Good Features, Bad Phone
Written: Aug 12 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Menus, looks
Cons: Bad reception, Phone CRASHES, crappy design
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| jonnysnakes's Full Review: Nokia 6185 Cell Phone |
After looking around for a few months for a good mobile phone, I decided to try out the Nokia 6185. Aside from being a very stylish phone, I found the menus very intuitive and heard positive remarks about the Nokia brand name. I also bought the phone because of the tri-mode capability offered on it. This way, if I decided to switch from Sprint PCS (who sold my phone), I could instead go to Verizon Wireless, who offers 800 MHz CDMA (as opposed to PCS). My experience with the product did not live up to my expectations.
After hooking up with Sprint PCS, I thought I got a good deal: good phone, good price, good service. Sprint's service in LA, however, was anything BUT good. I noticed the problems almost immediately: dropped calls, pockets of dead air and bad reception. At first thought, I immediately blamed Sprint PCS for the problems. However, after using my brother's Qualcomm phone from Sprint, I noticed that his call drop rate was half as frequent as mine. I ignored the signs and still assumed that it was still NOT my phone and a problem with Sprint itself.
Then, one of many "major" incidents happened: About a month after I bought my phone, I placed a call one afternoon and noticed that I couldn't hear anything from the earpiece. I immediately hung up and tried placing the call again, still to no avail. I immediately called Sprint and reported the problem, suggesting the situation was due to Sprint's cell site. Sprint claimed that there was nothing wrong with their cell and that I should bring my phone in for repairs. I did. After a half-hour of tests by Sprint, they deterimined that my phone was in complete working condition and that I should try using my phone again. After an hour, I did, and my phone "miraculously" started working again. I called Sprint to report my progress and they stuck to their story with "there is nothing wrong with our cell site, it must have been your phone". I was just happy to have my phone working again and didn't argue.
About four months into owning my phone and service, I noticed that my calls were getting dropped more frequently, and another weird thing started happening: my phone actually started CRASHING on me! Now, I have never known that a phone can actually "crash", but it seems entirely plausable. After all, the phone does have software driven menus, and all software is prone to bugs. But on a phone? That seemed rather rediculous. What kind of company releases a phone to the market with software glitches in it that make it crash? To be fair, it only crashed (as far as my usage was concerned) when I started playing the game "Snake" at the highest level. First, the game ran smoothly. Then, after I lost, i noticed that the game (still at the highest level) started lagging. My keypad responses to the game were sluggish and eventually, the fastest level came down to a crawl. Then, CRASH!!! The phone automatically restarted (I imagine that they had a runtime to restart whenever a memory leak shut down the phone...which makes me wonder, why DID they put that runtime in? Did the EXPECT the phone to CRASH???) and brought me back to the original startup screen. So, I played the game again, and within 10 seconds, it crashed AGAIN! It repeatedly crashed every subsequent time I played the game after a restart. Deciding to give my phone a break, I shut it off to let it "cool down". After about a day, I played snake again, and it worked fine for a good one and a half hours! Then, it started crashing AGAIN! I deduced that the phone was crashing due to overheating of the chips inside, as it seemed to crash whenever the chips got hot. I called a friend of mine who was a Sprint PCS rep, and he said that there was a new software upgrade availiable and that I should go to the Sprint PCS store to get it upgraded. I agreed.
When I went to the Sprint PCS store, I told them my various problems with the phone (dropped calls, phone crashes, bad reception, etc). Mind you that this was four months after I bought the phone and I had dropped it a good 3 or 4 times from a height of 4 feet (average). They tested the phone and found it to have a "frequency" problem and said that it might have an effect on the phone crashing. They immediately gave me a new phone with the latest software (dated 4/14/00) that included a mini-browser that wasn't available with my previous phone. I was nevertheless excited: my phone problems had finally been solved! My excitement was premature. After using the phone for a good hour, I noticed that the reception, although marginally better, was still sub-par and worse than phones from other manufacturers. Matter of fact, after using it for two hours, the phone AGAIN CRASHED! This was a brand new phone, and it crashed right out of the box! I brought the phone back to Sprint, and they again gave me ANOTHER Nokia 6185. This time, however, I eavesdropped on the agent writing down the Master Lock Code number, so I could switch the phone to Verizon. After he wrote down the number (for himself to program the phone, of course), I told him that I didn't want it re-programmed and that I wanted to cancel my service. He reluctantly agreed and the next day I signed up with Verizon Wireless.
A quick side note, Verizon wireless had previously tested the 6185 and didn't authorize it for their network (now I know why), so even though the phone was compatable with Verizon's network, it was not recommended for it.
I brought my phone in to a friend of mine who worked at a cellular store. I gave him the Master Lock Code and he reprogrammed the phone for Verizon's service. He also warned me that the phone was very bad and that Verizon didn't authorize the phone due to the quality problems it had. I was beginning to see his point. After hooking up with Verizon, I immediately noticed that my reception, although far better than service I had gotten from Sprint, was still SUBSTANTIALLY sub par with other phones offered by Verizon. My friend had a Motorola V8160, and his reception was superb in areas I barely got one bar of signal.
Another side note: The phone's signal strength meter is by far the most bogus signal strength meter I have ever seen. The strength jumped from four bars to no bars without moving the phone at all! I asked a few cellular repair shops about this and they told me that the 6185 uses a funky algorithm that measures some variables (unknown to me) to determine the signal strength. Not only did their implementation suck, it can't be counted on as a good indicator of anything (except, perhaps, of how fast the stock market fluctuates).
After four weeks with the phone on Verizon's network, I finally gave up on it. I owned this phone (my third 6185) for a total of, four weeks! The phone, to frankly put it, sucked. The digital to analog handoff was weak and almost always dropped the call. Albeit the phone was not authorized by Verizon for the LA Market, from the looks of it, I don't know what market it WAS designed for! The last time I checked, even Sprint pulled the phone off the shelves due to their poor quality.
All in all, here is my summary of this phone:
PROS:
Excellent menu
Nice stylish design
Sturdy design
Clear calls (when it WORKS)
CONS:
Horrible reception
Bad Digital to Analog handoff
Phone CRASHES
Bogus signal strength meter
Excessive dropped calls
If there is one light at the end of this dark and narrow tunnel, it is that unlike other CDMA phones, the 6185 doesn't shift the voice frequency to make you sound like an alien (like the Qualcomm and Motorolas do). Instead, it drops your call. So take your pick. Maybe the light wasn't so bright afterall.
BTW: This is ONLY for the Nokia CDMA 6185. The GSM Nokias are reportedly MUCH MUCH MUCH better. Too bad for us CDMA folks.
I would only recommend this phone to my enemies because If I recommend this phone to a friend, they would become my enemy in a matter of days.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
jonnysnakes
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Location: Irvine, CA
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 1 member
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