A jack of most trades, master of none... but not a bad phone (Nokia 6610)

Member Name: CaptainD

Product:	Nokia 6610
Date:	21/04/05 (645 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stylish, Good number of features, Reliable, user-friendly

Disadvantages: Small memory, Dreadful tones, Camera not too impressive

*** This review was first published by myself at http://www.epinions.com/content_173363400324 ***


Yes, it’s that time of year again - UPGRADE TIME! Though in a way I feel that the Nokia 6610, while it definitely looks more stylish, isn’t really a step up from the older 3200 model.

While it’s got plenty of options and the sound quality is very good, it isn’t significantly better earlier models. The slim-line design is a lot nicer than that of the chunkier 3xxx and 5xxx ranges, though. Sadly this seems to have come at the price of durability – drop this and watch the back and battery scatter across the room. (Obviously the best option would be not to drop it…) The battery life seems very good (without extensive call or radio usage about a week) and the charge time is very low (an hour and a half or less).

Menus and comments:

Messages

SMS / MMS messages / SMS email. (You can also set it to use GPRS.) Set up your delivery receipt options etc. The ability to use templates and delivery lists is good; the inability to create your own templates isn’t.

Call Register

Incoming, missed, and outgoing call summary.

Contacts

Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Profiles

Set up your rind tones, colour themes, etc.

Settings

This menu is for… um… your settings. Everything is configurable.

Radio

Good quality audio. Requires earphones etc (a decent set supplied with the phone.)

Camera

The camera is decent enough but far from the best on the market. Night mode is useful (lightens the image in the dark – there is no flash) but only useable in standard mode, so no help for taking a portrait picture in the dark. (Just turn your phone sideways…)

Gallery

Have a look at your photos and the pre-loaded or downloaded clip art or other images.

Organiser

Features the delights of the alarm clock, to-do list, and calendar. All reminder services etc are the same as on older Nokia models.

Games

The pre-loaded games (on T-Mobile phones anyway) are Bounce (fairly addictive platform game) and Chess Puzzle (pretty good mind melter).

Three games are available as FREE downloads from Nokia.com – Snake II (prettier but somehow less interesting), Space Combat III (decent horizontal shoot-‘em-up, not too bad but the key controls are horrible), and Trail Biker (a fairly fun – and extremely frustrating – Excite Bike clone). Note – some games download into the Applications menu. Games seem to cost £5 each and the price is added to your next phone bill.

Applications

Pre-loaded applications are Converter II (convert currencies, weights, measures, etc) and Portfolio II (useful to a limited number of people, I guess!).

Extras

The Extras menu sees a welcome return of the Countdown Timer and Stopwatch features. Other than that we have a password-protected Wallet feature, presumably used for online shopping purposes (you keep credit card details etc on it). Personally it’s not something I would use and anyway, even with password protection, I consider it too much of a security risk to put my card details somewhere that could potentially be accessed if someone stole my phone. (Call me paranoid if you like, but I’m not likely to change!)

Connectivity

GPRS allows quick loading of web pages, (but Nokia’s browser interface leaves a lot to be desired). Particularly annoying is the way that menu items seem to be available before images have loaded but aren’t. Download speed seems to be about 2Kb / second (that’s 2 Kilobytes not Kilobits). So a 60Kb game takes about 30 seconds to download.

Services

Various pre-set webpages.

Go to (bookmarks)

Quick links to your favourite websites.




Other specifications / comments.

Memory: 4Mb – for more things this is fine, but for a camera phone (albeit only a medium quality one) this is a little on the stingy side. For me this wasn’t a major problem (since we also bought a device to transfer pics from the phone to the computer via infrared), but memory seems to be the one area where Nokia consistently lag behind their competitors. (For instance, my wife’s new phone, a Sony Ericsson, has a whopping 41Mb, and even her old phone, the Motorola V300, had 5Mb.)

The tones supplied with the phone are mostly pretty poor, and as usual with Nokia phones the pitch seems to be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too high. Uses Nokia’s own format or MIDI files. Not all that great but the better tunes sound reasonably good. However the sound quality for calls and radio is good.

Not sure about its processor power but judging by the slow-down in games with multiple sprites on-screen, it seems possible that it may even be slightly less powerful than the 3200. The display is quite good with vibrant colours and decent resolution though so it’s not a disaster.

Verdict

The Nokia 6610 is a good phone with a lot of features but nothing stands out as being among the best around. The design of the phone is nice and, as is typical of Nokia phones, is very user-friendly. The major failings are the limited memory and relatively poor sound quality, and the camera isn’t the best in the world. If any of those things are important to you then I wouldn’t recommend it.

However, as an all-rounder it does a good job. If you’re not too fussy about having the most high-tech gadgets and are careful with the phone (I am going to make a real effort to drop it less!!), it’s a nice phone and quite stylish too. For many people, it is perhaps more suitable as a business mobile than a personal one.

Summary: