Nokia 6350 (red, AT&T)

Pros: Sleek design, excellent sound quality, hefty, solidly built, plenty of features and lots of memory available. Comfortable in your pocket, the case is not slippery like so many phones that are easy to drop.

Cons: Software menus, too much button-pushing to edit contacts. The ringtones seem a little quiet, I have the volume maxed out. Too easy to accidentally push buttons that lead to more expensive services... a conscious AT&T strategy I'm sure.

Summary: I wanted a good basic flip phone and this one is almost perfect. I like the finish on the outside of the phone, it's got a tactile feel, not slippery. It's hefty and feels very well made, not toy-like. The battery life just seems average. The display is bright and very clear. I can't find any way to adjust the screen brightness, it might help the battery life if you could turn it down. However, this phone charges very quickly, much faster than my Sony did. The phone has plenty of memory for my purposes, but I'm just using it as a basic phone and occasional mp3 player.

My biggest gripe: to edit or delete contacts you have to go through too many steps compared to my old phone, (Sony Ericsson) which had superior contact management IMO. Too much button-pushing -- maybe this could be improved with later software revisions. I've just got the phone, so I can't speak to durability but it seems extremely well made and Nokia has a good reputation.

Updated on Oct 9, 2009

The built-in camera seems to be very good.