Customer Reviews

Nokia 6301 Phone, Black/Silver (T-Mobile)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've just got this phone, after having a Nokia/Verizon candybar phone for 3 years (and being totally happy with it.) The WiFi/UMA calling will make this far more useful and have far greater coverage--when the phone is in WiFi mode, it will not be using a GSM network, which design necessitates the occasional dropped calls (unlike a CDMA network--Verizon/Sprint). I was very much loyal to CDMA coverage and technology--from a user standpoint, it's superior, objectively speaking. However, I did not like Verizon as a company, and was eager for some opportunity to switch. The WiFi option offered by Tmobile was the perfect choice for me. When on WiFi, a user will only have a dropped call if the wifi connection itself falters.

I have just activated the phone and only made a few calls, but I will say I like the mainly metal body of this phone, the very slim and lightweight form factor, and the bright, high resolution screen. The software and design are typically reliable for Nokia. One minor problem mentioned in other reviews that I'll confirm--the keypad and physical interface is a little too minimal. I have small, fairly dextrous fingers, and I did not anticipate this would be a problem for me, but so far, I, too, am finding the buttons a bit of a pain to press easily and consistently. I'm sure with further use it will become easier, but I wouldn't recommend this phone at all for someone with thick or big fingers, or more elderly users who might have joint stiffness or arthritis. (I'm sure the finer display also deters older users).

I also confirm what another reviewer wrote: you do NOT need the Hotspot service from Tmobile in order to make WiFi calls. You can simply connect to any available WiFi network; I share a wireless connection with a roommate, and with the passkey, I was able to connect my phone.

HOWEVER, this ties directly into what other reviewers have noted about the battery life on this phone. It CAN be very low. But this is not due to a design defect, but a design necessity: Any device that uses WiFi necessarily uses a lot of power. WiFi is a highly power-intensive feature, and therefore will drain your batteries quickly. This will occur as long as the phone is connected to a WiFi network, whether it is actually being used for a call. If you want to preserve the life of the battery, I'd suggest disconnecting from WiFi unless you're at home, or in a place where you know you will be able to recharge. This is the Achilles heel of the WiFi calling feature, and simply needs to be understood and compensated for. I do not think it's enough of a reason not to get the phone, but you should just understand how this works so you can plan accordingly. (For example, during free nights and weekends, that would be a time you'd probably want to just keep WiFi off and simply use the normal GSM network. If you're having network falloff and dropped calls in an area, switching WiFi on could help; in that case, you just need to be aware the battery will be drained more quickly.)

UPDATE: 2 Weeks later, the phone is great. Another suggestion for improving battery life is turning on the "flight" feature when not planning on making or receiving calls. Also, the Bluetooth worked great for transferring music wirelessly my Mac to the phone. The music player is good enough to be able to stop carrying around my old iPod and just use the phone for this.

I was also able to use Apple's iSync software and a hack I found online to sync my phone book wirelessly. I couldn't be happier with the phone.

Yet another great product from Nokia. Great features. Sensible design. Uses standard USB cable, Standard 2.5mm stereo headset - no funky connectors.

Things you should know before purchasing - it took me a day's worth of research, calling to find these out:
* WiFi cannot be used for browsing - only for VoIP calling
* To use WiFi calling, you need T-Mobile HotSpot@Home service
* It is flat $9.99/month for any number of lines in addition to your voice plan; add or remove at will - not a contract
* Once you have this feature added, you can use any Wifi router you can access - home, work, friend's, Starbucks
* Keypad doesn't collapse as the pictures may suggest

Things I wish I knew:
* 3.5 hrs of talk time is a lie. 2.5 hours conf. call - dead.
* Stand-by time is pathetic too - something wrong with the phone, not the battery as it uses the same reliable battery as other Nokia phones I had.
* Phone heats up anytime you talk for 5 minutes - yes 5 minutes. Too hot to use without a headset
* Not a random unit fault - I bought 2 and both have the same issues
* I need hands of steel to take good pictures, anything less you end up with blurry pictures. Can't snap anything that moves - e.g. babies :(

Bottomline, if you don't talk too much, great phone. If you talk hours everyday like me, get an extra battery or be tethered to the outlet. Hope this helps.

