Nokia 2730 classic US User Reviews

Okay, so i will admit I don't have a US version of the phone. Mine came from Bell Mobility in Canada.As is, the phone is pretty nice. It does have style, and I'm a sucker for the classic bar phone. The face of the phone starts out with about a two inch long hole for the earpiece, and then you have the classic Navi key, as Nokia calls it. Its your regular 5-way directional pad (being up, down, left, right, and select), along with two soft keys at the top, and the talk and end keys below the left and right soft keys respectively. Then you have your standard 12 button keypad used to dial numbers, enter information, etc. The keypad is a little on the noisy side though, but I don't mind the audiable confirmation of pushing a button. Some may find this to be annoying though. On the top, you have a 2.5 mm power jack, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is actually a TRRS (Tip, Ring, Ring, Sleeve) connector, since it supports a stereo headset with a microphone. On the left side near the top, you have a hole for a wrist strap which you need to take the back cover off to install, and there is a microSD card slot, which (according to Nokia) doesn't support microSDHC cards, but for some reason, Bell Mobility keeps listing the microSDHC cards as "compatible" with the phone... Anyway, on the right side at the top again, there is a Micro USB jack, so you can synchronize the phone with your computer, and tether the device as well. On the bottom of the phone, there is a small pinhole for the microphone. On the back of the phone, you have the camera, as well as a few small holes to allow sound from the built in speaker. Its interesting to note that the entire back of the phone "comes off", so to speak. Its a thin plastic cover (with a plastic window to protect the camera lens) that's designed to keep the battery and the USIM card from falling out, as well as keep dust off of the camera lens. Its interesting to note that next to the speaker, there is a little bit of recessed plastic, as though it was supposed to be punched out, but wasn't. After a disassembly of the phone, I found that there is a connector for an external antenna, about where the recessed plastic "punch out" is. However, it is covered by the internal antenna, which explains why Nokia didn't put the hole in. All in all, the phone has a very nice clean design. It seems "just right" for the phone. Yes, a little simple, but at the same time, elegant.With the branded firmware from Bell Mobility, the phone is a mediocre phone. Its a Series 40 5th edition firmware, so it does all the basic functions, as well as being able to play music and watch movies on the device. It comes with Opera Mini 4 pre-installed, as well as a bunch of game demos. It also has the ability to play music, in .aac, .wma, and .mp3, which it does quite well. It did take me a little while to get the metadata setup correctly in the music files, but the sound quality of the phone is quite well for an entry level phone. The loudspeaker even sounds quite nice, albeit, not as nice as listening to music through a good set of headphones or a sound system set up for music. None the less, the quality suprised me.To me, it seemed like a plain old phone from Bell, until I reflashed the phone with the original unbranded firmware. This, is where the phone really shows its strong points. The phone was meant to include Ovi Maps for S40, and an e-mail and IM client as well. Bell subsequently removed these features from the firmware, which really pisses me off. But then again, they can't upsell people if you don't remove features that make the cheap phone handy in the first place. So far, Ovi Maps is quite valuable for finding your way, but since the phone doesn't have a GPS built in, you can't get a location. Ovi Maps seems to be best for people who have a general idea of where they're going, but could use a helping hand on the details. The e-mail client is quite nice, and appears to be web based. You enter your username and password, and the phone takes care of the rest. I haven't had time to play around with the IM client yet, but it appears to be limited to Ovi services.Sound quality, when talking on the phone is very nice, and its easy to understand the other party. The phone, so far, hasn't lost a signal during a call, and even in a low signal area, i can understand the other party without having to strain or listen in closely. Wired headsets could use some more volume though, as i found them to be rather quiet. As for signal strength, I've picked up a signal where Bell and Telus have both told me i shouldn't be able to get a signal at all. I had a strong enough signal, that I could place a call, and browse the web at the same time. The battery life is nothing to write home about, as i get about 8 hours of moderate usage (using data off and on all day to browse larger webpages, as well as text messaging every couple minutes. Also, there is virtually no lag whatsoever. The only time the phone seems to studder is when its cataloging my 300+ music files. Then again, its not usually noticable.All in all, its a very nice phone for the $70 I paid for it. It should be noted that I paid the "prepaid price" back when Bell had just released their 3G network. But hey, my $70 dollars got me a phone that i will continue to use for years to come.