Nokia 6131 Review

I got mine for $229 + shipping. I've seen some e-Bay prices hovering around $200. This is the cheapest I've found so far.

 

well, im really a nokia fanboy at heart. and i got sidetracked by a cute lil pantech, and its really nice phone, so i gave it to my daughter. and a 3g lg cu500, its nice too, but no 3g here.:browani:

 

Well, between caring for a broken foot (spouse), a plumbing, etc, i manage to get all working on the phone.

Was able to send/receive MMS photos; MMS video had problems, but i'm still working on that.

This phone is so much lighter than 6230 and fits into my shirt pocket without sagging weight.

A very, very, nice phone.

Charlyee, I can now start looking for the phone. The NokiaUSA site was very helpful, except for email set up with earthlink or gmail: I'll need to copy settings in manually for that.

I'm glad that i bought it. So far the battery is doing well, but it is only since the afternoon

 

Yea, I have a little problem there...my BT in the laptop died last week, so i'm up the river for a bit on that.

I will let you know, when I try the infrared.

viewfly

P.S. Got earthlink mail working!!!!!!!!!

 

Boy, I'm I glad that I got the IrDa with the 6131! Yes, Charlyee, the 6230 backup populated the 6131 just fine, with all the multiple contacts listings intact.

My BT died in my laptop and it seems the IrDa is messed up too, so I used the IrDa in another laptop instead (no BT in that one ). My experience years ago, was to first be certain to have the most recent version of PC suite before trying to move contacts and things to a new phone.

Did that, backup'd the 6230 (which included images,contacts, etc). Switched over to the 6131, and restored only the contacts and calendar. Worked fine. I didn't want to transfer over jpg, etc. I can do that with the MMC cards and card reader.

I upgraded my PC suite from nokiausa. Unlike the OTA from the same site that gave me choices for 6216 or 6131, PCsuite (from the usa site) only gave me 6126 as an option. Well, no guts, no glory, so I went ahead.

Worked really well. BTW, as nice as the SIM card idea is, I sure wish they made it easier to switch them between phones. I hate removing the cover, the battery, and then the little sim retainer. Oh, I'm done with that for a while... placing the 6230 in the dresser now. On all these phones (moto's too) removing the battery cover gives me the willies...i feel like i'm going to break something.

My phone is made in Hungary. Firmware is 3.70 from May 12-06, about 1 month behind the 3.72 version that was released in June. I have autolock on the phone, and therefore the camera too, so I'm happy. From what I've read, there is not too much new with the 3.72 verison.

So far I have no popping or clicking sounds. BTW, I have only the 64K SIM card, no 3G. I've gotten over my flip aversion, and found the button for the flip is useful. This is a nice replacement for the 6230. I'll have more to say on the battery, after 2 or 3 charging cycles during next week.

 

Viewfly, how's your eapiece volume level and sound quality? Are they adequate for noisy environments? Also, does your VM indicator work fine?

As far as the video MMS, that's the one thing I've heard never works on the 6131. I could care less about that, though.

 

There is a very narrow sweet spot for the earpiece, that I missed at first. I was in Walmart today, on the phone, and I could hear very well. The loudspeaker, if you use that, is very loud. The sweetspot is obvious and in a good position that is comfortable to use.

The audio quality is better than the 6230, I'd say more similiar to the moto's I've had. Very natural sounding.

VM indicator works the same as with the 6230 or V3. Icon appears, the message window comes up...there has been no problem with that in CT. Reading Hofo, it seems to be mostly with problems out west, or Montana and west. Perhaps the recent change with VM from Cingular is an attempt to fix that.

There is a new Nokia Corp stor in NYC as of yesterday(?). Maybe you can see one there. It a very nice phone, more impressive than the photos. But it not meant for rough handle on a construction site, IMO

I agree on the MMS video...i never used it.

 

Glad you are happy with your new phone viewfly, good luck with it.

 

It works fine with me. Just seems to fall in the right place. And my hearing is none too good these days.

