By December 8, 2009

Nokia 3720 Classic Review

With all the latest fancy smartphones these days that do just about everything except for washing the dishes, we need to now and again come back down to earth and check out the more basic/entry-level phones.

Nokia has provided us with their 3720 Classic. A stylish yet simple looking phone that should do the basics such as call and text, and as Matt mentioned in the unboxing video into, it is built to be robust and is water, dust and shock resistant with an IP54 rating.

3270_angled_right The Nokia 3720 Classic

 

What’s in the box?

  • Nokia 3720 Classic handset
  • Battery (BL-5CT)
  • Headset/handsfree
  • Mains charger
  • Manual

For more information you can check out Matt’s Nokia 3720 Classic unboxing video

 

Nokia 3720 Classic specification:

  • Dimensions: 112 x 51 x 15.4mm
  • Weight: 94g
  • Battery: Talk Time: 7 hrs / Standby Time: 450 hrs
  • Display: 320 x 240 pixels/2.2"
  • Network: 2G: 900/1800/1900 (Tri-Band)
  • Camera: 2 mega-pixels (auto-focus)
  • Video: 11fps Video Recording (QCIF)
  • Music: Supported formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ & WMA / FM Stereo Radio (RDS)
  • Messaging: – SMS – MMS (with video) – E-mail (POP3, SMTP, IMAP4) – Instant Messaging (MSN)
  • Memory: 20MB (internal) / microSDHC (external)
  • Connectivity: microUSB / Bluetooth (2.0)
  • Navigation: Nokia Maps
  • Features: Water, Dust & Shock resistant
  • Opera Mini Web Browser
  • Flash Lite 2.0 Support

 

General:

Front – First, there is the 2.2″ screen (320×240 pixels). Below this are the left and right soft keys and then the call and end buttons (the ‘end’ button is also the ‘Power . In the middle is a typical d-pad for navigation through menus and the select button in the middle of this. Lastly, the is a basic phone keypad.

3720_front Nokia 3720 Classic – front view

 

Left-hand side – There is absolutely nothing on the left side of the phone. This keep the phone as simple as it was designed to be.

3720_left Nokia 3720 Classic – left-hand side view

 

Right-hand side – Again, very simple. The up/down rocker button can be seen here, and near the bottom of the handset is the loop hole for attaching a wrist strap/lanyard.

3720_right Nokia 3720 Classic – right-hand side view

 

Bottom – The charger socket is located here. The rubber cover encases microUSB and headphone sockets.

320_bottomNokia 3720 Classic – bottom view

 

Back – The back cover is secured with a screw which can be loosened with a small coin. The microSD card, sim card and battery are located under this cover. You can also see the speaker grill, camera (2MP) and flash.

3720_back Nokia 3720 Classic – back view

 

Highlights:

  • Simple stylish design
  • Robust build (water, dust and shock resistant)
  • Clear display
  • Flash for the camera
  • Good call sound quality

 

Lowlights:

  • Quite complicated for an entry level phone
  • Camera quality is quite poor
  • No dedicated camera button
  • USB cable not provided in box
  • No 3G

 

Review:

The Nokia 3720 Classic is one of Nokia’s entry level/basic mobile phones. The idea is that it is a simple to use, plain-looking mobile phone that does the basic things that you would want a phone for.

Nokia have done well with the design of the 3720. Some of the entry level phones that are on the market look quite dated, but this one is actually quite stylish. What I really noticed what the solid and robust feel to it. It gives the impression that it could definitely stand up to a bit of rough handling! Made to be water, dust and shock resistant, it has secure covers and rubber seals in order to keep out the elements.

To look at this phone objectively I took the approach of keeping a family member in mind who doesn’t really use their mobile phone except for the odd text or phone call.

 

3720_angled_leftThe  Nokia 3720 Classic

I was nicely surprised with the display. It’s bright and clear – even in bright sunlight.

The Nokia 3720 comes with the Series 40 6th edition user interface. This is where I think Nokia could have made a change. This user interface is one that has become familiar with Nokia phone users. It looks great, and for the smartphone users out there it seems very simple to use. But, there are people out there looking for an entry level phone. People who have rarely used a mobile phone or haven’t used one at all. Taking this into account the 3720 is actually quite complex. I actually think that it has the potential to put people off from choosing this as their first phone.

For me, texting on this phone was great. The large keys and clear display make it a very easy task. Again, I think that many of the options when texting can over complicate things and make a beginner texter want to just call the person they want to get in contact with or not bother at all!

The main menu can be viewed in either a grid mode or list mode and is quite straight forward. You can access the usual applications and tools here such as messaging, contacts, media, calendar, etc.

You are also provided with the Ovi store, Opera web browser, email and instant messaging, which means the 3720 Classic offers many ways to keep up to date with applications and your social life. This could be seen as a bit of a waste though as people looking for a very basic phone would most likely steer clear of the more technical applications.

One thing I feel I should mention here is that web browsing on this phone is not user friendly in the slightest. The smaller screen and lack of capability to view in landscape mode make web pages a pain to read and navigate through. The rendering of the pages seems to take an age as well.

 

The camera is only a 2MP camera. Not the most advanced compared to many camera phones, but you can take pretty good pictures when the light is right. Just don’t expect to be able to enlarge the photo without loosing some of the quality. The fixed focus means that photos taken with the camera are very average looking – but if a camera phone is what you are looking for I guess you would buy a camera phone! In saying that, if you have any pictures that you copy onto the phone from your pc, viewing them on the 3720 is quite good. The clear and bright display really does the phone justice here.

 

The music player is very standard and does the trick. Straight forward, and I would think that it would be quite easy to get used to for a new mobile phone owner.

The audio quality for music playback using the loudspeaker is not brilliant but is good enough. The earphones that are packed with the phone are very average.

There are a few pre-installed games on the phone – great for killing time on the train.

 

Connectivity on the 3720 includes GPRS/EDGE, Bluetooth and USB. Not a huge range but it keeps the phone simple.

 

Nokia have stated on their site that the 3720 is “resistant against dust, splashes, drops and shocks”. Now, I was a bit dubious about trying anything here and handing Matt back a dusty, scratched and possibly soggy phone – so, I had a good look on the web. It’s amazing what people have tried! From light splashes of water to submersing the handset in a glass of beer, and from a short drop onto the floor to running over it with a car!! (Please do not try this at home!) Well, the result seems to be a pretty hardy phone!

 

As I’ve mentioned a few times, this has been designed to be an entry level phone so I can’t forget to mention the main function – phone calls!

The sound quality is very good on the Nokia 3720. People that I called when using this phone commented on the clarity as there seemed to be hardly any background noise even when I was walking about in a noisy shopping centre. The reception seems to hold well with this phone too. I know it depends some what on the general reception in your area but it performed great compared to other phones that I have tried out. The speaker phone worked well too. The sound came through loud and clear.

 

Conclusion:

It’s a nice change to have a look at an entry level mobile phone as all you really see these days is the smartphone and touchscreen phone market battle.

Although I like my fancy phones with all of the bells and whistles I found myself really liking this phone. It it nice to hold and robust enough to make you not worry about dropping it.

I did find myself looking at a few apps thinking that some of the features could really confuse an absolute mobile phone newbie. But, over all, this is a good entry level phone from Nokia.

 

 

Reviewed by: Emma

Posted in: Reviews

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