Sound Quality

The sound quality of the Nokia 3200 is excellent. There are relatively few distortions and abnormalities in frequency. Voices are full and clarity is clean. Most people won't notice a slight low frequency boost. This is for loudspeaker range because low frequencies travel farther than high frequencies.

As for the loudspeaker usage, incoming voices played through the speaker were sufficiently loud and clear. While outgoing can be heard on the other side with relative clarity. The microphone does a great job picking up the voice with adequate volume. However, as with all loudspeakers, outgoing voices are susceptible to background noise.

RF Performance

Small signals were picked up and held in low reception areas, with minimal drop outs. Additionally, distortion, buzzing, and hissing was infrequent and within acceptable limits. For an internal antenna, the Nokia 3200 is very good. Overall the Nokia 3200's reception gets a reception rating of:

It should be noted that phone performance can very significantly, especially when considering how well your service provider's coverage area is, landscape, or other varying conditions. The phone with the worst reception can still work well if you live under a tower. These results are just a measure of the raw RF capabilities. Factoring everything else would just be impossible to compare phones.

Pros

· 3GPP-compliant EDGE phone. Download files at incredibly fast speeds of up to 118 kbps.

· Customizable templates. The 3200 takes phone design to a new level. Draw, print, and cut out your own unique artwork to fit your own style.

· Useful built-in flashlight. Because you never know when you'll need it.

· The FM radio. Stereo sound and the ability to save up to 20 radio channels. If you're bored just tune into the airwaves.

· Loudspeaker that's loud and useful. Excellent range and clarity for a loudspeaker.

· Practical voice recorder. Quickly record up to one minute of voice per clip. Great if you never have a pen and paper around when you need it.

· Record your own ring tones from any audio source through the voice recorder microphone. Imagine all the possibilities.

· J2ME platform. Downloadable from the hundreds of games and applications online. J2ME is the most popular mobile program platform so you can count on continued development.

· WAP 2.0 with xHTML browsing capabilities. View web pages optimized for cellular phones that support xHTML.

· Accurate sound quality and reliable reception. Don't worry about dropped calls or no network signals. With the 3200, if you get those messages then you're probably nowhere near a tower.

Cons

· Although a camera is better than no camera, the 352 x 288 px resolution is rather disappointing.

· 16 simultaneous chords, although once ahead of the pack, is now lagging behind other phones with up to 40 chords. You would think that a phone designed for the youth would sound better.

· Awkward keypad layout. The six key layout will require text messaging veterans to retrain the way they type.

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