I have always been a fan of Nokia and this new wi-fi phone doesn't disappoint. The look and feel are great. The camera is better than average. If you get the light just right it takes amazing pictures. In bad light it takes green and grainy pics. The reason I bought this phone in particular was because of the T-mobile@home service. It installed easily to my router and the call quality is pretty good. Unfortunately it is not as reliable as the cell phone network. Sometimes I have to turn the Wi-Fi off if it is being to quirky.
The screen is large and crisp. The set of features is impressive. The Wi-Fi radio works surprisingly well. The phone has a music player and all that jazz too. It is definitely worth checking out but don't buy it just for the Wi-Fi calling.

This is a very good, solid phone, excellent audio quality, excellent bright screen. Easy to use menu and icons. Be careful with the WiFi radio, when left on it will drain the battery rapidly. All WiFi chips consume power much faster than cell chips. Use the WiFi feature selectively and turn on and off the WiFi radio to save battery. Also, note the sensitivity of the WiFi radio is not as great as the sensitivity of the cell radio, this is generic in the industry and not specific to Nokia or anyone else. Just the nature of the beast. The VoIP WiFi option is killer and works. Tip of the hat to TMobile for getting this out. If you are getting poor performance at home seek out a higher gain WiFi antenna for your Wireless Access Point (Router) from Linksys or D Link, they help. I am happy with the 6301.

Well, where do I begin? I've had Samsung phones and they were pretty good. I had 2 Motorolla razors and they were the worst phones. My bf has a blackberry and it took him and I an eternity to understand it (I helped him set it up), and I still don't think I understand it. I had a Nokia phone prior to this one and it was (at the time) the best phone but this one def. tops it. The phone holds a small 2 gig memory card, has an alarm, speaker-phone feature, a nice menu layout that has nine items that are well organized. It feels strong and sturdy in your hands and I love the charger and the fact that it allows the phone to stand. I've had a lot of fun using this phone and every time I use it people comment on how cute it is and ask to use it. In conclusion, if you want a phone that is reliable and that won't confuse you with too many keys or settings then this is your phone. The only downside is that the battery life is lacking. I've had it for approximately 3 months and am very happy with it.

I'm just a regular guy angry at a giant faceless, corporation, and the only outlet I have other than the poor tech support guy is here, so get ready!

Likes:
- Lovely hardware. Can't say enough about it. It oozes quality, strength, and style. It's a phone that's built to last and it feels good to hold. The keypad is a bit on the small side, but that's a compromise I'm willing to take. Screen is beautiful.
- Speedy. Typical for Nokia, menu access is quick, screen refreshes rapidly. Lots of good options as one would expect.
- Headphone jacks and USB slot. Wonderful to see standards on a phone
- Radio works great!

Meh:
- Wifi calling. I can't see when I would use it. What's the point?
- Battery life: it's so-so. Definitely good enough, could be better
- Camera- I was hoping it would be better than it is. It's still a last-resort camera for me.

Hates:
- TMobile's lockdown. Where to begin? The T-Zones interface sucks. Fortunately, you can exit out. There is a browser on this phone, and you can get 50mb of internet bandwidth for $9.99 per month. I've been on Google, CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter etc..All work, and speed is about what you would expect
- However- you can't run downloaded apps on this phone that require Java. For instance, Gmail? Nope, doesn't work. Google Maps? Doesn't even download (certificate error). Twitter? Well it lets you read, but for some reason I can't post tweets
- TMobile's crap-tastic preloaded bookmarks are permanent. You can't delete them. Nor can you change the home page.

I just get angry knowing the phone can do more and knowing that there is software out there that is built for it. The only reason I can't run it? TMobile. Thanks a lot. It's not like TMobile offers a mapping application.

I got this phone for the wifi service and found it not not work the way I need it too. We have very poor service in our area and need the wifi. But the problem with this phone is that if it even detects as slight little bit of cellular service it switches off the wifi and then you end up getting disconnected because it won't go back to the wifi. In order to connect to the wifi I have to turn the phone completely off and start it up again. Then I have to wait for it to find the router. I even called for assistance on this and T Mobile told me that that was the only way it would connect if it won't do it on it's own. We bought the T mobile router to go with it. Also you can't leave your house. You have to stay inside in order to stay connected. My computer works great off the router even on our porch- but not this phone. Don't even hang your head out the door, it will disconnect. The battery life is also short. I have also been through 3 sim cards in about 2 months because of having problems with the phone. As of right now it totally lost My Favs. Not sure what is wrong with this phone but I wouldn't recommend it. It is stylish and takes a good picture compared to other phones if the object is completely still. I would look for a better phone if you are looking for wifi service.

