Nokia 6650 T-Mobile - metal boomerang

Introduction, packaging

There are cell phones that appear so suddenly from the shroud of anonymity that you just cannot compare that to anything. Please put up your hand if you have ever heard of Nokia 6650! No, I’m not talking about the base model that appeared in 2003, which by the way was one of the first 3G phones. No, I’m talking about the new one!

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I think I would only see the hands of those who have been browsing T-Mobile price lists lately, as since the handset exists, it’s distributed only by the magenta operator, so it’s a so-called exclusive handset, we’ve already seen such things from them. Hence the somewhat eerie model numbering, as based on it we just couldn’t decide what kind of segment it is part of. The closest one is of course its brother, 6555, but they are relatives only based on this code, as the subject of our current review is a Symbian S60 smartphone, while the sailplane is based on the Series 40 platform. There are very few clamshell smartphones made by the Finnish manufacturer, in the last year and a half we practically had only the multimedia frying pan (N76) and the rather pleasant 6290. We could say that 6650 is the elegant, metallic successor of this latter one, which sounds really good.

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The phone, supplied by T-Mobile Hungary, came in a surprisingly small, thin box, which had a charger, a data cable, a HS-47 stereo headset and a 1 GB microSD memory card besides the phone, the latter had Nokia Maps 2.0 and the appropriate maps on it.

Exterior

Fans of the Finnish manufacturer will probably hate me for this sentence, but I think Nokia never made a really good clamshell. There were some better handsets in the 6xxx series, but they just couldn’t make such a smartphone that had a normal size. I am happy to announce that this tradition is now over, as 6650 has a pleasant size (94 x 47 x 16 mm) and weight (112 grams), the weight being even better if we consider that the phone is completely made of metal.

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Although design is very subjective I can say that 6650 really amazed me with its moderate, elegant exterior. On top of the front there is the camera and the LED flash, the number of megapixels is not printed anywhere, the main reason probably is that it is only a 2 megapixel image sensor. Below we can see the 128 x 160 pixels large external display which has a great view angle and readability. In the bottom there are three touchkeys, which have colors that can be set from the menu, it’s really spectacular. In the bottommost part there is an engraved (!) T-Mobile logo.

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The back is very clean, there is absolutely nothing on the detachable metallic part.

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On top we can gaze at the opening mechanism. As an exception there was absolutely no irony in this one, as this part is designed really well, there is no play when the phone is opened and there is a minimal amount when closed. On the left there are the volume control keys and the camera exposure key and in the bottom corner there is the covered microUSB connector.

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The bottom part is also empty, on the right there is the microSD slot, the headset and the charger connector, all of them are covered with a lid.

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After opening up the phone we’ll probably think that while we performed this action, the handset switched itself with something different – as moderate and elegant it is when closed, as futuristic it becomes when opened! On the top part there is the 2.2” QVGA display, the area around it is black and shiny. The same thing is true for the keypad, or at least for part of it: the center part (the d-pad and the 2/5/8/0 keys) have a grey, rough surface, the other buttons are shiny. The backlight is very high-tech, its color can be changed – there are seven colors theoretically, but only six in practice, as the green and the yellow are completely the same. The otherwise great keypad has a bumped part below it, we could say it’s RAZR-like. I basically don’t like such things, but it was somehow okay at 6650.

Red, blue, green, yellow, white, purple, and greenish blue are the available colors

External display, menu, hardware

The external display is very useful, just like at 6290, as it doesn’t only display the most basic information (time, date, battery level, signal strength, caller ID), but we can also control the handset. The menu system is really spectacular: it’s a vertically moving list that has fades, where we can select the menu items with the volume keys and access them with the touchkeys. It’s awesome that we can control the music player from here, access the calendar, the countdown timer, the stopwatch, the profile manager and the camera too, the latter one being of course used for self-portraits.

I again have to apologize for the lack of English screenshots; I swear we won’t forget them the next time.

The operating system is Symbian S60 3rd Edition with Feature Pack 2. I won’t discuss the basic stuff in detail, as we had a separate article about this, where everyone can look up the Series 60 platform’s characteristics and features. The whole thing looks like Feature Pack 1 at first, as there are some features missing, like the active standby can be put only on the top.

The system still does its job good and fast, although we might see some bugs, like for example there are some system messages that get “stuck” on the external screen – we hope that the next software update will fix these. Let’s see the benchmarks:

We can see from the tables that 6650 is something like G810 in performance, but it’s slower than N95 (which has a 3D accelerator chip), which is seen at the JBenchmark 3D part.

Basic function, data transfer

I had no problems with the phone during phone calls, sound quality and volume were both okay, neither did others complain about not hearing me. The phonebook is perfect, thanks to the operating system, we can store contacts and other information until we have free memory, we can create custom labels, so we shouldn’t panic if we want to store IQ score for our contacts, as we can create the necessary field for this one too. Messaging is also okay, the email client supports authenticated IMAP servers and attachments too. Internal memory size is 30 MB, the memory card has about 600 MB free and if we’d find this too small then we can use an SDHC card of up to 8 GB in size.

