Aug 07, 2006 05:18 AM
2896 Views
I always wanted to buy the Nokia 6600 since the time it was launched @ a whopping 22K. The phone had all the 'stuff' I was looking for. Most importantly, it was a smart phone. This meant I could customize it to the limit by installing software from various providers. Well, I will base my review on this phone on different categories.
Looks:Well, the first thing anyone notices about a phone is the way it looks. The Nokia6600 is designed beautifully, except for the fact that its 'belly' could have been made flatter. One look at the phone and you know its a 'Nokia'... with the perfectly placed keys and buttons, and the wide big screen. The phone looks decent, with no edgy protrusions / depressions on the body. Neatly contoured and well designed, the phone looks good with all the curves, especially the ones which simply fuse into the keypad. On the back-side of the phone, we have a well placed VGA camera. The power button, as usual comes on the top face of the phone.
Handling / Ergonomics:Keep this phone in your hand and it fits in 'perfectly'. The fingers wrap around it in a perfect clasp and gives great grip, in spite of the slick smooth surface of the phone. The keypad is absolutely amazing. It is a heavy duty plastic keypad, which can withstand any amount of typing. A cleverly placed joystick makes handling even more convenient. The joystick comes at a distance that can be reached by the thumb without having to give that 'thumb-stretch' ..which is required in other phones. Keys are also neatly organized without appearing too cluttered or small. I felt the keys could have been separated by a distance of at least 1mm-2mm instead of having all of them separated only by a streak of cut-plastic. I also felt that the 'C' button could have been made longer, much like the menu button.
Screen:Lets face it, most of us would like to buy a phone with a big color screen. The Nokia6600 has just this. A big bright TFT screen measuring 176X208 pixels is just about the right size for this phone. @ 65K colours, this screen can display colours bright and vivid, with some amazing contrast and clarity. One point to be noted is the amazing 'crispness' of the images on the phone. It scores a 10 on 10 in this category.
Features:Well, the Nokia6600 is a smartphone. And it does all that a smartphone needs to do. It is based on the Symbian OS platform, which supports a wide variety of applications. Using applications, one can overcome many of the features this phone lacks; thus, giving a low score here doesn't come into the picture at all! It also supports Java applications in the form of JAR / MIDP2.
Camera:The phone comes with a standard 640X480 pixels VGA camera which can give you decent shots in daylight. The phone boasts of a night mode too, but it is not of much help, as the images have lots of grains in them. Well, we cant expect much from a VGA camera too. Obviously, we cant go on comparing images from this to a phone with 2MP camera.
Audio:The phone supports mono audio playback through a 'not-so-good' speaker. Lets face it, the speaker was designed keeping in mind only vocal frequencies, and it reproduces them very well, at its best. Don't expect to hear the jingle-jangle while playing sounds. The phone reproduces vocal frequencies very well. The phone has decent voice clarity and the voice can be heard loud, and with the speaker phone turned on, it can get really loud for a room of size 10'X10'.
Battery Life :The battery life of this phone is simply amazing. I charge it once in three days and it keeps going and going and going. Of course, I have fine tuned the phone for battery optimization, but 3 days / 72 hours is pretty impressive.
Connectivity:Connectivity to this phone is through bluetooth / infrared / GPRS / WAP. All these are good and do what they are supposed to do - transfer data.
Memory: The phone comes with an onboard memory capacity of 6MB. The best part of this phone is the 'external memory' capability, which was unheard of when it was launched. It easily supports 1GB MMC, though I have heard claims of people using 2GB cards too.
Verdict:Well, I must say that I am pretty impressed with this device. Its a smartphone. That's the main reason I bought it. For the features this phone comes with, Its safe to say its a steal @8.7K. One must also note that there were not too many 'good phones' during the time this 'small devil' was released. So I must say its survived through quite a lot, and for a long time! The phone is decent and although a little bulky, I feel one can overweigh that factor with the number of possibilities that this phone provides, if it is used to its 100%. I have seen many people having the 6600, and using it just as a phone and nothing else, and they complain about how bulky it is / how feature-less it is. Well, to put it in short, 6600 is not made for such people. It is made for the smartphone enthusiast...for the person who can take full advantage of this silent killer. Once can only realize the potential of this phone only after installing the various software available for this device.
Finally, all I have to say is, if you are looking for a smartphone thats loaded with some decent features, and you are not willing to shell out more than 9K, go for this beauty... as a thing of beauty is joy forever!!!
