The Nokia 6300 runs on what Nokia calls an enhanced S40 user interface. The 6300 is a very usable device. But it is not as capable as it might have been. Let's look at the specs.

Physical Specimen

• Volume: 56 cc
• Weight: 91 g
• Length: 106.4 mm
• Width: 43.6mm
• Thickness (max): 13.1mm

At a little over four inches long and a bit under two inches wide it doesn't have a very big footprint. To me, that is in its favor. It is even more in its favor when you realize how much of that footprint is eaten up by colorful and fairly vibrant LCD.  So, as a physical specimen there is nothing to gripe about. Large screen, decent size, not too heavy. It's thin. At just a hair over half an inch thick at it's thickest, and in some places it is considerably thinner, it is thin. It is not flimsy. Do not get that idea going! This is a solid stainless steel stamping backed by a stamped stainless battery cover. +5 points for physicality

Mobile Bands

• GSM/EDGE coverage (900/1800/1900)  or  GSM/EDGE coverage (850/1800/1900)

Triband GSM coverage is all that is available. If you pick up one of these that started life in Hong Kong don't try to use it on AT&T because in some areas AT&T uses 850 MHz and the Asia/Europe models are going to be set to 900 MHz. How will you know if you have one of those Hong Kong sourced handsets? When you scroll to Language in the settings you'll have three choices. English, Chinese, and Simplified Chinese. Of course, except for the English, I'm guessing about the other two choices. I'm making an educated guess but it is still a guess. Handsets sourced from Europe will probably have a larger selection and one that is more focused on Latin/Cyrillic alphabet languages. +2.5 being able to use if for making phone calls

Media

• 2 megapixel camera with 8x zoom
• Full screen viewfinder
• Video recorder and player
• Music player supporting MP3, MP4, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, H.263, H.264
• FM stereo radio
• Java: MIDP 2.0
• Macromedia Flash Lite 2.0 for richer digital content

This is actually a pretty good line up. The 2 megapixel camera is a good performer in outdoor light and in many indoor situations. If you take a moment to adjust the white balance it gives very pleasing skin tones under fluorescent lighting. The video is limited to a small size that does not come close to filling the 240 x 320 screen. The amount of compression used, even on high quality, leads to a lot of artifacts in the images. This is mobile phone video the way you remember it being, not the way you wish it was.  The radio is excellent, pulling in stations that surprised me. With some adjustment of the wired headset cord I was picking up stations that frequently elude my car's stereo. Games run on it without incident. I will assume that Flash works as well although I am not sure if I have come across any flash media while using this phone. +4 for media

No Thanks for the Memory

• Up to 7.8 MB internal user memory
• microSD card up to 2GB

This is almost as small as the memory in the 6103, which I panned for lack of memory in a review a while back. At least this allows you to provide some of your own. It will not allow you to move copyrighted material on the phone to the memory card to free up additional space on the phone. This limits how many rings tones, SMS, address book entries, etc you can have residing on the handset. It also limits the number of configurations you can store on the handset for Internet or MMS settings. This last point is probably the most important if you travel and have to change SIM cards with any regularity. +2 for memory

So, this phone ends up with a 13.5/20 for standard stuff. But, there is more to it than that.

Not All Is Doom and Gloom

There are a lot of really nice touches to this phone. If you do not push your handsets to their limits you could grow attached to the 6300.

• It has a very subtle glow to it when you receive a call or a text. Nothing garish, just a simple pulse of light to bring your attention to it.
• The speaker phone, although not the clearest on the planet is loud enough to use in the car.
• The wired headset jack is the Nokia 2.5 standard jack and not the Pop-Port. This means the USB, the headset and power are all separate connections. I've been hoping Nokia would walk down that path for a long time.
• The typeface is very easy to read and is large enough even for middle aged eyes like mine.
• The ringer is loud and almost any sound file supported by the phone can be a ring tone.
• The analogue clock screen saver is very sophisticated looking, even my 20 something sons think so.
• The BL-4C battery lasts several days unless I bowl too many frames of Midnight Bowling 2.
• The BL-4C battery is a very common Nokia cell and is used in many T-Mobile Nokia phones, it's easy to find spares.
• The music player supports many different formats. You can load album after album into a 2 gigabyte microSD for your listening pleasure.
• The keypad is easy to use. The buttons look small and close together, and they are. Do not let that worry you. They are easy to use and texting is a dream with this phone.
• It looks nice. The four keys flanking the navigation key are raised transparent jewels that have a beautiful glow when the keypad is lit. They look sharp.

If you want a nice looking and fully functional phone for a 1900 MHz network any of these 6300 handsets will work. These are fairly common on eBay. In the coming months as the 6301 model (see my guide to that as well)  begins to become more common the 6300/6300b will begin to drop in price. If you need to use one on an 850 MHz network make sure it is a 6300b that has the 850 MHz band or you'll have something too small for a door stop and too light for a paper weight on your hands.