Nokia 6350 (graphite, AT&T)

3.5 stars

"great! I talk & text; calendar, to-do list & voice note" on August 29, 2010 by benteric

Pros: excellent: short-cut organizing, feel & flip, button feedback, home screen info arrangement, reading screen in direct sunlight.
PC to phone program (OVI, Nokia free download) is very good. Has dedicated "voice note" button.

Cons: ring tones, alarms, and vibrate could be louder (talk volume OK). Buttons could be more raised (separate). Adjusting "tones" is scattered in different menus. Voice recognition needs improvement. Calendar days with apptmnts not distinct.

Summary: After 6 mos of pain (Moto VE465), this is an excellent upgrade. I also looked at the Nokia 3710. It seems to be the slimmer upgrade to this 6350. But, the 3710 flip screen came apart when I gave it a twist, the 6350 didn't. The 3710 also had no feel feedback on the side buttons (1,4,7 & 3,6,9).
PHONE BASICS: You can put unlimited shortcuts on home screen & arrange in any order. Functions are mainly where they should be. However the menus could use some cleanup and they don't have numbered selection. Also some things are missing counters (like amount of names in each group). "Group" function in contacts is great and arranged alphabetical (VE465 limited to 10 and arranged in "date created"). You also get one sticky note on home screen.
Voice recognition I have programmed a few times and it still gets it wrong about half the time. (2nd biggest dissappointment)
The user manual is much too short. However, Nokia's phoneline help is excellent, issues and info were resolved quickly. (Moto no phline help).
Using ph as clock is slow. It takes 3 seconds for the outer screen to display time and date.
VOICE CONVERSATION: is good. I can review my content during a call including contacts. I can only turn on speaker phone when the party answers. That's sketchy! Then it turns itself off when hanging up. That's bossy! Speaker ph could be louder.
TEXTING: Is T9 and a nice upgraded version for me. (Moto's I-tap is painful). A good icon shows the text leaving or shows it waiting to go if out of service area. The text did go automatically when in service area (my Moto didn't). I would like the audible beep though, on send completed (like Sanyo).
CALENDAR: The days with notes & apptments are not distinct enough (my biggest dissappointment). Too many button inputs in "week" view will freeze the phone. (That's the only place in the whole ph that I could get it to freeze). I like month view anyway. Today's apptments show up on home screen-nice!
"Reminders" have no start time or alarm date, and "memos" have no start time. So, I use "meeting" which is fully setable including alarm date (eg: the day before). Inputting times and dates is a breeze, simply type them in with keypad.
TO-DOs: The to-do list is dissappointing. Each time you leave it, it goes back to sort by order of creation. You can sort by date due order when you are in it, but you have to do that every time you go back in. Too painful, so I use "notes" (that's the notes found in: main menu / organizer). This notes list works fine for a "to-do" list. This list has no multi selection delete (like Sanyo).
VOICE NOTES: has dedicated button and works fine. But I can't put my voice notes list on a short cut. But I can put "gallery" on a short cut, which contains the list.
OVI, NOKIA'S PHONE TO PC PROGRAM: Ovi works good and it's a free download (Moto was $40 and I couldn't get it to work and they have no phline support). I could easily edit my contacts and create new groups etc and then sync to phone. However, I had to open each contact to edit it. But moving contacts into groups and populating a group was a breeze. I couldn't select which way the sync was going and that was unnerving, fearing loss of contacts. It seems to sync both ways together and it will sync edits, additions and deletes from both to both. I got around my uneasyness by backing up the phone on OVI (done with ease). Note: you can choose to use OVI on your PC or use their website.