I just got the Nokia 6301 a couple of days ago. I've had several phones over the years, mostly Motorola's and LG phones. I have been very satisfied with the LG phones, but decided to try this one out. I mainly got this phone for the sleek, modern look and because of its capabilites to talk over wireless. But after purchasing this phone, I regret the decision and am going to return it tomorrow. The battery life on this phone is awful. After I purchased the phone and set up voicemail etc... I fully charged the phone. Within a day and half the battery was dead...I've had only 4 conversations roughly 25 minutes each. The reception quality on this phone is not that great either (especially compared to all the LG phones that I've had in the past). Even one of the people I spoke with asked if I had a different phone...because they could hear a significant difference in the quality. For these two reasons alone I am switching back to an LG phone...I need a phone that has good reception and that can keep up with me. Also, the buttons are quite small and hard to use. As far as advantages, the screen is very nice...well-lit and easy to see.

I spent several months shopping for a phone when my t-mobile contract was up and had resigned myself to not finding anything that would give me everything I wanted. This phone falls just a tiny bit short, but is a million miles ahead of everything else I looked at. I'll add more after I've had more experience using the phone.

The phone looks gorgeous. The housing and buttons are stainless steel. The trim is glossy black plastic. The buttons have great blue backlighting, and while they are quite small, I have not had any problems using them - despite my chunky fingers. The call/end keys are a good distance away from the soft keys, and that's a nice change from the Sony-Ericsson TM-506 that I replaced. The power button is on top of the phone, and the headphone jack (a 2.5m), mini usb port, and power adapter port are at the bottom. There is a volume button on the side (also used for voice recognition). The screen is quite large for a phone this size and is very bright. There are options to increase the size of fonts and icons.

My only prior experience with a Nokia is the 5300. I didn't like that phone at all. I found it difficult (or impossible) to customize it as much as I wanted to, it seemed cheap and flimsy, and the battery life was awful.

The user interface for this phone is far superior to the 5300 and has nearly everything I could want. I like to be able to create a lot of shortcuts to the functions I use often, and this phone has many options for shortcuts. In "active standy" mode (optional), you can create a "shortcut bar" with a seemingly endless number of functions that can have icons assigned to it. The icons can also be arranged in any order. The bar can be placed on the top or bottom of the screen and you can set one of the soft keys or the up or down button of the nav key to access it (you use the left/right buttons to scroll through the shortcut bar). In active standby, there are also three vertical bars that can be assigned shortcuts, selected from a limited range - including the radio, music player, and a display of the current day/date. Scrolling up and down the vertical bars as well as side to side seemed too complicated to me and I was pleased to find that I could set the bars to "empty" and they would disappear. The four directions of the nav key can also have shortcuts (but if you use active standby, either the up or down button - or both - needs to be chosen for that). The left soft key can have a shortcut, but the right one is dedicated to t-zones and cannot be changed.

If you turn off the "active standby" feature, the phone shows icons for the functions of the nav key. If you have the My Faves service, I believe that it can display icons for your "faves."

One of the shortcut options is "go to last web address." I love that! I use the tzones service to access my email at the gmail website, and on this phone I can get there with one button. (The phone does include the standard t-mobile email application, but when you use that, each email you read is charged as a text message).

Normally a screen saver is displayed even when the phone backlight is off - if you select "power save" mode, then the screen goes black. The screen savers included with the phone include a digital and analog clock. Both are quite large and easily visible even when the screen is dark. I love that!

The phone has small blue lights on the sides that light up when you miss a call and continually flash every few seconds until you check the display to look at the call.

