Review The Nokia 6103 is that rarest of beasts, a drop-dead simple mobile phone. In this fast-moving world of smart phones, music phones, GPS phones, camera phones and gpsmusiccamerasmartphones it's unusual to find a plain old-fashioned phone phone. The Nokia 6103 is just that though, and it's none the worse for its simplicity...

It's a classic clamshell device, and is an obvious update of the previous entry-level Nokia, the 6101 - the clue is in the name. The handset is lumbered with a rather unsightly protruding antenna, although the 6103 is compact enough that this isn't much of a problem.

The matte-black finish on the outside is pretty attractive, although open it up and you still get the impression that Nokia isn't at home with phones that flip. The screen is a basic 128 x 160 pixel number capable of displaying up to 65,536 colours, but seeing as the camera is only VGA (307,200 pixels, basically) and you're not going to be downloading videos then this is certainly adequate. The external display is also colour: it's a 96 x 95 job capable of showing up to 4,096 colours.

Other features are good though, with an email client, WAP access and tri-band (900/1800/1900MHz) functionality. It even has EDGE support for faster GPRS data downloads. The on-board memory is a sparse 4.4MB - sufficient, though, for basic phone usage. But while you can improve on the ring tone offerings with MP3 files there's no media player so music playback is out of the question. The FM radio goes someway towards making up for this, and reception was good.

There's another tick in the plus side of the equation in the fact that the 6103 has Bluetooth on board, so you can connect it up to a wireless headset for safer driving. However, the really good news is that in terms of call quality and battery life - 2-4 hours' talk time and 150-350 hours' stand-by operation, Nokia claims - there's really nothing to complain about, and considering that this phone will be available at the lower end of the price scale, it's an excellent value handset.

Verdict

A back to basics approach that John Major would have been proud of, but with enough modern touches that it brings to mind David Cameron's new Conservatives.

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