Nokia 2690 Review

Nokia 2690 is a low budget phone with a sleek and an attractive design. It is a quad band GSM phone which runs under the Symbian 40 operating system and comes in a single block candy bar format. Although, the phone is a low budget one, the features in it are not and have most of the features of a mid-level phone like camera with video recording capabilities, bluetooth, music player, FM radio, internet access, access to Ovi online and many more.

Body Design
The Nokia 2690 is a very pocket friendly medium sized handset. The phone has got a plastic build and has a shiny finish which is same as the color of the phone. The phone has a young and vibrant look due to the strong colors it comes out in. You can choose between blue, pink, graphite and white which are all stunning and adds coolness factor to the phone.
The display screen of the phone looks big enough at first glance but in reality is very small. The shiny black body that surrounds the display screen creates an illusion of a bigger screen. The screen is just 1.8 inches in size and has a maximum resolution of 128 x 160 pixels.
There are four keys below the display screen. They are the “accept” and “reject call” buttons along with the two contextual or soft keys. The navigation key is between these buttons and has a thin metallic strip surrounding it, which makes it easy to click on. The 12 alphanumeric keys might seem small at the beginning but you will have no problem when you get used to it. The backlighting of the keys is very bright and therefore there is no problem in operating the phone in a dark area.
The microUSB port and the wrist strap eyelet are on the left side of the phone while the memory card slot is on the right side of the handset. The top of the phone plays host to the charger connector and the 3.5 mm headset connector. There are no ports or buttons on the bottom of the phone accept for the microphone. Lastly, the camera and the loudspeaker are situated on the back of the phone. The back of the phone has a grid pattern on it which greatly increases the grip of the phone.

Multimedia
The phone has a VGA camera which does not have a lot of features. The camera can capture an image at a maximum resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. You can adjust the white balance before you take a photo or add effects while clicking a picture. The camera does not have auto-focus, flash or night mode. The phone does not have a dedicated camera shutter key, so you have to use the navigation key to click pictures. You can click and view your photos in landscape mode.
The camera also supports video recording but records at a very low resolution of 176 x 144 pixels at 15 fps, which is only good for the occasional MMS.
The phone also has a music player that can play MP3 and AAC files. It allows the sorting of music tracks according to artist, album and genre. The music player also gives you the option to make your own playlists. You can increase the audio quality by turning on the stereo widening feature. The phone also has a video player that can play your recorded videos as well as 3GP, MPEG4 format files as well as H.263 codecs.
The integrated FM radio with RDS support completes the entertainment aspect of the phone. This FM radio also supports background playback.
You can also browse the web as the phone also supports WAP 2.0 protocols and xHTML and HTML mark up languages. The online connectivity is provided by GPRS or EDGE data network. You can also log on to the Ovi Life Tools’ various services and get important knowledge and information besides buying of several Ovi products.
The phone also comes with email support and support for MMS and SMS as well.
It has Java MIDP installed in it and has a couple of preinstalled Java games.
Lastly, the Nokia 2690 has all the necessary applications like calendar, alarm, calculator, notes and converter.

Memory
The device comes with a total of 32 megabytes of internal memory, but you can use only 25 MB of it as the others are used up by the installed applications and files. Fortunately the 2690 comes with an external memory card feature in the form of a microSD card slot. The phone supports memory expansion up to 8 GB

Connectivity
The Nokia 2690 is a quad band GSM phone that is under the 2G network. The phone works under GSM 850/900/1800/1900 network bands. For web browsing, it has EDGE and GPRS data network aiding in the online connectivity of the device. The data transfer speed reaches to a maximum of 149 kbps while downloading and 70 kbps while uploading. But this may vary depending on the network carrier and the location. The phone does not have any of the high-end connectivity features like Wi-Fi or GPS but that is understandable as the price of the phone is too low to include a feature like that in it.
For local connectivity, the Nokia 2690 has got bluetooth version 2.0 with A2DP support as well as USB 2.0. The bluetooth connectivity helps with the wireless connection of the phone with other bluetooth enabled devices. The A2DP profile enables the use of wireless stereo bluetooth headphones to listen to music. The USB 2.0 takes care of all wired connections of the phone with other compatible devices like computers and printers.
The phone also comes with the standard 3.5 mm standard headphone jacks instead of the proprietary Nokia jack or the less popular 2.5 mm ones.

Performance
The Nokia 2690 cannot be subjected to a thorough review of the features it has like we do with a high-end smart phone as it is just an entry level low end phone. But even if we did so, it will be hard to find faults with this phone except for the poor camera. But still, the camera is not the USP of the phone and no one would buy this phone because of the camera. The camera is just an add-on and making the feature of the phone complete. Another complaint of the phone is its tiny display screen. A display screen of 1.8 inch is very small even when compared to other budget phones in its range.
Other than that, this Nokia phone did pretty well in all departments. The call quality of the phone was very good. We didn’t experience any loss of signal or distortion during a call at any moment of time. The music player of the phone was decent enough and can even be said to be excellent if we take the price of the phone in concern. It has got internet connectivity and basically all the features of a mid range phone at a price of a low range phone. Moreover, the battery life of the phone lived up to its promise.

Verdict
You cannot say “no” to this wonder phone from Nokia. The features in it are not the best in the world. But if you consider the price of the phone and again, take the features in to consideration, you will realize that the 2690 is a total value for money phone and is worth every dollar you spent in buying it.
A must-buy, if you are looking for a budget phone that does not compromise on cool features.
The Nokia 2690 is available for just $115.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4/5