T-Mobile keeps adding new Nokia cell phones to its HotSpot @Home line-up; the latest one featuring advanced camera and music features. Read our in-depth Nokia 6301 review.
Review summary of the Nokia 6301:
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 For all its flaws, the Nokia 6301 is still a deceptively nice phone. Under the best conditions, at a Wi-Fi hotspot, calls sounded excellent, and the HotSpot @Home service worked well. We're big fans of this UMA service, as it could save customers a lot of money and provide better reception than normal cellular service. The phone also includes a robust music player with a 512MB microSD card as a bonus, and even some nice messaging options. Unfortunately, the fact that it doesn't use Wi-Fi for data keeps it from being more of a messaging and Web browsing powerhouse, and the tiny keys kept us from carrying on long, textual conversations. The menu also kept many of the best in hiding. Overall, this feels like a low-end phone with a few high-end features stuck on, but for the bargain-hunting HotSpot @Home crowd, those high-end features will simply be a nice bonus, anyway. Release: June 2008. Price: $130.
Pros: Calls sound great under Wi-Fi and when reception was strong. Lots of features for a simple calling phone. Included charging dock.
Cons: When reception was weaker, calls sounded bad or dropped out altogether. Small keys made typing difficult. Lousy camera.
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Full Nokia 6301 Review:
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Design - Good
The Nokia 6301 is a generic-looking candybar phone. It's slim, but not nearly the slimmest phone on the market, and except for an LED status light on each side of the device, there is little to set the phone apart. Of course, Nokia loves a good display, and the 2-inch, 16-million color display on the Nokia 6301 doesn't disappoint. But there isn't much to view on the crisp screen, as the phone falls flat in terms of multimedia features.
Perhaps because of its HotSpot @Home designation, the Nokia 6301 comes with a home charging base station, which was convenient, but didn't do more than simply charge the phone. As a home phone, we wouldn't recommend the 6301. It's keys felt very small, and we're looking for ease and convenience at home, and not a slim design.
The menu system was fairly basic, and we think it could be reorganized a bit to bring some of the more advanced features up front. For instance, both "Messaging" and "IM & E-mail" are top level choices, though they could have been grouped together, while the music player is hidden beneath a few layers of menus, starting with the enigmatic "Fun & Apps" icon. For a phone that comes with stereo headphones and a 512MB microSD card, the music player (and the camera, for that matter) is surprisingly hard to find.
Calling - Very good
When the Nokia 6301 was under Wi-Fi coverage, calls sounded great. Voices were clear and we heard no static or background noise. Under normal cell coverage, we did get a little bit of static, but the Nokia 6301 still produced good quality calls. The trouble came when we had to switch between the Wi-Fi calling service and the cellular network. The Nokia 6301 uses UMA to hop seamlessly between Wi-Fi hotspots and T-Mobile's cellular service, but if you don't have strong cellular coverage as you leave a Wi-Fi zone, you might lose the call. As we left our house and Wi-Fi router, our reception in suburban New Jersey would occasionally dip to a single bar or less, and calls would drop off as the phone tried to make the switch.
Otherwise, the calling features were easy to use, but not very robust. Conference calling was simple, and the phone paired successfully with all our Bluetooth devices. The address book starts out slow, with only a single field for phone numbers, but it was easy to add all the extra fields we needed, so we can't complain. There is no voice dialing option on the phone, which is a shame, but the speakerphone seemed plenty loud in our tests using it for chatting or for simple music playback.
Messaging - Good
The Nokia 6301 has a surprising wealth of messaging options. SMS and MMS are a given, and these worked just fine. For instant messaging, the phone includes presets for AIM, Yahoo and MSN, and even ICQ, for old school IM fans. The list of e-mail presets is even more impressive, including Gmail and .Mac, as well as Verizon's e-mail service, though MSN is strangely left off the e-mail list. The client for these was simple, but effective, and we had no trouble sending and receiving messages.
Well, maybe a little trouble. The Nokia 6301 has a very small, short keypad. Typing was tough, especially for long messages and IM conversations, but even dialing could be a problem if we were in a hurry. Also, though the Nokia 6301 uses Wi-Fi for the HotSpot @Home UMA calling, the phone can't use Wi-Fi for data, so the phone uses its slow cellular data connection for instant messaging, even while calls are being routed through Wi-Fi. It was a strange omission, perhaps to keep this phone from competing with the UMA-enabled BlackBerry Pearl 8120, another HotSpot @Home phone that takes better advantage of the available Wi-Fi networks.
Multimedia - Good
Like the messaging features, the music player on the Nokia 6301 was surprisingly feature-packed, though not without some issues. The player had no trouble with our MP3 files, though none of our album artwork came through. There are plenty of playback options, including a customizable EQ and easy playlist options, as well as stereo Bluetooth for wireless headphones and speaker systems. The phone also comes with a 512MB microSD card, which is just enough to be satisfying, and you can synchronize the card with Windows Media Player.
We tried using the phone with our Macbook Air and ran into some trouble. On a few connection attempts, the phone crashed as we unplugged it, or occasionally it couldn't load the songs from the memory card into the music library. When it finally did work, we found the system had created duplicate, empty files for every song, and the phone had trouble deciphering these. If there isn't going to be a good music transfer software option for the phone, at least it should be able to read our files properly.
We didn't spend too much time Web browsing with this phone. The phone apparently uses the EDGE network for data, though it seemed even slower than we expected. It's too bad the Nokia 6301 can't use Wi-Fi for Web browsing, though the Web browser was so poor that it's probably best for users to steer clear. In our tests, images were frequently cut off by layout problems, and text was scrambled all over the page. We even had trouble quitting the Web browser, as it occasionally claimed a shared connection error, causing us to restart the phone.
Camera - Poor
Images from the Nokia 6301 were abysmal. Colors looked almost psychedelic at points, and noise was a serious concern, even in well-lit images.
First National
This first sample isn't so terrible, but we noticed a strong black line around the edges of objects, like the roof of the bank where it his the sky. This photo was taken on a bright, sunny day, but colors are all darkened and bleeding into each other.
Bright pooch
Perhaps the dog looks bewildered because of how blown out the lighting is on her white fur. Or, maybe it's all the noise on the wall behind her. In any case, details are mostly gone here, and the effect is almost like an unintentional watercolor filter.
Dark pooch
Under poor lighting conditions, noise becomes a serious issue.
Flower pot
Outside, the camera once again oversaturates the colors, producing a cartoon-like effect. The black lines around the flowers make the picture look like an ink and watercolor drawing.
Price and availability
The Nokia 6301 is available from T-Mobile for $130 with a two-year contract agreement. A $50 mail-in rebate is available when signing up for a qualifying plan.
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