yet, and although expensive, it's worth every penny!