The phone has a nice mp3 player and FM radio. These seem comparable to the ones on the 5300, which was marketed as a "music phone," but there are no dedicated music buttons like there are on the Music Xpress series phones. The sound quality from the speaker is surprisingly good and not tinny. The FM radio requires that the wired headset be plugged in as an antenna, but the sound can be set to come through the speaker. There are too many steps involved in changing the sound source, but it does "remember" your last setting when you turn it off. I have had problems getting radio reception when the bluetooth is on - even if the phone is not connected to a bluetooth device. Turning the bluetooth off and then on again fixes this problem. The wired headset has two ear buds for listening to music.

It's very easy to transfer files to the phone via usb or bluetooth. I have not yet installed the Nokia software, which is not included with the phone, but is available for free at the Nokia website. The phone is identified by my PC like a flash drive and I can easily drag and drop files. The phone came with a 512 MB memory card, which is accessed behind the battery cover (but does not require removal of the battery).

I don't text, so I have nothing to say about that. The phone is capable of picture messaging and photo caller ID.

I don't plan to try the camera, but I've heard it is not very good. It is a 2MP. There is no dedicated camera button, but it's easy to create a shortcut to the camera and the screen saver can even be set to the camera so that it is ready to go when the phone is not in use.

The phone charges in about an hour on the included charger stand. The adapter can be removed from the stand and plugged directly into the phone if you prefer. I have only had the phone a couple of days, so I can't say a lot about battery life, but it seems fine. I have had the bluetooth on continuously, have listened to the radio/mp3 player quite a bit, and have made just a few calls, and the battery shows little wear. I do not have the power saver setting on and the wi-fi is turned off.

I tried out the wifi just to see if it would work. I do not have the HotSpot service. It connected to my router without any problems. The router is set to use MAC filtering rather than a security code. It was easy to find the phone's MAC address and add it to the router and get going. I didn't move away from the router, so I can't speak to the phone's ability to switch back and forth from the cell network to wifi. The call quality over wifi was just as good as over the cell network. While the wifi does work without the HotSpot service, my understanding is that wifi calls are still deducted from your plan minutes if you don't have HotSpot. The HotSpot service seems like a great deal - it allows unlimited minutes for $10/month using a t-mobile router at home or other HotSpot locations. I already have a really cheap tmobile plan with more minutes than I ever use - and I don't have a home phone, so I would not really benefit from HotSpot, but I would definitely get it if I used the phone more. If you don't want/need HotSpot, the wifi might benefit you if you don't get good cell coverage at home. The wifi does not work for internet browsing - only phone calls.

Internet access via tzones is fine on this phone, but it has many restrictions. You can't download any java applications, like the opera browser or google maps, except for those sold by tmobile, and you can't watch videos. I have used four or five tmobile phones with the tzones service and this one has far more restrictions than any of the others I've used. I did a little bit of research and it seems that the only way to remove the restrictions is to debrand the phone. This can disable the wifi or completely ruin the phone if you do it wrong, so I'm reluctant to try it. I used to have a Samsung behold, and I was able to change the internet settings to gain application access, but that doesn't seem like an option with this phone.

Dealing with the phone book was a bit of a hassle. I found that they were all out of order. There is an option to sort by last name or first name, but it doesn't work with contacts stored on the SIM card. Some of my contacts didn't have last names and said things like "Jim at work" or "Paul and Mary" - these contacts were under "a" for "at" or "and." I called tmobile and they were unable to help and told me to go to a store. Instead, I copied the contacts to the phone (because when you edit them on the SIM, there are not separate fields for first and last name) and fixed the names so that they would sort correctly. Fortunately, I only have about 60 contacts and the phone has a cut/copy/paste function, so it wasn't too bad, but I wish there had been an easier way.

Call quality is good, although I can hear more ambient noise than normal. Still, it was not bad enough to interfere with the call.

All in all, I love this phone because of all of the ways it can be customized.

I paid nothing for this phone over 2 years ago....It's my only phone and I can tether to the internet on both my
Dell and Acer laptops using the Nokia PC suite (which I downloaded using the 6301). So thats $39 for 1000 anytime minutes and $10 for unlimited web....thats it. With Google Chrome its pretty quick. I've built up a nice music library
and added the 4Gig chip so i have enough room for me. I play the phone music w/o headset and its really nice for a small room. My contract is up so I could get an android or apple or something but even if the phone is cheap the monthly plan shoots way up...my screen is a little scratched so I might get a refurb (I can't see new ones for sale)...The nokia 6301...I like it A LOT.