NOKIA 6600

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When Nokia first introduced the 7650, it was a bit of a breakthrough device. Prior to that, we had never really seen a "real" OS on a "normal" mobile phone. Sure, there were things like the P800 and the XDA right around the corner, but those were more PDA like than phone like. Nokia Series 60, as the platform is known, marked a major departure for Nokia in terms on user interfaces, something that hadn't changed markedly in quite a few years.

So, here we are well over a year later. The world has been anticipating the arrival of the 6600 for months now, and it is finally here. What's new, what's different? Read on.

Bigger than a bread box?

Well, to start with, the new 6600 is quite a bit lighter than the initial Series 60 device, the 7650. It even manages to shave a few grams off of the 3650's weight, coming in at 125.5g without a SIM and the included MMC card (127.5 with those). Physically, too, it is smaller. Even without the sliding keypad of the 7650, the 6600 still manages to be the shortest of the three brothers, coming in at only 109mm in length. Still the 6600 doesn't feel small by any stretch of the imagination. It is 6mm shorter than a P900, but 1mm wider and has basically the same thickness. Considering the much larger display and greater functionality (and cost, of course) of the P900, you have to wonder if the 6600 couldn't have been smaller.

In fact, one of the things that struck me about the 6600 was the hollow feeling of it. While I didn't open the device up, it certainly feels like it conceals a lot of empty space - especially the bulbous sides. It feels tough enough, but just not solid. I get the feeling that the extra width was added purely to allow for the extra buttons to be placed on the sides of the keypad. These extra buttons are 'C' (clear), the edit menu, and the main menu access key. The green and red call control buttons easily could have been placed under the display.

In general I wasn't pleased with the keypad. It is a bit of a mixed bag with the device's large size requiring somewhat large hands to be held and used with a single hand, yet the numeric keypad itself being a bit cramped - being better for smaller hands. I certainly had no problems making use of it, I'm not saying that, but I just feel that a lot of compromises were made for aesthetic purposes instead of practical purposes. I mean, if you are going to have all that extra width, space stuff out a bit.... But otherwise the feel of the individual keys is good, and the backlighting was adequate.

Other controls include the left and right softkey buttons. I would have rathered that these be located closer to the display, where their labels invariably are, but this didn't prove to be a problem - just an initial observation. There are no volume controls on the side of the phone, as you might expect. That function is covered by the 5-way joystick. You can use the joystick to navigate and to select menu items. With dry clean hands, the joystick is great. When your hands are a bit damp or sweaty, though, the 6600 has the same problem as the 7650 had - the joystick quickly becomes slippery. I can see this being a problem if somebody plays a game for an extended period of time, or is out on a warm summer day. A little bit of texture on the joystick would have gone a long way towards avoiding this problem.

Lastly we have the IR port on the left side of the device, and the slightly recessed camera lens on the back, which is near the speaker grill. Otherwise there is not much else to the physical aspects of the 6600. Power switch on the top, charger port on the bottom (not Pop-Port compatible, mind you). And, of course, the display....

Check out that color!

The 6600's 65k color display is the single most compelling aspect of the device. It is everything a display should be: bright, colorful, and easy to view in all conditions. It really is top notch. Like the 7650's 4k color display, the 6600's display has a highly reflective backing and can be easily seen in even the harshest of lighting conditions. The bright white backlighting assures that the display works equally well in darker situations, too. It has the same resolution as the other Series 60 devices, 176x208, though it is quite large with its nearly 62mm diagonal dimension. No matter how you size it up, it is truly a brilliant display - in all senses of the word.

I do have one minor gripe, though. The backlight doesn't come on quickly enough. It isn't a long delay, mind you, but it is an annoying one. If the backlight turns off because you set the 6600 down for a second, there will be a second lag or so between the time that you press a button and when the backlight comes on again. I've never seen anything like it, and I can't believe that it was intended to be "cool." It just makes no sense. But that is the only complaint I have for what is otherwise a great display.

I learned a bit more about the problem when I first tried to shoot a video clip. The entire video suffered from the same horizontal line interference as the viewfinder image did when using the 6600 as a still camera. The video clips were horrible by any standard, and having shot video clips with devices like the P900 and GX-20 in recent weeks, I knew exactly what they should look like. The fact that the still images were of decent quality tells me that the camera's image sensor itself is fine. That the moving image of the still camera viewfinder and the video clips, on the other hand, are totally distorted makes me suspect that this is nothing but a software problem and that it will be fixed. I can tell you that I am not the only person to have this problem: some friends in the retail world have reported the same issue with video.

