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First impressions on Nokia 9300

3 replies · 5,912 views · Started 22 January 2005

Hello, I just bought a Nokia 9300 in France this morning :tongue: as I saw it was available in some shops yesterday.

It costed 779 euros without contract.

My first impressions are the following:
- the phone is small (althrough using SPV C500 lately, the difference was less striking)
- the external screen is not very good, less good at any rate than the SPV C500
- the internal screen is extraordinary, one of the best I have seen
- the keypad and joystick on the phone side seems confortable to me
- the mini-joystick on the keyboard is very good for me, like a laptop trackpoint
- the internal keyboard is horrible, no tactile feeling (9210 one is miles better), some time some keys seems not to work (ex: space bar when playing bounce)
- the phone seems solid and well built
- the navigation and launching of programs are slower than on the 9210. This is compensated someway by having loads of memory so applications can stay in memory (in that case switching is certainly quicker than loading on 9210)
- the software seems more stable (firmware 4.53), no crashes or out of memory error on Nokia 9300 (even if I had lots of crashes on PC Suite on Windows XP side)
- html email and internet are well handled by the Nokia 9300 (html email far better than SPV C500, rendering of my site on 9300 was very good)

All in one, except for the keyboard issue (but I'm sure I'll get used to it), I'm a very happy owner of the Nokia 9300.

I'm writing a more detailed Nokia 9300 review (for now in French).

Although the tactile feedback is minimal, I find the keyboard to be quite excellent. It does take some getting used to though. On the other hand I am not comfortable with the tiny jostick. I'd rather have a bigger navigational pad - something similar to the one used in the N-Gage.

I've written my own little first impressions thing here: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/viewarticle.php?id=141

If it's like the 9500 keyboard once you get used to it you should find the tactile response should improve. At least I felt it has as I've typed more on it.

Thank you Raven and Beaubarre. Read your impressions yesterday and placed an order for 9300 today. I'm using a shop in Finland that sells it for 656.90 � (without contract) but it will probably take weeks before I get it. Arrggh, the agony of waiting 😉