Nokia 1100

Looks like we're on a roll here...

This phone can be found for dirt cheap on Tracfone.com, refurbished. But it's still good. It's free either with a 1-year card or a 60-minute card. I chose the bundle with the 60-minute card of course.

Appearance and Size
Granted, this phone must be about 5 years old now, but it is still on the small side snf Nokia makes their designs aestheticaly relatively future-proof. So you have a phone that is not too thick or wide, is rather long, and is a tad heavy considering its size. As a warning though, don't take the keypad out from the cover; it won't go in again quite right. The phone is still really useable but things are a whole lot snappier out of the box than if you do the aforementioned. Oh, and the phone is fairly durable...the faceplate popped off when it was gently hurled onto a vinyl floor but it popped right back on again a minute later.

Battery Life
This phone uses a fair-sized battery, which happens to be able to fit into a Nokia 2126. But the Nokia 2126's BL-6C battery is a little too big to fit comfortably in the 1100's BL-5C compartment. Expect four or five days of battery life with moderate usage, thanks to mono ringtones and a large black-and-white display.

Features, Screen, UI
This phone is loaded with different features that are fun and useful, such as a stopwatch that is quite good (not like the c139's 7 frames per second ordeal), an easy-to-use calculator, and a nice ringtone composer. Granted, ringtones are only monophonic but once you get the hang of the composer you can make some pretty nice ringtones. I made both the Cingular and T-Mobile tones, plus a snippet of Dueling Banjos. And the ringtones that come with the phone are many, varied and of good quality. And yes, rhythmic vibration is on the 1100. And yes, there is a flashlight on this phone, though it isn't quite as bright as the one on the Nokia 2126...in other words don't ditch your normal flashlight.

A big screen, sporting 96x65 pixel resolution (OK for black-and-white), gives plenty of space for Nokia's great user interface, which uses the older "Navi" design for navigation; there's a big Navi key in the middle, a Clear button on the left (as well as a recessed power button) and up\down arrows on the right. The lack of dedicated send\end keys is sometimes annoying, but not very much. Again Nokia makes something that's easy to use.

Reception is very good, and so is voice quality. he phone's ringers are loud enough, as is the earpiece, though of course there's no speakerphone. My only little beef is that Nokia refuses to support standard 2.5mm headsets on their phones; if you want a headset for Nokia then you have to buy a headset for Nokia. Conversely, I have a cheapie 2.5mm headset that I got for free with CheapPhoneCards reward points and it works on all the LG, Motorola and Samsung phones I've had (the Siemens a56 lacks a headset jack).

Hmmm...looks like we've covered everything. All in all this phone is great for what Tracfone currently does: send and receive calls and text messages. I'd heartily recommend this phone while it lasts...you can even get it for next to nothing. Granted, it doesn't have a color screen or rip-roaringly good battery life, but for a basic phone it aces the test.

Oh, and on DealKing.com you can get $5 back from Tracfone, enough to cover shipping for the little bugger. I'd go for it.

This concludes the massive posting spree today. Until the next time something neat comes out for prepaid cellular, see you people! Oh and by the way, to make sure I hae a reason to do this (getting my hands on new phones to put reviews here) please click an ad or two. Hey, they're even useful sometimes!