Phone has all the bells and whistles - if you can get the cover off

By RICHARD PAMATATAU

Andy Warhol probably would have loved the Nokia 3200 - a cellular phone with a clear plastic case that makes it look more like a container for cheap sweets rather than a frame for today's act of DIY art as well as being a communication device.

It is an elegant minimalist logical device with a stripped-back keypad and nice 4096 colour 128 x 128 pixel screen. But the STN display (as opposed to TFT) produces images that are of a slightly lower quality and is slower to refresh, so for phone gamers and image junkies this may be a drawback.

But the phone's ability to be customised at the case level by taking off the plastic carapace (which has an annoying, almost subliminal creak when the phone is held) and adding owner-generated images to paper templates that can be fed through a printer are likely to make up for that. Especially for generation pxt or txt which, while mooching round town with its almost uniform low-slung jeans and Huffer or Rusty T-shirts, is desperate for difference.

Customising is both easy and hard. Anyone with some basic image software and a relatively low level of skills can make up an image, but the real challenge is getting the plastic case off.

That took longer than expected and so the phone was put to the resident 11-year-old youth test. His verdict: "Kids would like it but really it was just a waste."

Funk aside, the Nokia 3200 could have a rethink at the physical interface level. Rather than sticking to features that are useful, like easy-to-use buttons, or a simple menu, it offers the customer a chance to light their way via a built-in torch or listen to the built-in radio. That's good for a music fix or for finding lost keys, but good design is meant to be more about function supported by form.

The keypad is stripped back to six alpha numeric keys which are toggled to distinguish between 1 and 4, 2 and 5, 3 and 6, 7 and the * or +, 8 and 0 and 9 and #.

Similarly the menu key and the dial key are shared and distinguishing between up for menu and down for dial is surprisingly difficult. Those in the population with bigger fingers may end up with keypad rage. In the picture department this phone is a contender with a built-in camera offering two image resolutions: 352 x 288 pixel and 80 x 96 pixel.

These are not really good enough to make excellent printed images but are okay for viewing on the PC, or another pxt phone.

A 780 mAh Li-Ion battery is used with the 3200, which the company says offers four hours' talk time and 288 hours of standby. This device also offers many options to connect including infrared, and Pop-port, but not Bluetooth. Pop-port automatically identifies accessories attached to the phone, offers stereo sound with the use of headphones and transmits up to 230Kbps.

Another plus is that the phone is tri-band, so can be used in the United States. It also works on EDGE, GPRS, and HSCSD networks. GPRS is used here by Vodafone for its high-speed mobile network. EDGE is even faster and is gaining popularity in Europe in the "2.5G" limbo between 2G and 3G phones. HSCSD or high-speed circuit switched data is an enhancement of data services of all current GSM (Vodafone) networks at a speed of up to 28.8Kbps.

So despite the difficult keypad and a less-than-brilliant screen, the 3200 packs a lot into its small customisable case and its built-in gadgets should ensure strong appeal to the youth market.

Nokia 3200

$499

Pros: small,"funk" appeal, tri-band, built-in camera, radio, torch

Cons: creaky plastic case, difficult keypad

Rating: 7/10