NEC e313

Posted by T3 Online on Wed 31 Oct 2007

A bargain phone with tons of features

Gaining inspiration from other company's designs is common practice, but why use the ugliest phone ever made, Motorola's A835 (T3 94, 3/5), as your muse? Despite that handicap, don't write NEC's newest budget 3G phone off just yet.

While it's borrowed the A835's fl at design and revolving lens, in this case someone with a modicum of design sense has been involved with the integration of the two. The lines are sleeker, the phone is a lot slimmer, and the silver-and-green finish is altogether more pleasing.

The e313 is incredibly long, though - essentially it's a flattened-out version of NEC's other new model, the e616 (T3 99, 2/5). It shares the same intuitive menus, keypad and glorious 65,000-colour screen. Unfortunately, it also shares the same short battery life, and there are reports that it also has many of its big brother's mysterious bugs. Problems with the handsets have at least been acknowledged and should get fixed with software updates - fingers crossed.

Although this is the pre-pay model, the phone still has a Memory Stick Duo slot for cards up to 128MB, which is great for the built-in MP3 player (though a couple of cards will set you back almost as much as the phone). There's no Bluetooth, making video calling less attractive, as you'll have to use a wired headset to shut out background noise.

But for £100 on pre-pay, this is an absolute bargain. If you can get over its size, you get an awful lot for your money.