Mobile Gets A Longer Life
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday March 19, 1996
A NEW digital phone with a longer battery life has been launched in Europe. Finland-based Nokia has released the 1610, which features a dramatic increase in battery time with up to 200 hours standby, close to three times more than any other mobile phone.
Australian consumers can expect to see the new phone released around the middle of next month. It will cost about $399, with a fixed-term contract from a network operator.
The 1610 is slightly larger than the top-of-the-line 2110, but with the same weight. The overall appearance is quite stylish, with the classic dark grey plastic case.
When first holding the phone, you get the feeling it is slightly triangular.
On closer inspection, it becomes clear that its front dimensions are smaller than the rear, contributing to the visual impression that the phone is small.
The display is limited, with only two rows of eight characters as well as some special symbols for signal strength and battery condition.
The keyboard layout takes a lead from the very popular 101 analog phone, but with an additional key with a cassette tape symbol for retrieving voicemail.
There are 23 keys, but key feel is not as firm as on other phones. I get the impression they have a little more travel from the up position to the pressed down position. But overall, the keyboard feels very good.
The phone uses the large format credit-card-sized SIM (subscriber identity module), which meant using a SIM adaptor as all of my SIMs are the small type.
I tried to use Telstra SIMs in Finland, but unfortunately they wouldn't work.
Telstra said Finland's operator had reported a problem with Australia, but others in the party who had Optus SIMs had no trouble making and receiving calls. Telstra was unable to help with the problem for the five days I was in Finland.
In the end I gave up and used a SIM from the Finnish phone company, which Telstra had also provided for other countries not on its ready-roam list.
The antenna on the 1610 is a stub type. The rationale behind this is that people often leave extendable antennas in the retracted position when making and receiving calls.
I found the phone seemed to work in most places I travelled in Europe and generally compared favourably with the other phones.
The 1610's long standby time was measured by Nokia in the laboratory and would most likely be hard to reproduce in real life. The 200-hour figure means the user doesn't make or receive any calls for eight days.
There seems to be a rule of thumb at Nokia that says each minute of talk time is worth about 10 minutes of standby time.
The long standby time also assumes you've switched off the backlight that comes on whenever a key is pressed, making the phone hard to use in the dark.
Further, the battery-save option needs to be activated. This lengthens the interval between network contact attempts when the phone goes out of range.
GSM phones use their batteries more when they are out of range than when in range.
Phones go out of range in places such as elevators and underground car parks.
Nokia's new 1610 mass-market phone will prove hard to beat, with its 200-hour standby making other phones look positively obsolete.
Among the other highlights at CeBIT '96 were:
* Alcatel's release of its HC800 and its showing of the HC1000. The HC800 is a head-on competitor for the Nokia 2110 except for data. Alcatel's HC1000 also includes data capability.
* Orbitel is showing the 907, which also has data capabilities. The 905, known in Australia as the NEC Pocket MAX, is a 2110-sized phone.
* Ericsson launched its 388, first mentioned in this column last year. The 388, which is 337-sized, has a relatively poor standby time of only 80 hours. Ericsson has also launched the 318, a more massmarket product. Both products do data, however.
* Motorola has launched the new StarTAC flips with the keys on the flip.
© 1996 Sydney Morning Herald
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