Nokia 6600. My personal, first hand opinion

No - I stand by my comments about the opera browser.

For example: If you go to a website that has a drop down menu with say 20 items in it, Opera displays the menus and one long list. You then need to scroll down and down the page just to get past the drop down menu (you can be scrolling for ages). Pocket IE displays drop downs just like they should be. Clicking on the menu opens them.

Secondly, in Pocket IE I can sync to my PC and then just drag all of my favourites into Pocket IE's favourites folder. I can create hundreds of favourites in seconds. How do I get all my favourites into Opera or the XHTML browser - type them in one by one?

Thirdly, only about 80% of the sites I can open in Pocket IE will open in Opera.

Fourthly, Opera is slow. Doris is much faster at opening web pages. Opera itself takes about 5 seconds to open on the 6600.

Arakin - Thanks for your tips on select all, and then delete - that helps.

I still stand by my original statement about the email client on the 6600 (Symbian yes I know). If you receive more than about 20 or 30 emails a day forget it. On the SPV I can retrieve all my emails from the server and download the first xx bytes with 1 click (or no clicks of set to auto poll every xx minutes/hours). Then I can select them and hit delete and they are gone. On the 6600 the whole process is cumbersome, download headers, then the emails. Using pop 3 you can't say send and receive again, you have to log off and log back on. On the SPV you can stay connected and when new emails arrive they appear in your inbox (yes using pop 3). On the 6600 URL's and telephone numbers in emails are not clickable, so when I receive an email from this forum to inform me I have received a reply to this post there is nothing I can do. On the SPV I click the url in the email, Pocket IE opens and I go straight to the topic. On the SPV there is 1 inbox for all types of messages. Sounds crazy but it is a much better system. One inbox to open for all messages. No messing around scrolling into various inboxes.

Rafe: you say much of my criticisms can be solved by 3rd party software. Well yes and no. At the moment, almost half of everything I have downloaded will not work on the 6600. Even it if did there would still be problems. EG: I want Active Today (today screen) and Active Mail (better email program) and both made by the same company. Active today shows I have new email. I click the link. Does it open Active Mail? No it opens the built in mail client. I have to manually open Active Mail - not very clever. Another example, in Active Mail I receive a URL in an email. I click it and does it open Opera? No the built in XHTML browser which can't display the page in any case!!! There is no TRUE integration between the various 3rd party apps - there can't be. Many of them are developed by different companies.

Back to Nokia Data Suite. After 4 days now and various installs on 3 PC's it still doesn�t work. I give in. I see the 6600 has no data port of the bottom of the phone so I guess a simple USB docking cradle is out of the question.

I am not a spy from Microsoft and I do appreciate the SPV is very buggy. The new SPV e200, out next week should have all of the misgivings fixed. It's faster, has a built in camera, Bluetooth (yuk) and has the new 2003 OS as well as integrating .NET. There is very little the 6600 does in a better and more efficient way then the SPV. (The original SPV is horrible by the way). I post regularly to a forum called modaco which is a non-MS owned forum and believe me I have moaned enough about the SPV there!

I am looking for a smallish phone, with no touch screen, 64K colours, good email and internet browsing, good software support and efficient to use and i9t must be able to sync with my PC. P800/900 - no. 7650/3650 - no.

As I said my needs may be different to everyone else's here, and there are only my opinions.

As much as I love the phone (it really is wonderful), Nokia have let the side down with the Symbian OS. Version 7 should have been better and more complete.

It is with reluctance that I have to admit defeat with the Data Suite. I have got it working on my laptop and just the fiddling around to get it to work even on that spoils my whole enjoyment of the phone.

If anyone is interested in buying my 6600, drop me a line. I will sell it for �399 with a 128MB MMC card. It is 5 days old, in perfect condition and complete with a full European guarantee. Light grey.

Like I said before, if you like the 7650/3650 OS you will love this phone. Sadly, it does not meet my needs.

To summarise my 6600/ SPV comparison please see below. I have indicated which phone I think is better for certain features.

