Nokia 6303 Classic review

Lacking high-speed 3G or Wi-Fi connectivity, the Nokia 6303 Classic relies instead on slower GPRS or EDGE data rates for browsing online.

As is the case with many recent Series 40 handsets, Nokia has kitted out the 6303 Classic with two browsing options – a Nokia full web browser, supporting HTML, XHTML and WML, and an Opera Mini mobile browser application.

The Nokia browser layout and operation is typical for this grade of phone, with menu lists offering navigation options and a D-pad controlled cursor used to select links.

It's not as sophisticated or easy to navigate as higher-end Nokia smartphone models such as the N86 or touchscreen 5800 XpressMusic, so getting around web pages can take more time and effort. It can render full web pages adequately (it supports Flash Lite 3.0), but it does take some time to download web pages that haven't been optimised for mobile phones.

While the BBC.co.uk mobile site takes just a few seconds to load up, TechRadar.com, for instance, took a couple of minutes to download and render adequately.

This web browser experience is way off anything like the iPhone 3GS or even something like the budget touchscreen Samsung Tocco Lite. Having to scroll though lists and further sub-lists to get options such as reload, is somewhat long-winded.

You can, though, easily bookmark pages; some social networking and sharing sites are already pre-loaded (including MySpace, Facebook and YouTube) – and you can add any bookmarks to your standby screen shortcut options, should you wish to get faster access.

Alternatively, the Opera Mini browser – stashed away in the Collections sub-folder in Applications – offers a pleasingly quick and efficient way of accessing the internet from the handset; it's far quicker to render pages such as TechRadar.com, taking mere seconds, and offers a much more intuitive way of working your way around and zooming into full pages.

It generally feels smoother to use than Nokia's own browser, with network speeds less of an issue.