With support for among other things polyphonic ringtones and reception of MMS messages, the Nokia 3510 has been on the market for a little while - Sindre Lia gives you his take on it.
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The Nokia 3510 comes in a box where the inserts are quite similar to those found in the box of the Nokia 6510 (reviewed previously) - a new design that leads to either the manual or the phone and its accessories dropping to the floor upon extraction. Despite the slightly flawed design, however, the box contains everything it's supposed to, including the 3510 itself, a BLC-2 950 mAh Lithium ion battery, a charger and a 78-page manual of good quality.
 | The 3510 with a standard cover
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What first struck me when I placed the GSM 900/1800 MHz with GPRS support phone in my hand was its resemblance to the large and responsive keypad of the Nokia 5110. The 3150, which measures 118 x 50 x 21 mm and weighs 105 g also has a relatively large display, but still can't show more than a maximum of 4 lines of text. Large is also a word that applies to its internal memory, which can store up to 500 names with three numbers and a text note, up to 200 text/picture messages and up to 3 MMS messages in the MMS inbox. SMS messages can be transferred from the inbox to folders created by the user, which makes for a better overview - but it would also have been nice to be able to search in the contents of the messages.
Flawed firmware
Not many days after I started using the 3510, I discovered that the firmware of the phone wasn't quite up to par. The phone had a bad habit of switching itself off and on again whilst in the middle of writing SMS messages, which - of course - results in the message getting deleted and the user having to type it in all over again. Another quirk is that it's not possible to navigate too quickly in the interface that shows messages stored on the phone - because if you do, the screen will go blank. I'd definitively recommend requiring a firmware upgrade of the phone to ensure it's running the latest version available before buying it, as well as checking that it's fully functional.
The most important functions in this phone include its polyphonic ringtone capabilities, receiving MMS messages and its support for games for which new levels can be downloaded over the air. And one thing is for sure; polyphonic ringtones (in the shape of MIDI files) will undoubtedly become a new craze. Some ring tones are quite nice, other make horrible sounds in a speaker that's not exactly hi-fi, while some yet play too low even when the sound level is set to maximum.
Receiving MMS
When it comes to the MMS support of the 3510, it's a bit so-so. It's only possible to receive MMS messages, that also can be used either as a screensaver or a ringtone, but with a monochrome low-res display and a poor speaker you will not find yourself amazed when receiving a MMS message with this phone. The phone also comes with the games Kart Racing, Dance2Music, Space Impact 2, Bumper and Link5, and with special game covers and downloadable levels via WAP Nokia is clearly aiming for this to be the gaming phone of the summer - but then it should at least have had the J2ME support of its separated-at-birth twin Nokia 3410. It quickly gets tiring playing just the embedded games, which also lacks in just about every area in terms of game play.
The speech quality of the 3510 is at a normal level, and the phone is rated with a SAR value (Specific Absoroption Rate) of 0.66 W/kg (the maximum allowed level is 2.0 W/kg). The talk time of the phone is listed to be from 2 hours and 30 minutes to up to 4 hours and 30 minutes - our review unit came quite close to the minimum level with intensive use of games, SMS and phone calls strewn in between. The Nokia 3510 retails for approximately 275 EUR without a subscription.
Conclusion
Nokia's 3510 and 3410 models should absolutely have been combined into one single phone. The MMS support that's an important part of the 3510 isn't much to brag about, and without cooler games than you get access to through the 3510 it'll be too extreme to buy special gaming covers for it as well. A phone that on the other hand combined GPRS and game covers from the 3510 with J2ME support from the 3410 could have been far better, without the price necessarily being bumped up too much as a result. Nokia hasn't been too fortunate with the firmware in our review unit either, which in the name of all fairness has been equipped with more memory than what we've seen in previous units in the 3-series.
- What's positive: GPRS, large and responsive keypad
- What's negative: Firmware flaws
| Features | 5/10 |
| Exterior | 5/10 |
| Ergonomics | 5/10 |
| Performance | 3/10 |
| Value: | 5/10 |
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iSW Score:
4.6/10 |
Price and availability
The will start selling for TBA () in November 1999.
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