The more I use it, the more I just really love this phone. There are a few things that either I haven't figured out, or aren't here. A few of the things I miss most are features from my Kyocera SoHo: a flashing light to let me know that I've received a message (and maybe someday a VMI)--the V3i has this, also; and the SoHo has a great feature in the contact list where the top 10 entries are the most used ones, then the list repeats itself alphabetically below. One key stroke from main menu gets you to your most used contacts. But small tradeoffs for all of the great features of the 6131. I also just started using PhoneDirector, which is a great phone and file manager, and theme editor for Mac OS X. I can see many hours slaving over the glowing laptop screen late at night.

Jim

 

No, I don't see a dictionary under the organizer. BTW, all of my phone numbers ,under the same listing, maynot have come over with PC suite. I just noticed that at most only 1 extra, plus the primary came over. However, I can add more to it via the phone. I'll have to look in to that again.

Also, thanks so much for 'sticking' your neck out and getting this phone early and giving a try. It's a big expense to do that. Glad you did, and I trust your opinon, more than on hofo.

As they say in science class regarding our acheivements beyond Newton, Gauss,etc: we stand on the shoulders of giants...

vf

P.S. installed Opera Mini and google maps. Works fine. Had problems with Opera at first, googled Hofo,and came up with your reference!

wildrock is right: there are a lot of things that come up later: it pays to read the manual. 1) I noticed that the default out of the box setting is not the highest camera resolution and 2) that EDGE is not set to be 'always on': fixed both of them.

The nokia manuals are so complete. Moto is a fine company, but Nokia o/s interface, options and manual runs circles around them. I don't understand why moto lets that happen.

 

How is the T9 on the 6131? I love how iTAP works on the Motorolas and the last time I used T9 was when I had a TDMA Nokia a few years ago. So I don't know what improvements T9 has made. For instance, iTAP remembers the last word you chose out of a list and makes that your first choice rather than making you choose the word from the list again. Another thing I love about iTAP is that it automatically learns new words. For instance, my user name autocompletes everytime I type 'bob'. I am wondering if T9 learns new words.

By the way, viewfly, how has been your battery life on the 6131?

 

T9 is not like iTAP: it does not complete words for you or give a list of possiblities after a couple of letters. You can add to the dictionary, but basically you have to know how to spell the word. The T9help is that you don't need to 'round-robin' each letter on the keys.

I'll need more time on the battery question. I haven't done my 2nd recharge yet since Friday afternoon. The battery has 1/4 segments on the display.

This is what I have so far: I charged up Friday afternoon, played with it, download opera-mini, BT,OTA, Camera, etc and by Saturday afternoon, it was showing 1/4 left. I decided to charge it then.

As of Monday morning, it is at 1/4 again. I got my first 'low battery' warning just now (9:50am), but I plan to run it until it dies today. I leave the phone on overnight too. The Nokia manual says to give it 3 full discharge/charge cycles, before battery performance is optimal.

I'm sure the battery will be a weak point. The outside and inside main display remain on during phone calls. But there may be tricks to play to conserve power. For example, the display dims quickly after the flip is closed, but after a minute timeout (which is ajustable), the Autolock kicks in and the displays light up again. That can be played with.

My 6230 might last 2-3 days, but the display would show full charge (7 bars) and then rapidly degrade. This display seems more equally balanced.

Normally I charge every night, so after the 3 complete cycles I will go that route, and then have a better feel for battery life.

VF

 

This is true, although we should add that if a given key sequence corresponds to more than one word, T9 will show you the most likely one (according to its word frequency rankings), and then let you cycle through the other possibilities (on my phone, * does this).

 

I need to correct that error. The outside/internal displays dim during the call and seem to go out. I didn't realize that, so this should save batteries.

SteveW and Charlyee, thanks for clearing me comments on the T9.

 

OK, so I have my phone menus set-up for the "Tab" format. I notice that as I scroll down, there is a numeric indicator in the top right hand corner that counts along with my scrolling down through a list. I would think that this correlate to my being able to just, for example, press "3" to go to the third item on the list instead of clicking "down" 3 times. This does not appear to be the case.

What I am looking for is the same as pressing "5" when on the 3x3 grid and having it activate the center selection. Is this something that has to be activated through options, or is it a carry-over from the grid configuration, but w/o the ability to use the number pad for selections?

 

This normally works from the home screen mode only or the home grid screen. Then quickly press Menu>4>2, for example to get to the Settings and then Theme menu. Just hitting a # in a submenu does not work, but it does work if you are at the 3x3 Menu screen already. In that case you press 4>2 to get to the same Theme setting. Depending on the menu, you can just add more numbers to get where you need to.

