There was actually another device in-between this one and the Tocco Lite. It was a Nokia X3-02, and on paper it should’ve been better than this one. However there was a problem with it not being able to connect to WiFi and another issue I can’t remember that meant it had to be returned, because I only had it for around a week I’m not going to do a full post for it.
Onto the Samsung S3350 AKA Chat 335. I used this phone throughout my time at College. Aside from the key feature that it was actually possible to type on unlike the Tocco Lite this had one notable, major improvement on it. WiFi. No longer was I limited by my minimal credit, when I was somewhere with WiFi (admittedly not too many public places had this yet) I could browse Facebook or the web.
You only need to take one look at the picture above to see that this phone is a blatant Blackberry knock off. 2010 was a strange time for the mobile phone market. On one hand you had the iPhone 4, the Galaxy S and the Nexus One whilst on the other hand Blackberry still had a large market share and people were still buying feature phones like the Chat 335 and Nokia devices running Symbian. We were not yet in a world where a smartphone was a requirement, mobile banking wasn’t an option, mobile data prices were still high and the height of portability for me was a laptop. For one I wouldn’t have been able to afford a smartphone and it simply wasn’t a requirement for me.
This phone was still annoying enough that you wouldn’t want to use it unless you really needed to. I think I may have used the inbuilt internet browser a couple of times, and most of the time you were met with the dreaded “Out of memory” message when trying to load a page. It did however have a micro SD card slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack so it got plenty of use as a media device. I also got quite good at texting with the full keyboard, although I remember occasionally using my girlfriend at the time’s Blackberry and that was worlds ahead of the Chat 335 in terms of quality and functionality.
Without any comparison this was a decidedly budget and basic device. I actually recently re-purchased this device to revisit so I can review it without memories clouding my judgement. It has a capacitive home button, which allows you to scroll around the menus. This is overly sensitive and doesn’t work well at all. The keyboard often doesn’t register a button press, which compounds the issue with the inaccurate scrolling button when you try to correct it. It lacks a reasonable amount of RAM to load any website beyond Google. The camera was poor, even for the time. On the flip side, just using it as a feature phone and not expecting it to be a smartphone it’s OK. The keyboard is still better than the best T9 keyboard, or a resistive touch screen. Despite being small the display is clear and readable. The battery lasts a long time and the device is very durable.
While this phone would never have won any awards even back in 2010 it was an acceptable device. It kept me in contact with friends and family, and kept me occupied through moments of boredom. This was my last feature phone before I moved onto a smartphone! Aside from where I’ve done digital detoxes and used a “Dumbphone” from here on out it’s all Android and iOS devices from here on.
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