[The problem appears to not be firmware related, as there are plenty of people with the same firmware without this problem. The problem is not just with my test handset, though, as it has been reported by a number of people. Best to check before you buy - it seems to be a hardware problem. -editor]

A problem that I do know to exist in general is the 9 second limit on video clips. Hello? 9 seconds? I understand the need to keep clips under a certain length for MMS usage and such, but considering the various other means of getting clips to and from a 6600, that seems insanely restrictive and almost nullifies the video quality problem I ran into. Why bother with the video clips at all if they are 9 seconds long? The P900 has two modes to deal with this situation, an 11 second message video mode (3GP/H263 video clips, like the 6600), and a normal, unlimited length video mode (MP4 files).

Anyway, since I assume the video issue will be fixed, I'll tell you about the options a bit. There are two sizes for the videos, the largest being 176x144. You can enable or disable the audio as you choose. A 9 second 176x144 video with audio will take up about 95K of storage (67Kbps video stream, 12Kbps audio, for those that care of such things). You can also configure the 6600 to store the clips to either the internal memory (about 6MB free, initially), or to the memory card (mine came with a 32MB card).

It is worth mentioning that you kinda have to be careful when switching back and forth between the still camera and video camera applications. It seems that the 6600 is not smart enough to keep track of when they are being actively used. For example, if I were to start the camera from the standby screen, and then hit the menu button and select video record from the menu, the 6600 would complain that the camera was already in use. While I admit that the camera app was indeed running, I would argue that it was hardly in use. I had to go back to the camera app and select exit from the menu to close it properly before I could make a video clip. That's just silly.

Lastly on the multimedia front we have the audio capabilities. The 6600's polyphonic ringtones are of good quality and quite varied. There is a wide assortment of tunes, samples, beeps, and buzzes. The audio quality of the ringtones is pretty good, but I found the maximum volume to be lacking for some of them. Or maybe, more accurately, I think that the volume didn't come through well when the grill of the speaker was covered up due to being in a pocket or something. I'm not sure there is much you can do about this in a non folder phone, but more than a couple of calls did go unnoticed while I had the 6600 in my jacket or jeans pocket. I think the vibration alert is going to be a must-use feature.

The Series 60 UI

So now we have a case, buttons, colors and sounds, and all the raw components. Now the important thing is how the phone makes use of all those to make it easy for the user to take advantage of all of the features. This is where the standard Nokia Series 60 user interface comes into play. Series 60 is a really good UI. It is consistent, attractive, and, I believe, pretty simple for people to navigate.

One of the things that I like is the menu key. That is the button with the odd design located directly under the green call button. This button will always take you to the main menu of the phone, unless you hold it down - then it brings up the list of running applications. The main menu itself is also worthy of praise. It is typically organized in a 3x3 grid of icons, but has an optional list format that only displays 4 options at a time, and as such doesn't seem particularly useful. The user can create folders to organize the icons (though not folders in folders). The order of the icons and folders can also be arranged as you please. Pressing the number key that corresponds to an icon's menu position will activate that icon, as will navigating to it with the joystick and pressing the the joystick itself.

The other major aspect of the UI is the use of the softkeys. One of the problems that many phone user interfaces seem to have is that they don't use the softkeys consistently. There is no such problem here. The left key almost always brings up the list of options, and the right is most always "back" or "exit." One quirk in the UI is the edit button, located directly below the menu button. I have mixed feeling on this. While it is nice to be able to quickly pull up a list of text editing specific functions with this key, it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the Series 60 UI. These functions intuitively would be accessed with the left softkey. I don't think this is a real problem since the benefit of the separate menu when using an editor is worth a bit of inconsistency.

When in standby mode the two softkeys can be programmed to anything you like, and are by default set to the Camera and the Go-To list. The Go-To list is a great shortcuts/favorites type app that you can use to jump to your most used apps and features - including going right into your inbox, not only generically to the message system. The numeric keys can be programmed to act as speed dial buttons that can be used by simply holding a button down for a second or two. The edit button has no feature when in standby mode.

Lastly, and one of the few truly new aspects to the Series 60 UI is the themes system. The 6600 comes with 4 themes preinstalled, and you have the option of downloading others from WAP sites. No longer are you constrained to changing just the background image, as in older models. The new themes change colors, background, and UI elements across the entire system. The default theme has the standard Series 60 look, and the other three are all very attractive designs with swoops and more use of color. A nice addition.

One negative point, though. The 6600 seems noticeably slower to react than the 7650 and 3650 models did. I can not explain why this is happening, but suspect that more is new in this version of Series 60 than just the visual changes of the themes system. We can hope that this situation will be improved in newer firmware revisions, but either way it is not a deal breaker. Just noticeable.

