Nokia 6600 - The new flagship phone. (Nokia 6600)

Member Name: garyfinny

Product:	Nokia 6600
Date:	13/03/04 (2590 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, Good software Support, Wide range of Features

Disadvantages: Bulky, Only Cosmetic Improvements

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INTRODUCTIONS

Nokia are a company in transition. Gone were the days when solid, sleek phones such as the Nokia 8210 and 8310 were released. A new design team released new experimental designs; it?s no co-incidence that Nokia?s relative market share has decreased, with the public favouring the ?silver flip-phone?; whose popularity has grown in abundance.

The Nokia 6600 brings a return to conventionalism, a standard keypad layout and look means this will appeal to the mass-market. It?s the follow-up to the Nokia 3650 handset; a device which was popular but it?s look put many off.

As a side note, Nokia have really promoted this handset aggressively. Prime-time advertising has been used, a tactic which is uncommon for Nokia. But as phones reach a new level in technology, can the 6600 regain the market share that Nokia enjoyed a couple of years back?

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

First off, in absolute terms, this isn?t a small phone. The same curvy shape as the 3650; it weighs in at almost 130g, quite heavy for a phone. But this is off-set against the amount of features it has, and is comparable to most phones in it?s class (I?ll explain later).

As said before, the Nokia 6600 looks more conventional, with a standard keypad layout. It actually looks quite nice, and is solid to hold. The keypad features large buttons; to accommodate this, some of the function keys have been moved to the side of the phone; for example, the green and red keys to allow/drop calls. Navigation is via a 5-way joystick just below the screen.

Around the sides of the phone, you?ve got the IR-port, and on the back, the camera lens.
Nothing overtly spectacular or new here really.

AFTER USAGE:

If you?ve used the Nokia 3650, or indeed 7650, then you?ll have a breeze with this. Nokia Series 60 software is still some of t
he best out there ? this phone is easy to use, with good signposting of all features.

The first thing that will hit you will be the LCD display. Because of the size of the phone, a larger LCD can be added, and the phone uses this to maximum effect. Capable of displaying over 65,000 colours, the display is bright, clear and easy to use. Photos will really look good on this phone ? even when sent from another phone.

Navigation is by the standard icon system instead of the menu favoured by other Nokia models. Handily, you can create new folders to house the icons so you can get this almost as you wish if the screen looks too cluttered. There?s a rather handy ?Home? Key which not only brings you home, but allows you to switch between apps (much like Alt-Tab on the computer). You can even assign shortcuts using your custom folders so this is one easy phone to use. Sometimes the simple things are always best, and Nokia does this well.

Phone reception is excellent, with reception strength being very stable. There are no external buttons to adjust the volume of the call (it has to be done with the joystick), but the audio quality of callers is excellent and very clear. The phone also has a speaker which allows callers to be broadcast, resulting in handsfree conversation. It?s a nice touch and one you?ll be using.

The battery life is good, too. Although the manual will claim 4 hours talk-time or 10 days standby, you should get around 3 days from average use, although this figure will be lower if you?re using it actively. The good news is, replacement batteries are available very cheaply nowadays so it can be handy to carry a fully-charged one around, especially if you?re going abroad.

The camera on the phone can be activated using the keys on the side of the phone. The camera certainly is good; capable of taking VGA quality images (that?s 640x480) resolution, pictures are then of sufficient quality to be used on websites, emails
and so forth. One thing I found was that a large chunk of the screen was not used as the viewfinder, and although it doesn?t really affect the end quality of the photos, it would have been nice.

The 6600 is also capable of taking video clips as well, but the in-built system limits a video clip to just 9 seconds; probably not long enough to be of any use to anyone. The video quality, as you would expect is pretty jerky as well. Although I have heard there may be third-party software to disable this feature so you can shoot unlimited amounts of video, in practice this would be limited as the video eats up a lot of room.

Sound-wise, the Nokia 6600 uses the polyphonic system, with a wide selection of tones and sounds for your enjoyment. It can also be used as an MP3 player as well (with external software), although you?re unable to use them as ringtones. As MP3 files are quite large, you?re going to need to invest in a larger memory card to use this feature.

Which brings us onto memory; the 6600 comes bundled with an on-board 6MB of memory, and an external 32MB Multimedia Card (MMC). The card is upgradeable, to currently a maximum of 256MB. This memory is certainly adequate enough to hold most things, and the upgradeability means that you should never run out of space.



CONNECTIVITY

The Nokia 6600 is well equipped on the connectivity front; with Bluetooth, Infrared and GPRS capabilities. The phone uses xHTML, and with the phone?s large display, some web-pages can look quite decent, unlike on other phones.

The Bluetooth is a welcome feature, and you?ll be able to share photos, video, even music with other enabled devices. Certainly with most new handsets offer this feature nowadays, you?ll find yourself using it more and more. (If you didn?t know, Bluetooth allows wire-free data transfer, and is superior to infra-red as you don?t have to line the phones up).

With your email set-up (the phone will su
pport POP3 accounts), you can also email data as well as receive emails, although as I mentioned in my previous reviews, I find writing emails on a device such as a mobile phone a bit of a chore.

EXTRAS

A side-effect of being a Nokia phone is that this phone is well-supported. You?re able to customise the phone with different facias (although it?s difficult to get off), and the software support is second-to-none. I?ve seen whole CD?s for the Nokia 6600 offering all manner of applications to use on the phone for low prices.

The phone offers a host of other features you may use. The on-board calendar feature is excellent, and really makes use of that extra-screen. Appointments can be scheduled, alarms can be set, and navigating around the calendar is very easy. There are also the other now-standard features such as Calculator, Alarm Clock and Timer.

Games-wise, the phone only comes with two-games, Snake EX and MiniPix (rearrange the tiles to make a picture). To be honest, these games won?t keep you occupied for long. However, with Java support, there are literally tons of games out there, and it?s more than likely the 6600 will be able to play most of them. I actually heard that N-Gage games could be supported by the 6600, so that?s the type of quality the phone is capable of.

AVAILABILITY

Currently the 6600 is available on all four of the major networks: Orange, Vodafone, O2, and T-Mobile. The price of this would vary, but will range from FREE (subject to a large contract) to around £200 (upgrade).

Owing to the popularity of this phone, it is available on some Pay as you Talk tariffs (no contract needed), although the current price at the moment is close to £300. It may be likely that a price cut could be in force by Summer, 2004 when other phones hit the market. Keep track of all the lowest prices by joining our Yahoo Group (see profile for more).

CONCLUSION:

The Nokia 6600 gets FO
UR STARS. There is nothing wrong with this phone, in fact I could not find many bad points about this at all. However, the changes from it?s predecessors are mainly cosmetic, and software-wise, not much different from either Nokia 3650 or 7650. If you?re upgrading or taking out a new contract, this is definitely one to consider.

Competition in this sector of the market is provided by Sony Ericsson?s P900 and Orange SPV E200. Both, arguably are more powerful, but neither are as easy to use. The 6600 is, therefore a real sure-bet phone, you?re unlikely to be disappointed.

Summary: