Customer Reviews

Nokia 6133 Phone (T-Mobile, Phone Only, No Service)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I purchased the 6133 as a replacement for my Nokia 6230, since it seemed to have everything the 6230 had, *plus* the 16.7 million color QVGA internal display, a handy one-button opening flip-phone design, Micro-SD expansion up to 2GB of removable memory, 1.3 megapixel camera, and drag-and drop access to the memory-card's contents via a DKU-2 USB cable. I was not disappointed with the phone; its everything the 6230 is and then some. The only negatives I find with the device are: 1) the battery life is short - compared to the 6230, I find myself down to the last 1/4 bar of battery life at the end of the day, so it means recharging every day or two; and 2) the T-Mobile firmware disables a lot of features the phone's identical twin (the Nokia 6131) is capable of doing, such as running Java apps that access the internet, using native MP3 files as ringtones, and the IR infrared port. In summary, its a great phone, but out-of-the-box, its severely limited by T-Mobile's customizations.

I picked up this phone as a replacement for my Sharp TM150, as it has very similar features. While the Sharp (may it rest in peace) is one of my favorite phones, the new Nokia stacks up extremely well.

Having read many of the other comments here, I wanted to point out that many of the gripes/flaws with the phone are actually pretty easy to work around or fix. Unfortunately the user manual is not very detailed, and it takes a little bit of hunting to find some of this stuff.

Key Lock: This is a well engineered feature that solves the problem of "it keeps taking pictures of the inside of my purse." The auto-keylock can be set to lock the keys after a certain amount of inactivity (default is 1 minute) and automatically unlocks when you flip the phone open, so you don't have to spend any time trying to remember how to unlock it.

Self Portrait: I couldn't find anything about this in the manual, but if you close the phone and press the camera button on the side, it will let you use the exterior screen as a veiwfinder and take a picture of yourself, in case you've forgotten what you look like.

The picture messaging bug is unfortunately a little more persistant. It would be nice if TMobile would update the firmware in the phones to get around this, but until then you just have to work around it. Yes, it was irritating to have to return to the store the next morning, but it didnt' take long to fix and it wasn't really a big deal. The bug starts showing up if you mess with the "Themes" settings. In my case it was easily fixed in the store. So if you're the type of person who wants to create a bunch of different wallpaper themes and change them all the time, this is probably not a good phone for you. I had no problems customizing the main and external wallpaper, setting ringtones for my friends, etc.

The display quality on the phone is great, the colors are much brighter than on previous phones I've had, making it easier to see in bright light. The menu layout and buttons are customizable (though it takes some patience). The camera takes high resolution photos, but the contrast seems a little out of whack so they're not particularly good photos. The video quality is pretty low, lots of compression. This was a bit of a bummer, but hey... its a phone.

Call quality is nothing spectacular, but wasn't bad either. Sounds like pretty much every other cell phone I've had (this is number 9 for me).

The media player is cool, although I can't imagine why I would want to listen to music on my phone when I have a perfectly good ipod with some hi-fi headphones. The only thing I've used it for is playing songs for a small group of people. Its more of a novelty than a music player.

First of all, I don't have a data plan and don't use the Internet features. If you want a phone for that, then this review is not going to be very helpful. The things I care about in a phone are: flip-phone, speakerphone, bluetooth, quad-band, radio, music, good phone book software.

As configured, the phone is just ok. The camera button is on the side and takes pictures of your pocket (unless you lock the keypad; see below). The radio and music players are many clicks away. It doesn't come with a memory card. And it doesn't have a normal headphone plug; the headphones the phone ships with are just stupid (though they fit my ears very well).

BUT, all these things can be fixed. After doing the following things, the phone became excellent:

(1) I got a 2GB micro SD card from newegg for $20. That give me room for 1000 music albums. I have a mac, and so the fact that the phone plays AAC files is awesome. You can get a smaller card for even less money.

(2) I set the camera to record photos and movies onto the SD card. I can then plug the card into my computer (I have an adapter already) and access the photos and movies (and music) directly.

(3) I set two of the navigation buttons to jump to the radio and to the music player so those are 1 click away after opening the phone. All the buttons are programmable, so you can make all your main apps just one click away.

(4) Very important: I set the key lock to turn on automatically after 20 seconds so the camera doesn't take pictures of the inside of my pockets.

(5) I bought an adapter for $4 so I can use my favorite headphones for music (no mic, though).

I haven't had the phone for long and so can't comment on the battery life when listening to the radio or music. But the battery life for normal phone use is excellent.

I should note also that the phone book software is very good: It doesn't do the incredibly idiotic thing of having one entry per phone number that many phones do; it has one entry per person. It also stores emails, street addresses, and everything else from my phone book on my laptop, which is awesome!

I looked carefully at all the T-mobile phones available, and given the things I care about (see first paragraph), this was clearly the best option.

Oh, and as a phone, it works fine too.

Pros - excellent display and menu, user friendly shortcuts, good battery life(see comments below), good speakerphone.

Cons - average call quality, cheap cover.

Overall - a very good phone. I don't use my phone as a camera or music player so I can not comment on that.

Battery - Several people have indicated problems with the battery in their reviews. The battery for this phone is the same as Nokia 6102. I previously had a Nokia 6102 and its battery lasted 4-5 days with moderate usage. When I got 6133, its battery drained out in 2 days. However when I enabled all the "Power Saver" options (settings => main/mini display, turn off screen saver, turn off keypad, start-up and switch off tones etc.) in 6133, the battery started lasting around 4-5 days with moderate usage. So I strongly suggest enabling all the power Saving options on this phone.

I've owned the Nokia 6133 for about 1-2 weeks now. It is likely going back to T-Mobile.

- As noted earlier, the phone is crippled not to accept MP3 ringtones. It can play MP3s in the media player and accept WMA ringtones, but you cannot set MP3 ringtones. Hmmm.

- The phone does NOT have an email client, regardless of what the Amazon description says. This wouldn't be that bad except...

- The phone will not allow Java programs to access the Internet. This is the kicker. This means GMail's Java client will not work. This also means that if you try to download an actual mail client, it won't work!


Note also that the Nokia 6131 (roughly the non-US version of this phone) has all of these features. In order to get the features above on this phone, you have to pay someone to load the 6131's firmware onto it, which will likely void all warranties and lets T-Mobile get away with abusing their customers.

Unfortunately, I think the phone otherwise is really nice. It has a beautiful screen, I love the push-button flip, and its more usable than most phones out there. However, in my opinion, it is inexcusable that T-Mobile has done this to its customers.

I've owned 3 Nokias, 1 Sanyo and 1 Samsung. The Nokias all beat the competition. This is my first Nokia flip phone and it's the first flip phone to not sound tin-y. I love the various profiles and that I can create my own. The phone quality is quite good. I don't use it for music, I have an iPod. The camera is a 1.4mb so it's not great, but it's good for a quick picture of something if you need it (fender bender or such). I've downloaded graphics but not ringtones. No problems. So far, I'm very pleased.

I'd highly recommend it.

Just got this phone -- it's great but for one thing. T-mobile has pulled a Verizon and intentionally disabled setting MP3s for your ringtone.

I was on the phone with their support for about an hour, going from entry level support, transferred to Nokia support, who, after about 20 minutes discovered that the message it displays "Not allowed by activation key" means that the carrier disabled that functionality. Then called back T-mobile and went from entry level support to second level support to tech support, each person saying surely it's a mistake, until the tech support people looked it up and said no, they intentionally disabled it so that you'll buy their HiFi ringtones.

Very stupid. But the phone still gets 4 stars, because it's not really the phone's fault that T-mobile is turning into a customer unfriendly company.

I really like this phone. It is small, yet very powerful. I sync it with my outlook so it keeps all my contact, schedule, to do items and notes.
I replaced my IPAQ phone with this. It is very nice..
The Hi-Res screen is really nice and the speaker phone and ringing is REALLY loud.. Battery life is a bit short due to its bright large screen.
but I recharge my phone every night.. so it's no big deal..

As other reviwers pointed out, T-mobile put some restrictions on the phone so that you cannot access the web using third party software.
However, T-mobile also started to phase out access to the web using t-mobile web account ($5.99) starting March of 2007. So you will now need $29.99 plan to access the web. So even if you get firmware upgraded, your access will be severely limited. Who would pay $30 for slow connection with small screen web?

In summary.. very very nice phone..
but stay away if you need access to the web & e-mail.

Purchased from T-mobile. Reception in low signal areas is MUCH better than my previous motorola v300. The v300 used to drop calls nearly every 5 min, the 6133 has not dropped a call yet. Excellent display. Battery life is less than the v300. Camera works great in well lit situations, not so good in low light. The inside buttons seem kind of cheap, but work well and have good tactile feedback. The Nokia menu and OS seem years ahead of Motorola, I really like the response speed of the menus. One more plus: Nokia provides free (Windows) software for connecting to/managing the phone, which works great over bluetooth (assuming vendor doesn't disable it).

The phone's features could be documented in the manual a little better.

I got this phone since I qualified for a T-Mobile upgrade. I was able to send a picture but I then went and changed one setting on the messaging settings and then the white screen problem appeared. I called Nokia and talked to someone named Lydia. We reset the settings back to factory defaults and now it works.
Call quality is great and reception in better than my old Motorola I had. Ringer volume with the handset when making a call is a little low but conversations come through clear. I get about 3 days on the battery but the phone is sometimes out of the network reach for a few hours and that will shorten battery life as it keeps searching for the network.