Doing what a phone should do....

Of course what good is a phone that can't do phone things? A polished menu system without the ability to make a decent phone call is of little value. A polished system with good phone capabilities is a good thing, though, and is what we have here.

The reception strength of the 6600 is quite good. I was able to take and make calls in areas that my T68i had never indicated there was a 1900Mhz signal at all - weak or otherwise. Nokia really has been doing a good job with their antennas for the past two years, that's for sure. Sony Ericsson and others need to catch up. The good RF abilities of the 6600 are coupled with nice voice quality for all parties involved. The sounds are clear and sufficiently loud. Things are a bit different when using the hands free speakerphone function, however. Volume is on the low side for the 6600 user, and the audio is a wee bit muddled for the remote person - but no more so than with most speakerphones, I suppose.

As I only had the 6600 for a couple of days, I was not able to fully test the battery life. I do get the impression that the stated 4 hours of talk time and 10 days of standby time are very optimistic, though. Your milage may vary. Also, it is worth mentioning that the phone reset itself a few times when I was not actively using it. This was an issue for me since I have a PIN code on my SIM, and the phone will not start without first entering the PIN.

Otherwise, the rest of the phone functions are top notch. The Contacts application is really good and can be accessed from the main menu or by pressing on the joystick when in standby mode. Contacts can have multiple numbers, custom ringtones, and can be assigned to groups. I didn't see any support for picture caller ID, though. [It's there, I just didn't find it at first. -editor]

The profile system in the 6600 is decent, too. There are 5 user configurable profiles, but none of them are timed. You can configure separate tones for each of the two possible lines on the 6600, the various messages, and even for chats. Profiles can also restrict notifications to members of certain groups, so that you can have the meeting profile only allow calls from your secretary or boss.

There is a nice call log system, too. The call log will keep track of inbound, outbound, and missed calls, as well as GPRS traffic. By default only GPRS data volume will be tracked, but the ability to track connection time can be turned on in the options.

Speaking of GPRS, the 6600 is pretty well connected for a phone. The GPRS system works well and is well utilized by the very impressive xHTML browser that is installed in the 6600. The browser was capable of rendering even the MobileBurn website in a readable format, if not exactly the format we expect on PC web browsers. The GPRS configuration was relatively painless, and the download speeds were quite reasonable.

The other major connectivity system in the 6600 is the Bluetooth system. As many of you will already know, I'm a big Bluetooth fan, so this stuff is important for me. My Bluetooth experiences with the 6600 were a bit of a mixed bag, which should surprise nobody that is familiar with Nokia's Bluetooth efforts in the past.

First up, headsets. This is where the problem is. The 6600's headset compatibility leaves something to be desired. My Sony Ericsson HBH-60 (early firmware) and Siemens HHB-500 headsets did not work with the 6600 at all. Seems that the 6600 does not support the headset profile, just as was the case with the 3650. My HBH-60 supports the Hands Free profile, too, but was still incompatible with the 3650 (though later revisions reportedly function properly). My Plantronics M3000, on the other hand, worked perfectly. This is not really a surprise when you consider that the Nokia HDW-2 is little more than a private label M3000 with a few minor changes. Even though the M3000 works, I was still not exactly happy. The 6600 keeps the connection to the headset open for all sound, including the beeps and such in the user interface. While this is kinda cool at times, it means that there is an active connection with the headset, and that battery power is being wasted in large quantities. I've never been a fan of using the Hands Free profile for headsets, and this is just about a worst case scenario for using it.

On the data side, things are a bit better, but still quirky. Many of the systems in the 6600 allow for sending of objects to other devices by either email, IR, or Bluetooth. This includes the camera's photos and videos, contacts in the contact manager, etc. This is good, and in general it worked well. I was able to send and receive objects between the 6600 and a Belkin/Widcomm USB adapter (with a few failed attempts), an iPAQ 3870, a Sony Clie UX50, and a Sony Ericsson P900. Pairing worked well most all of the time, the exception being a bit of a quirk when initially pairing with the UX50.

The problems were related more to low level issues. For one, I was unable to establish a Bluetooth Serial connection with the 6600. The phone rejected it from both my laptop and my iPAQ. Without this, you can't sync over Bluetooth with Nokia's PC Suite. The other issue was more subtle. It seems that the 6600 keeps the Bluetooth connection open for a few seconds after a transfer is finished, so that when you try to send another file right away you will often be told that the maximum number of connections is already in use. This is really odd, as the connection should be gone already. Worse yet is that the 6600 appears to poll known devices periodically, and that you can run into the same problem trying to send a file to a device if you happen to catch the 6600 while it is polling. I did this on numerous occasions. Nothing should have been happening, but something was happening - and it was getting in the way. Even if other devices do this same polling, they usually seem to support more than a single connection at a time and avoid the issue (the T68i, for example, can have two simultaneous serial connections going). Still, this implementation of Bluetooth is far preferable to no Bluetooth at all.

