Nokia 3710 Fold Review

Nokia 3710 Fold is one of the latest clamshell design phone under an affordable budget from the Finnish company. The 3710 fold looks a lot sleeker and visually appealing than previous clamshells from Nokia. On top of that, the phone is loaded with features and technically very much smarter than its predecessors.

Body Design
This Nokia phone has a fold design and has a physical dimension of about 3.5 x 1.8 x 0.6 inches and weighs about 3.3 ounces. The phone has two display screens and the secondary display is a black/white TFT screen which can display a maximum resolution of 160 x 128 pixels. This display screen situated on the outside is invisible until you press the volume key or receive a call or a message. Physically, the phone has a good grip due to the rubbery material that covers the entire back of the phone. The standard microUSB port and the charging port is on the left side of the phone while the right side of the handset plays host to the 2.5 mm audio jack and the two volume buttons which also functions as the zoom in/zoom out button when you are operating the camera. The back side of the phone makes room for the 3.2 megapixel camera. A small LED flash is also by the side of this camera.
The 2.2 inch main screen which can display 16.7 million colors at QVGA resolution and the well endowed alphanumeric keypad come into view when you open this folding design phone. Compared to other clamshell phone, the display screen of this phone looks big. There is a video camera at the base of the main display which is included for those video calls.
The folding mechanism of this phone is pretty impressive and looks like it is built to last. And on top of that, the build quality of the phone as a whole is very solid.
The Nokia 3710 is available in pink, plum and black.

Multimedia
The phone has a 3.2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and can take a photo at a maximum resolution of 1536 x 2048 pixels. It has full-focus feature instead of auto-focus, which is much better in capturing close photos. The phone has an LED flash which makes capturing photos in dark and low-lit environment possible. You can even adjust this flash to auto, on or off. The camera also has a host of other features like white balance, scene modes and color tone modes.
Video recording can also be done with this camera and the recorded videos are saved in 3GP format. A video clip can be recorded at a maximum resolution of 320 x 240 pixels with the option to change color tones and adjust light balance.
On top of this main camera, the 3710 also has a secondary camera which is meant for video calling.
The phone also comes equip with a music player and a media player. The music player can play various formats ranging from the standard MP3 and WMA to enhanced AAC+. This music player has a simple and a nice interface and has various features like a customizable equalizer. A customizable equalizer is rare as most music players come with predefined settings. Predefined settings are also included in this MP3 player. On top of this, it also has stereo widening, repeat and shuffle features.
This Nokia handset can play a multiple number of video formats like MP4, 3GP, AVI, ASF, MPEG4 and H.263 and H.264 codecs. It can play the videos in landscape mode on its 2.2 inch main display.
The integrated stereo FM radio makes sure that you never run out of music or entertainment anytime anywhere.
The Nokia 3710 is a 3G enabled phone and therefore has high connectivity features. You can send and receive e-mail attachments with this phone. it also supports IMAP, SMTP and POP e-mail protocols. For web browsing, it uses the OSS Webkit 413 browser which supports XHTML, HTML and WML mark up languages.
The handset also has the integrated A-GPS and Nokia Maps application with which you can find out the route to places that you have never been before. In short, you will never get lost, wherever you are.

Memory
The device comes with a free internal memory of about 70 MB which is for storing contact information, phone numbers, ringtones, messages, mails and a few photos, music and videos. Seventy megabyte is a small storage amount and this can be increased up to 8 GB through its external microSD slot.

Connectivity
The Nokia 3710 Fold has both 2G and 3G connectivity. The four-band GSM 850/900/1800/1700 is accessed by users in 2G network while users in 3G network can access the tri-band WCDMA 850/1900/2100 or the WCDMA 900/1700 2100/1700. Online net browsing can also be done with multislot class 32 GPRS or EDGE. You can also get connected to the online world through your phone with the help of WCDMA which can provide you with a download and upload speed of 384 kbps. This wonder phone can also serve as a data modem and help you browse the World Wide Web through your PC.
Local wireless connectivity of the phone with other compatible devices is made possible by its integrated bluetooth version 2.1 which comes with Enhanced Data Rate. The EDR feature makes transfer of data between two bluetooth devices faster. You can also transfer and share data with other devices by a wired connection through its USB 2.0 port.
Sadly, the Nokia 3710 has the less popular 2.5 mm headphone jack instead of the standard 3.5mm jack.

Performance
The phone has a good call quality with minimal environmental noises. Although sometimes you feel like there is a reduction in the volume of the voice in the other side. There were no complaints about how our voice sounded on the other end. So, call quality was pretty good.
You can’t blame the music player and the camera quality because considering the price of the phone; you can’t get anything better than that. The keys are adequately spaced and big, which makes it a very good texting phone. The clamshell design of the phone is also as good as it can get. Some people don’t like the folding design as a whole no matter how good they look; but for people who don’t mind, you can’t get a more solidly built folding phone like this and at this price.
The integrated UMTS technology and the A-GPS feature is the cherry on top for this device. However, the phone could have scored more points if it had a bigger screen, a better camera and Wi-Fi features.

Verdict
If you don’t mind the clamshell design and want a performance oriented cell phone at a very considerable price, then I would recommend this phone as it has all the basic features and a little bit more.
The Nokia 3710 Fold is available for $229.

Reviewer’s rating: 4/5