There isn’t too much extra software. In the main menu we can see web'n'walk and Mobile TV, but we can fortunately move the icons to any other subfolder. There is no Office software or PDF reader, although I think these would be required on such a handset that is intended for businessmen too. Flash player is included, just like the very entertaining game called Marble.

6650 has a quad-band GSM module (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), we can use GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and even HSDPA for data transfer, as this is a 3G phone. Unfortunately we can’t make video calls, since there is no secondary camera. WiFi is also out of the question, but the Bluetooth 2.0 is a stereo module of course.

Multimedia

The phone’s camera is a kind of time travel: 2 megapixels, fixed focus. I think everyone can imagine picture quality, as this is the twenty millionth Nokia with such a camera. I think it’s not such a big deal that they didn’t increase production costs by including some autofocus wonder, as this camera is good for capturing some memorable moments. The highest available resolution for images is 1600 x 1200 pixels and for videos it’s 320 x 240; we have the usual set of options like self timer, night mode, image sequencing, effects, JPEG compression level and white balance.

The music player app is flawless and furthermore it can be controlled even when the phone is closed. It displays album covers, it can filter tracks by ID3 tags, and it has an equalizer (8 bands, custom schemes allowed) so it’s really nice, just like the FM radio software. The headset is of medium quality, it’s good for listening to music. The phone performs rather poor via the speakers, although it has a dedicated one under the external display – I couldn’t say at first that there’s something, I though it’s a design element or something.

GPS, battery, summary

As I have already mentioned the phone has a GPS receiver, which has aGPS support, so it can do location faster with the help of cell information. The card that comes with the handset has Nokia Maps 1.2 on it and the Central- and Eastern-Europe map shipped by Tele Atlas. Location is extremely fast, the software is also okay, although voice navigation costs extra. I still think it can’t really be used for proper everyday navigation, these phone-based stuff are still way far from PDAs/PNAs, moving around the map is a real nightmare, just like accessing extra functions, since there’s no touchscreen.

The phone has the 1500 mAh battery, just like E71, which is great, since this has an uptime of three days even when the phone is used heavily. Of course if we listen to music all the time then it needs charging every other day or even daily.

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Summary: 6650 T-Mobile had a pleasant impression on me. The metal case is really a high-quality one, the keypad is also good, there was no other clamshell Nokia I liked this much. It’s also okay in data transfer, I only miss WiFi a bit, but it has been probably left out in order to not create competition for E51. The GPS receiver and Nokia Maps 1.2 are great things, but as I have already mentioned, such a smartphone is limited in navigation. I was stunned by the fact that there are features from Feature Pack 2 that are missing from the phone; I think I could say that this is the greatest flaw of the phone. It’s price is €215 EUR with a two-year subscription, so it costs a bit more than E51 or 6120 Classic, but I still recommend it to anyone who would like a clamshell smartphone that looks rather good.

Nokia 6650 T-Mobile

Bocha

Translated by Szaszati

The handset has been provided by T-Mobile Hungary, thanks!

Specifications

Nokia 6650 T-Mobile
	General
	Technology	GSM, UMTS, HSDPA
	Size	94 x 47 x 16 mm
	Weight	112 grams
	Available colors	Grey, black
	Display
	Internal display diagonal	2.2”
	Internal display resolution	240 x 320 pixels
	Internal display type	TFT
	External display resolution	128 x 160 pixels
	Number of colors	16.7 million
	Memory
	Phonebook capacity	dynamic
	SMS memory / max. MMS size	dynamic / 300KB
	Internal memory	30 MB (+ 1 GB card included)
	Memory expandablity	microSD (SDHC-compatible)
	Data transfer
	Frequency bands	850/900/1800/1900 MHz
	GPRS / EDGE	Class 10 (4+1/3+2) / Class 10 (236.8 kbps)
	UMTS / HSDPA	present (384 kbps) / present (3.6 Mbps)
	IrDA / Bluetooth	none / 2.0 (A2DP too)
	WiFi	none
	USB	2.0 (microUSB)
	Push-to-talk / RSS	present / present
	GPS receiver	present
	Basic functions
	Profiles	present
	Vibra function	present
	Built-in handsfree	present
	Voice dialing / voice commands	present / present
	Sound recorder	present
	Alarm clock	present, also when turned off
	Predictive text entry	-
	Software
	Platform	Symbian OS Series 60 3rd Edition with Feature Pack 2
	WAP / HTML browser	present / present
	E-mail client	present (POP3, IMAP4, authenticated)
	Java	present, MIDP 2.0
	Games	1 + installable
	Currency converter	present
	Extra software	Nokia Maps 1.2
	Multimedia
	Main camera	2 megapixels, fixed focus, flash
	Secondary camera	none
	Video recording	present (QVGA resolution)
	Music player	present, can run in background
	Equalizer	present
	FM radio	present
	Battery
	Main battery	1500 mAh Li-Pol
	Standby time	350 hours
	Talk time	240 minutes (3G) / 280 minutes (2G)
	Other
	Touchkyes on front