Nokia 130 Music | Built-in Powerful Loud Speaker with Music Player and Wireless FM Radio | Dedicated Music Buttons | Big 2.4” Display | 1 Month Standby Battery Life | Purple

I bought this for my dad. And he loved it. It has the bigger screen at this price range with long battery backup.

Pro:
The Speaker of the phone is very impressive for the price point.

Con:
Only supports MP3 format and not even M4A or AAC. you have to convert these to MP3 for the phone to play them.

I was looking for a replacement for my Samsung Guru (duos) which I had been using for a very long time. So long, that I could touch type and message without even looking at the screen. It had almost become an extension of body & mind sending out a lot of messages to control the big bad world! But the last two Guru phones that I bought online developed some issues with the microphone where my voice was not clear to the person on the other side, which actually gave me a good excuse to message – the only civilized way a person should communicate, in my opinion.
This Nokia 130 has a few tricks that the Samsung Guru doesn’t have, like, automatic call recording on to the microSD card which you have to buy separately. Despite separate keypad buttons, the Nokia 130 is slightly less easy to use primarily because the four-way central key is too small comparatively. Remember, it was Nokia who introduced the four-way ‘Navi’ key long back. (Or, it could be because I haven’t yet gotten used to it. )
You can’t reprogram the four-way central button. You can, however, organize the ‘left key’. There is no privacy lock like the one in Samsung Guru which can selectively protect messages, dialed calls etc. It does have a security code function but that locks up the whole phone. You might just want to protect some functions alone while, say letting another person use the phone for calling, but you can’t do that here.
The flashlight is usable but is slightly underpowered and won’t work when the keypad is locked unlike the Guru’s. Pressing the four-way key up keeps it on till you release it which is a nice thing. There is an option to keep it on without continuously pressing it too.

There is a VGA camera (both photo and video) with abysmal picture quality. If you are lost on an island with no power source for weeks on end, it might prove useful. Your smartphone would have died long back. That is the only scenario I can think of where this camera can be a blessing! Even a person on a budget who wants this phone as the only phone would loathe taking a snap.
Scrolling through the contact list is much slower than in the Guru and that is a bit annoying.
The speed dial option has a clever, speed-messaging option where you can long press, compose and send a message to a person quickly.
It can’t record FM radio, I think. But it can be used as a voice recorder. The headset quality is just okay. You need to connect the headset to get the FM radio to work, though you can play it through the loudspeaker if you wish (but damn you if you do that!). The loudspeaker is just ordinary. Call quality is good.
On connecting the headset, you can set the phone to automatically pick up a call. That way you could use it as a listening device too! 😉
It is a dual SIM phone and it accepts (Mini) SIM cards. You can set one SIM for messages and the other for voice or any combination like that. It is a bit of a struggle to get the SIM out once you push it into the slot. The microSD card slot is independent of the SIM slot.
The device is thicker than the Samsung Guru maybe because of the deliberate well-rounded body its creators gave it. It is made in India.
The Bluetooth connects to another device through something called Swap if you bring the two devices close to each other. I could not figure out how to share the contacts though that option was displayed on the Pixel 2 with which I paired it. It can transfer files too – those fantastic high-resolution pictures you took on the island – over Bluetooth.

The battery is supposed to last for a very long time. I haven’t tested that yet. It’s just the first day. And, yes, it has the snake game and some others too.

Overall, it is a fine device at this price, but the question is do you really want the camera and the Bluetooth. If not, there are cheaper options like the Nokia 105 or the Samsung Guru Duos. But if you need call recording, voice recording and hence Bluetooth to transfer the files, then this is indeed a great option considering the fantastic battery life that it is supposed to have. It has a nice, smooth, durable looking polycarbonate body too. I just wish the operating system was a bit faster and more user-friendly.

Phew, that’s the longest review I have ever written. I wonder who managed to read till the end! Perhaps someone who is nostalgic about their first Nokia phone? Mine was a Nokia 3310, way back in 2000. What was yours?

Update after a week of use: The user interface is just too bad compared to the Samsung Duos’s simplicity and efficiency. I placed an order again for the Samsung and shelved the Nokia.

Good bulid quality and main advantage is the speakers are very loud.