What's small, chubby and the most powerful Series 60 smartphone to date? The new Nokia 6600 - and Jørgen Sundgot has the lowdown on the best Finnish smartphone thus far.
It's the Finnish manufacturer's third crack at a smartphone as Nokia launches the 6600, heir to the wildly successful 7650 and 3650 models. With big shoes to fill, this most recent model still boasts Series 60, albeit the most recent version of the platform - based on the latest Symbian OS version. Apart from this, not much is new, but improvements are aplenty in a device that comes across as rock solid in every aspect.
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Design
Lovingly nicknamed 'little chubby' by iSW staff, the Nokia 6600 is smaller, more compact and gives off more of a solid feel than its predecessors. Despite its nickname, its design is more flattering than that of its predecessors: at 10.9 x 5.8 x 2.4 cm and 122 g, it's not a tool a professional would mind pulling out in public - and although it does not rank among the smallest of handsets, its advanced functionality more than balances this.
In a wise move, Nokia opted for a traditional keypad rather than the circular variety introduced with the Nokia 3650, which offers overall excellent ergonomics and tactile feedback, and a comfortable soft, blue backlight to boot. The four-way joystick of the 6600 is sadly not particularly comfortable, as the plastic of which it is made is slightly slippery, and tactile feedback is barely adequate.
Fortunately, the display of the 6600 is a pleasure to behold, as it is crisp and clear - although not larger than that of previous models, despite a slight visual illusion suggesting the contrary. Also, the Nokia 6600 shines in the audio department, with excellent quality during conversations whether in handset or loudspeaker mode. Fortunately, Nokia - as in previous smartphones - still opts for a conventional 2.5 mm handsfree set jack which offers more than satisfactory quality, rather than the proprietary Nokia Pop-Port.
Of course, the Nokia 6600 also harbours a VGA resolution camera, which offers quality superior to that found in most other smartphones. Now sporting a 2x digital zoom, the white balance appears to have improved from previous Nokia smartphones, but apart from these factors there are no changes to an otherwise excellent setup which includes a night mode yet unmatched by any other vendor.
Connectivity
As previously mentioned, Nokia has foregone use of its Pop-Port connector in the 6600, focusing entirely on wireless for connectivity purposes. In fact, cradle or cable connectivity are entirely out of the question as Infrared and Bluetooth are the only two means of communication possible, each of which performed flawlessly throughout testing.
In the WAN department, the 6600 boasts healthy support for tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz, as well as HSCSD, GPRS and Fax services, all of which laptop and handheld users will be pleased to learn is a breeze to utilize either by means of Infrared or Bluetooth.
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