Nokia 6230: Media in your pocket

How much of our lives is lived under the spell of the mass media?

The average person reads news, listens to music, surfs the Internet, watches movies, downloads video clips on the PC, participates in television promos through SMS, and retrieves information from the mobile phone at least once in an average day.

Convergence of media formats has been the byword in recent years and has brought a lot of advantages for the world’s inveterate media consumers.

Now the wireless world is bringing media to people’s palms and pockets. Only recently, Nokia Corp. rolled out a new mobile phone that can pack as many media formats in a small device – a digital camera, media player, video recorder, music player, stereo FM radio, voice recorder and media equalizer.

The Nokia 6230 provides cellphone users with new ways of enjoying media, made possible with a host of enhanced connectivity and data transfer features.

With a pop-port interface, the phone can easily connect wirelessly to a compatible phone or a PC and at a high speed via the EDGE and GPRS networks, via infrared or the Bluetooth technology.

This allows users to browse the Internet (WAP 2.0 over TCP/IP stack), download music or video clips, send and receive MMS and e-mails, and synchronize the phone’s content with a PC.

According to the Nokia website, the 6230 can receive up to 30 kB of e-mail and up to 100 kB of MMS.

As interest in camera phones and MMS has surged in recent months, digital cameras have become standard features in new-generation mobile phones. The Nokia 6230 though went a step ahead as it has an integrated video recorder and player.

With up to four minutes of recording time, the built-in video recorder is very useful in capturing candid everyday moments such as the traffic on the Coastal Road, a colleague blowing a birthday candle, a girlfriend crying over a soured romance, an angry boss making a speech at a morning meeting, or even snippets of Sponge Bob and Patrick Starfish on TV.

Yes, one can record everything and share it with friends through MMS. Nokia 6230 actually makes possible a richer multimedia experience because in addition to text, a sound clip and an image, a message can now have a video clip.

The built-in video and music player also enriches the Web browsing experience as one can now watch streaming news, sports broadcasts, live music feeds or movie trailers on xhtml sites. The phone’s 65,536-color TFT display is used as a viewfinder for streaming video.

Its built-in digital VGA camera, meanwhile, has three standard features – standard, portrait and night mode. Pictures with screen resolution of up to 640 X 840 can be stored in a gallery for editing. The phone itself comes with preset wallpapers, SMS pictures, clip art pictures and video clips. One can purchase a MultiMediaCard (MMC) for additional memory needed for storing images, videos and applications.

The phone also has a stereo FM radio and AAC/MP3 digital music player and can store up to 20 of your favorite music stations. For enhanced listening experience, the media equalizer lets you choose configurations for normal, pop, rock, jazz or classical music.

Now, life on the road is more bearable. During long waits for the traffic light to go green or for a government clerk to move a little faster, you can sit back and relax – there’s media in your pocket, and your phone too.