‘My first phone, my first camera’ is the slogan behind the Nokia 1680 Classic, so logic dictates the newbie is the target audience for this mobile phone. This is an extremely cheap phone, but it’s still got a good design, and the only major feature more advanced users will miss is Bluetooth capability. That aside, the Nokia 1680 Classic is great value for money.

Like other Nokia entry-level mobile phone handsets, the 1680 Classic is of a simple, basic design. It may not look like a super-stylish expensive mobile, but for all practical reasons it’s compact, lightweight and serves its purpose well. The 1680 is constructed of matte black plastic, and a gloss black bezel coating surrounds its display screen. Keys are made of a rubbery substance.

The display’s screen will surprise you with its quality viewing angles, as you wouldn’t normally expect them to be so good on such a cheap phone. Controls on the handset are flat and quite tactile as a result of the buttons’ rubber surface. Some people could find the lack of differentiation between rows an issue if their fingers are larger than normal.

The 1680 Classic has a VGA camera with self-portrait mirror. This camera also functions as a video recorder, but it all proves to be useless if you find yourself in low-light conditions. The quality camera could be seen as a waste for many, as phone wallpaper images come out great, but photos for other media don’t often come out well. As there’s only 10MB of internal memory, you can’t store much multimedia here anyhow.

The Nokia 1680 Classic’s other features are relatively standard fare, with text messages, MMS and email messaging (all with T9 predictive text support) included. You can also play with Nokia Xpress Audio Messaging.
The main highlight for this ultra-cheap handset is the inclusion of the Symbian Series 40 interface. Beginners to mobile phones won’t have any problems, as menus are clearly labelled and logical in description.

To complete the Nokia 1680 Classic’s arsenal you get three Java games, including Snake EX2, and a range of PIM functions, including an alarm clock, to-do list, converter, calendar, timer, stopwatch, notes and an expense calculator.