The Nokia 6230i, released in the first quarter of 2005, is a few years old now and definitely not at the cutting edge, but is a design classic and still a good phone. The fact that it's still in the shops more than two years after launch proves that it's got a lot going for it!

Measuring 103mm 44mm 20mm (4.06" x 1.73" x .79"), the 6230i at first glance looks exactly like the old 6230. Only on closer inspection will one notice the additional button in the middle of the D-Pad, and the slightly larger display. The 6230i weighs 99g, 2 grams heavier than the 6230 it replaces, but is still tolerable and won't weigh your pockets down.

Turn on the phone and you will be greeted with a fantastic new screen. It is slightly bigger than the previous one, measuring 30mm square (1.65" diagonal) compared with 27mm square (1.5" diagonal), and the resolution has been upped to a whopping 208 x 208 pixels, a great improvement over the old 128 x 128 pixels. The 6230i's new 65K colour TFT display is bright and sharp, readable under harsh sunlight, and reproduces colours beautifully. As a result of the higher resolution, fonts appear smoother, and the 'extra small' font while viewing SMS is now readable, unlike in previous Series 40 phones where the small fonts required you to squint to read them. You can view 6 lines of text on the new screen. However, there is no way to adjust the display brightness, which is bad news since the screen can be blindingly bright at night or even in dim conditions.

The 6230i has a 1.3 megapixel camera, and this can take photos at 160 x 120, 320 x 240, 640 x 480 and 1280 x 1024 resolutions. Video capture is supported and videos can either be MMS length (25s) or set to the maximum amount of memory that is left.

Capacity Standard battery, Li-Ion 600 mAh (BL-5X)

StandBy Time Up to 300 hours

Talk Time Up to 5 hours

Nokia 6230i is delivered with a set of common earphones, which serve for listening to multimedia files as well as a handsfree. Calls are managed by using the button on the cable. It also has an Integrated FM stereo radio.

Its sound lacks bass and is generally plain. A bit of a help is the built-in equalizer, so the phone suffices for occasional listening. 6230i can also play music through the loud speaker, but the sound is a regular rattling. The phone has a new option called "send sound", which works through Bluetooth. Sound can be sent to any of the supported devices, the earphones for example.

With 32MB of internal memory and a 64MB MMC card included, there's enough storage for about twenty MP3s straight out of the box. Unfortunately removing the card is a bit of a pain as it's housed under the 6230i's battery, although we did find our card pre-loaded with '80s Brit-pop band Tears For Fears' album Everybody Loves A Happy Ending. The music player is rather rudimentary, with the only play options being random or repeat. While the 6230 can list all tracks, you can't sort by album or artist; only filename. There is also an equaliser with pop, rock, jazz and classical settings.

GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900

This is a classic Nokia handset with a range of connectivity options and a straightforward interface, but some people might find it a little lacklustre compared to newer models. However, if you just want a phone to make and receive calls and send text messages, then this is definitely worth looking at.