Customer Reviews

Nokia 1680 Black Phone (T-Mobile)

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I needed a replacement phone, and did not want to sign up for a new contract, so I bought a Nokia 1680c at the full retail price. This phone is a good value. It rings loud & clear, and the speakerphone is easy to hear. People I'm calling say my voice is clear, though they can tell I'm on a cell phone. It has a lot of neat software features; for example, you can configure a shortcut action for the left and right softkeys, as well the Up-Down-Left-Right buttons. There is no dedicated rocker switch on the side for volume up & down; during a call, the volume is adjusted by the Left and Right buttons. The phone is constructed well, but feels too light. Battery life is very good. The screen is bright and clear. Navigating menus can be a little sluggish. The keypad is stiff, making text messaging a chore. No Bluetooth connectivity, so forget about using one of those fancy headsets. The box does include a wired earbud/microphone with integrated call answer/end button. Something that annoyed me was how it saved numbers to the address book from an incoming call; the Nokia software puts a "+" symbol in front of incoming call numbers. That gets saved to the address book -- for example "+15551212121" -- a minor thing, and something probably more useful for European phone numbers, for example. Overall, I like this phone, and will probably keep it until I someday feel the need to get a smartphone-type slab of electronics.

Short: This phone works fine as a basic phone, if that is all you are looking for.

Long: My old phone's LCD croaked on me, and I wanted to wait a bit before buying an HTC Dream, so I went with this cheap phone. Complaints: Menu/key response is sometimes slow. No way to get data to phone via USB cable, at least if you live in the US.

It seems like a USB cable exists (in Europe, Asia and Australia) but it costs about as much as the phone itself does after exchange rates. If you go to [...], they talk about cable CA-126, which works with the 1680. It has a regular usb connector on one end, and a Nokia microusb & 2.5mm charger plug on the other. The US Nokia manual says the Microusb port is for "authorized personal only", which to my mind says that the carriers in the US wanted to force people into getting things onto the phone via some $$$-chargeable method.

In any event, I'll be getting a new phone in a few months so I'll live with this phone for now. But the limitations it has makes it so that it is only suitable for those who are not looking for anything other than making/receiving phone calls (like my parents).

The good news is that it has a long battery life and is lightweight. But none of that is worth anything if you cant hear the other person. I had a Samsung and a Sony before and never had this problem. The keypad is tough, requiring sledge hammer to push the keys. Bottom line: the phone is cheap, but you get what you pay for. Try Sony or Samsung, their cheapest models work better than this.