 

Just read on Phonescoop today that the 6133 looks like it's coming to T-Mobile. I guess it was approved by the FCC, but there was no word on its release date and price. Go fig??

 

Charlyee,

I made a first, quick attempt to find the microphone. Like bobolito suggested, I dialed the office phone, picked up , and with the phone on the table, tapped around the phone's edge with a wooden stick.

I really couldn't tell where the sound was louder. In fact, the loudest seemed to be near the hinge, where the wrist strap hole is. It didn't seem noticably louder by the speaker.

Still a mystery to me where it is. I even checked the pop port, where the mic is with the 6230. Nothing obvious. Oh well. 'll try again, when I'm really bored.

vf

 

I guess it depends on the phone manufacturer. On the Sony Ericsson phones, which also use T9, you will see a list of possible choices as you enter letters. The choices acquire more definition as you enter more letters. If the word that you want to enter is not the default choice but it is in the list, you simply scroll up or down to choose it. It is somewhat like iTAP without the autocomplete. You still have to press the number of keystrokes necessary to type the whole word.

So the lack of autocomplete is a major downside to T9. I know that iTAP can remember entire URL addresses, so it works like Internet Explorer in a way which saves you lots of keystrokes. For instance, in my Motorola browser if I enter "www.wi" the rest of the line is filled in as "www.wirelessadvisor.com" suggesting that if I want to complete that entire word, all I have to do is press UP and it will confirm the entry, which is a very useful shortcut. If that is not the word I wanted to type, for instance if I really meant "www.wikipedia.com" I can always continue typing to complete the new URL.

 

iTAP is more comfortable for those situations. If you want to type 'cat' you press 228. On the first keystroke the suggestion may be one of the three letters. Even if the default chosen letter is wrong, all you do is keep on going to the second keystroke. You may get 'ba' or 'ca' as the first two suggestions in the list. The autocomplete does not kick in at that point because it is too few letters. If you continue and hit the third keystroke, you will get either 'cat' or 'bat' depending on which one was the last word you used the previous time you typed that word, but the list is still active allowing you to choose the other word in case the default one is not the one you want. If the default word is the want you want, simply hit the space key to move on to the next word, but if it is not what you want, then you simply use the navigation keys (left or right) to select the word you want and then press space to move on to the next word.

If you want to switch between iTAP, TAP, symbols, or numeric mode, you use the # key to cycle through the modes. But if you want to quickly switch between numeric and whatever mode you are on, just hold whatever key you need to type and it will stay in that mode until you hold any other key you need again and it will switch back to the previous mode. It comes in very handy when you are entering a mixture of numbers and letters such as a street address. iTap is very user friendly. I wish it was the industry standard or at least T9 would copy some of its features. But I can live with T9 too because I am not a heavy texter.

 

I just started my 3rd charge cycle with the 6131 battery. From my previous post above, on Monday, Sept 11 (around 11am) the battery was too low to activate the camera.

I gave it a full charge (~ 2+ hours). It is now Weds (around 3pm), 2 + days later (phone on 24 hours each day), and the low battery warning came on. So I started my 3rd charge.

I think this agrees so far with Charlyee's experience: about 2, 24 hour days of normal use. I think once I go back to my routine of charging every night, the battery life should fit my life style with enough charge for each day.

I noted that the manual warned against leaving the charger on long after full charge is acheived. I thought the phone had some intelligence to switch to trickle charge, like the Nokia car charger does (and my PC). I don't remember the same warning for the 6230. They could have made a mistake in the manual, but a word of caution.

 

Voice Recognition

I was worried about this one. Nokia switched to using my actual voice (6230)to a robotic voice recognition on the 6131.

It actually works pretty well, a least no more errors than before. And the beauty is that now the entire phone book has VR, not just a limit of 10.

It takes getting use to, but not much. And I don't have to speak in UK english either. I guess it works in all the lang. supported by the phone.

I am pleasantly impressed. One time, I just forgot what I called the phone entry for a person, so I said nothing. Somehow it just selected a name and dialed. I had to rush to cancel, since it was 2 in the morning!