JWD GM300

Seemingly good things come in cheap packages, but they’re not always good. Good things often come in small packages, but they’re not always cheap. But recently, I actually found something that’s small, cheap and actually not all that bad.

The JWD GM300 looks like a cheap MP3 player. It even has "digital player" written right below its tiny screen. But below that, you’ll find a number pad just like a mobile phone. Why would you need all that in an MP3 player? That’s because the GM300 isn’t just an MP3 player, it’s also a mobile phone. And a fully functional one at that!

But before I start firing off the features that the GM300 does have, I’ll quickly get out of the way the features that it doesn’t have. It doesn’t have a color screen, it doesn’t have GPRS or MMS, it doesn’t have a camera and it doesn’t have Bluetooth or Infrared. So, yeah, this isn’t an all-in-one phone, but it still has so many features, it deserves credit. Other then these things, the GM300 has everything you can think of in a mobile phone and mp3 player combo. Everything!

This player is under 3.5 inches high and an almost too narrow at just 1.25 inches. While still being fairly thick at around half an inch, the overall dimensions of the phone make it tiny! Easy to tuck away, easy to handle. Extremely lightweight at around 50gms!

The screen is a small 1.4-inch (diagonal) square. It is a monochrome display with not too high a resolution, but it still makes extremely effective use of whatever real estate it does have. Fully labeled soft keys, multiple lines of text, iconic menus (although they do look too ugly), and it also has seven different backlight colors which are 'ancient' in today's standards.

The keypad has a somewhat-fancy design with a capsule-like shape at the center column. Its not really a good design; the center column keys get misaligned with the adjacent keys, making it a little difficult to get used to it instantly. There is a bit of an issue with the yes, no and cancel keys which also double as soft keys. The yes and no buttons can be soft keys – Sony Ericsson does it too – but the C key? It took me a while to get used to that. In addition to the main keys, there’s also a three-way jog dial on the right side. It’s actually a rocker that goes up and down and also clicks.

The interface is quite inspired by the older Nokia Series 40 (6610, 7210 etc.) which is a good thing, because everyone knows that UI so there’s almost no learning curve involved when getting to use this phone. Like I said, this is a fully functional phone with everything you can think of: SMS (with full T9), call waiting, internal phonebook, calendar, calculator and even a game!