There is also an IR port on the 6600, which is what I used to connect with the previously mentioned PC Suite sync software that Nokia supplies. The PC Suite lets you transfer images to and from the PC, backup your 6600, and of course sync your contacts and calendar. It also has the ability to import data from most older Nokia handsets, with the 9200 Communicator series being a notable exception.

Text me

We've already mentioned the messaging system in the 6600 a few times, but it bears a bit more coverage. First up, the SMS system. Pretty much what you would expect to find in a Nokia device. It is well laid out, easy to use, and fast. There are SMS Profiles available, in addition to templates, and the ability to organize your messages into folders.

The MMS system is new and improved. You can now create multiple slide messages with embedded images, sounds, and video clips. The system is easily configured and offers the same profiles and organizational capabilities as the SMS system.

The email system requires a bit more in-depth of an explanation, though. This is one of the driving forces behind phones like the 6600. The ability to access your POP3/APOP or IMAP email while on the road is a great thing for the business user, and the 6600 handles the job well. The application is fairly complete, especially if you are using IMAP. POP3 lacks the ability to optionally download only headers and to optionally ignore attachments, something IMAP users will be able to do. This is unfortunate since I believe there are probably more POP accounts in use than IMAP. But otherwise, the system is pretty flexible. You can have newly created messages sent right away, or queued up for the next time the phone is connected to GPRS. You can have copies of the outbound messages sent to yourself, and you can include a signature, too. You can have multiple mail accounts defined at a time, but can only actively use one of them. You need to select the active account, which will be the one accessed when you connect to the Internet.

Of course all of the message editors support T9. The edit button, located beneath the menu button, will bring up a number of functions related specifically to text editing, such as changing the language and inserting special characters. The entire messaging system on the 6600 works pretty well.

Not your father's HP calculator

Series 60 phones have always been popular for their nice pre-installed applications and their ability to run other 3rd party applications, including Java apps. The 6600 is no exception. The Calendar app, for example, is a fine program. It makes full use of the large display and offers a number of views - including monthly, weekly, and daily. Navigating around the calendar is easily done by using the joystick and the two softkeys.

On par with the calendar is the ToDo List application. Unlike the Calendar and Contacts, the ToDo List will not sychronize with a PC running Nokia's PC Suite, but can be sync'd over the air using SyncML and a 3rd party service (such as MightyPhone.com). A number of other small applications round out the organizer like functions, including a calculator, notes app, converter, voice recorder, clock, and password wallet.

When using a phone with a real file system such as the 6600, you need a file manager application. While it is pretty simplistic, the included file manager application does allow you to organize and move around your various images and sounds. You can also use it to rename them to something more meaningful, too.

The 6600 comes with two pre-installed games - the same two that the 7650 shipped with nearly a year and a half ago. Snake EX is an updated Series 60 version of the popular Snake game that has been in Nokia phones for ages. MixPix is a picture puzzle type game designed after those cheap plastic toys we played with as children. I imagine there are other games that ship on the included CD, but I honestly did not get a chance to look since this phone was only on loan for a very short time (such things happen when you don't get the device direct from the manufacturer).

And one last thing, don't believe the box. There was a sticker on the 6600's box that stated it came with a free 32MB memory card that was "packed with exciting content." While there was indeed a free card, nothing on it was very exciting. Why weren't there games installed on the card? I don't consider a handful of images and a few video clips of a coffee mug as being all that exciting.

In summary....

Well, the 6600 is a very capable device. It does everything well, for the most part. So why don't I love it? Well, to me it doesn't do enough more than the prior Series 60 devices did. Yes, it has a much nicer display. Yes, it can shoot (9 second) video clips. Fine. But...I expected more. If not more functionality, then at least a more luggable package. This thing is still quite big, and will have a hard time standing up to new Series 60 devices like the Sendo X - which should be arriving on the market "very soon."

So, do I recommend the 6600? Yes, certainly. I don't know if I would upgrade from a 3650 or 7650, though, as I don't think there are enough compelling changes. But if you are in the market for a new business capable phone, and don't want to deal with a stylus equipped PDA like device such as the P900, then the 6600 will probably suit you just fine.

Sumber : MOBILEBURN by Michael Oryl (editor) on Thursday November 20, 2003.

SILAHKAN KIRIM TANGGAPAN/ PENDAPAT ANDA MENGENAI PRODUK INI