Nokia 6233 Music Edition review

The Nokia 6233 is a solid all-round performer, comfortably meeting all business needs but with strong multimedia assets and EDGE/3G capabilities to boot.

For the Indian market Nokia has downplayed the 3G capability and positioned the phone as a multimedia device - 'the Nokia 6233 Music Edition'.

The music player supports a wide range of formats, the built-in speakers are stereo and there's an integrated FM radio too. Sadly any pretensions to being an iPod killer are hampered by the lack of included memory: just 70MB in total.

The candybar design of the 6233 makes all its features easily accessible, the front fascia boasting the selection buttons and call and end keys of its predecessor, the 6230. The 6233's central selection key is surrounded by a four-way navigation key which you use to navigate the phone's animated menu system.

The phone itself feels sturdy, its glossy front face and 240x320-pixel screen backing onto a rubber-coated back fascia which adds to the grip and protects somewhat against drops and shocks.

The large keys on the 6233's keypad have no metal dividers between them, making it easy to text at speed or dial numbers quickly.

Powered by Nokia's Series 40 system, the 6233 offers voice calling, texting, internet access and email, as well as the ability to run applications written in Java and Shockwave formats.

As with all Series 40 models, the animated menus are easy to use, and additional productivity features include the usual calendar, calculator, to-do list, notes, alarm clock and stopwatch tools.

The phone can be customised to your own taste by installing ringtones, wallpapers and screensavers via Bluetooth, internet download and MMS, or via a USB cable connected to a PC running Nokia's bundled PC Suite. You can also download or create themes for your phone - small packaged files that add all such desktop enhancements in one go.

The back of the phone features the Nokia 6233's 2-megapixel camera along with a handy self-portrait mirror. The camera is activated by pressing a button on the side of the phone; this key doubles up as the capture button. The camera takes clear shots at a choice of five resolutions from the full 1600x1200 down to an icon-sized 160x120, and the phone's video capture resolution is a healthy 640x480 pixels.

Various quality settings are available so you can compromise quality with memory space - the 6233's own built-in 6MB won't hold much, but the standard 64MB MicroSD card is enough for around 100 top-quality images or a handful of your favourite music tracks. And its built-in music player plays imported tracks to a high standard.

The phone also features an FM radio and voice recorder, which will record until the phone or card memory is full, should you choose. Large buttons for controlling both voice calling and music player/radio volume are conveniently located on the right side of the phone.

The Nokia 6233 is a decent phone which, while it is probably overshadowed by the more recent XpressMusic models, is more than enough for users who want to use their phone for a bit more more than just calls and texts.