The Nokia 6131 is a bit of a mixed bag. It does some things very well and others very badly.This clamshell phone is encased in a layer of soft touch paint that feels like rubber, and flips open with a press of the button at the top right hand side of the phone. Quite a smooth idea, but closing it back is not as easy. If you try to do it with one hand, you will feel as if the phone is going to slip and drop anytime.

It's lightweight at 112 grams and yet manages to feel substantial, the rear covering is not cheapo plastic but a textured warm rubber covering that oozes quality and gives you a good purchase at the same time. Measuring 92 x 48 x 20 mm we have to say that this is the perfect dimension for a flip phone and it is easy to open and close the flip especially with Nokias quick open button, it's been a while since a phone had a snazzy opening, in fact it was the Nokia Matrix phone that last had stockbrokers showing off their mobiles in the office.

The 6131 opens to reveal a gorgeous 16.7 million colour screen. Graphics are bright and clear and colours are crisp and vibrant. This is definitely one of the best displays of a mobile phone in this price range that we've reviewed. The 2.2-inch screen also has a good horizontal and vertical viewing angle and isn't restricted in sunlight so it's an excellent all round performer.

The 1.3 megapixel camera comes with 8x zoom and an impressive range of options. You can set the image quality to 3 different levels, basic, normal or high. You can also have 6 choices of image size, from 120 x 160 to 1024 x 1280 pixels. Similarly, you can choose between a few clip quality and size for video recordings. There are also 5 different colour effects, like "sepia" and "negative", that you can apply to both the still and video cameras. The still camera comes with the basic functions like night mode and a 10-second self-timer but doesn't come with flash. There's also image sequencing which allows you to take 3 shots with a single click. The 6131 has a PictBridge printing solution which allows the user to connect their phone to a compatible printer using a USB cable & print their photos very simply.

Battery life is excellent and like the latest batch of Nokia phones it has the BL-4C battery which can provide up to 240 hours standby time, in our tests a 3 day stint dropped the battery to about 70% with minimal phone calls so in an area of good coverage the full spec may just be possible. Real life use would see the average business user recharging every 3 days.

The music player that comes with the 6131 is a very simple application. It allows you to create track lists and is also equipped with an equalizer. There are five preset EQ modes - Normal, Pop, Rock, Jazz, and Classical. There is an option to personalize two sets of equalizer settings, which should keep music lovers happy. Listening with the supplied headset, music sounded crisp and clear. However, bass is clearly lacking, even when I tweaked with the equalizer. If you wish to listen to music with your own headphones, you will have to purchase the headphone adaptor separately, otherwise you are stuck with the supplied headset. The music player is able to run in the background while you access other functions on the handset.

The 6131 also comes with the Nokia Visual Radio player, which takes advantage of a GPRS/EDGE data connection to pull down information from participating radio stations around the world, providing the 6131 user with visual and textual information on the artist and song that is playing over the FM radio. As this service is still not supported by any of the stations around here, I am not able to report on this feature.

The Nokia 6131 has about 11MB of on board memory. This is only good for about five full sized 1.3-megapixel photos. The sales package does not include a miniSD card, which is quite a letdown. Users will have to get a miniSD card quickly if they want to fully utilize the multimedia capabilities of the 6131.

Network GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900 .

The quad band coverage afforded by the 6131 means its good as a global traveller to allowing you to roam almost anywhere, plus its data compatibility and inbuilt email client means that you can use some basic data services to keep in touch with the office without having to carry a brick like smartphone. What the 6131 does lack however is 3G so data speeds are limited to what the 2.5G network can deliver and that's why most business applications are missing from the phone.

This new phone comes with 2 pre-installed Java games, the new Soccer 3D and Snake 3. On top of its Java capabilities, it has a very new ability to run .swf flash files. Thus, users can enjoy their very first mind challenging Sudoku puzzle on their device in Flash file format.