Build quality: Same
Screen: 6600
Battery Life: 6600 easily
Keyboard: 6600
Email client: SPV easily
Internet browser: SPV
Calendar feature: SPV
Contacts: SPV
Speed: SPV
Themes: SPV easily
Menu system: Same
PC software: SPV easily
Qty of 3rd party software: SPV easily (even compared to the entire Series 60 platform)
Quality of 3rd party software: SPV easily
Stability of OS: 6600 easily
T9 text: 6600 easily - SPV forgets saved words all the time
Overall phone design itself: 6600
Overall OS: SPV
Phone overall: SPV

What would be the best: 6600 with MS Smartphone 2003 OS

Originally posted by Pagemakers
How many of our PC's have built in Bluetooth or IR? I don't know of any here in the UK. So why release a phone that can only connect to your PC by BT or IR. What a stupid idea.

More and more laptops don't have an IR port anymore (Sony's haven't had IR for a couple of years now. My new top-of-the range Samsung does not have IR either. They have either/or BT or WiFi or both.

I don't know of any desktop PCs that come with either an IR or BT ports as standard. So PC users will have to go out an buy either a BT dongle or a slow IR dongle at more expense, and judging by my experiences a very hit and miss, frustrating time.

What was wrong with shipping the phone with a USB cradle as well as allowing connection by BT and IR?

Originally posted by Pagemakers
More and more laptops don't have an IR port anymore (Sony's haven't had IR for a couple of years now. My new top-of-the range Samsung does not have IR either. They have either/or BT or WiFi or both.

I don't know of any desktop PCs that come with either an IR or BT ports as standard. So PC users will have to go out an buy either a BT dongle or a slow IR dongle at more expense, and judging by my experiences a very hit and miss, frustrating time.

What was wrong with shipping the phone with a USB cradle as well as allowing connection by BT and IR?

Apple's really pushing bluetooth. All the Powerbooks and Powermacs have it built in, and it's an option on iBooks. (None of their range has infared any more.)

I like the fact that Apple also has their own sync software (used instead of Nokia's), which seems to work very well.

Amorya

Pagemaker, stop! You are bringing me down! 😎 Seriously though, I think you have valid issues; I also would have liked closer integration with a decent web browser, I have a bunch of URL's in my contacts that open with the built-in XHTML browser instead of Opera. In general, I feel Nokia software lacks a certain polish, or maturity, that more experienced software developers can bring in.

However, I'm in love with my 6600 at the moment (I guess ignorance of viable alternatives helps). I don't have a pressing need to be receiving more than 30 mails a day on the phone and I actually think that would be hugely disruptive to my life. Maybe I'll think another way when I take the phone to a vacation with me. The phone itself is the best I have used; battery life is long, reception is noticeably better than my old 6310i, the whole thing is easy to use and, contrary to your experience, it was easy to integrate with my iMac. I just finished consolidating all my contact info on the address book of Mac OS X and 6600.

Oh, BTW, anyone who wants to send vCards to 6600 better use vCard 2.1 instead of vCard 3.0, especially if you use characters outside Latin-1 set. And why would Nokia break the vCard specification and not let me send more than one vCard with a single file ?

Cheers,

On the 6600 URL's and telephone numbers in emails are not clickable, so when I receive an email from this forum to inform me I have received a reply to this post there is nothing I can do.

Options -> Find -> web address. Options -> Find -> Phone number and you get a clickable link list.

Also I find the "one inbox for all" to horrible thing. I don't want to have all my mails and SMS / MMS messages to appear in one place... Yuck, one of the biggest annoyances I've seen in it. Also missing cut'n'paste in SPV is an amazing oversight.

Oh, and true multitasking. You can switch easily between apps by pressing long on the "apps" key - one thing I haven't seen in SPV. You can leave the app running in the background - e.g. no need to wait for five seconds each time you want to browse with Opera - just jump between apps....

windows & SPV smart phone they both from same compeny thats why they work better with each other then any other smart phone like normal IE & pocket they work better each other then opera & IE same apply to outlock & any other applications.
for the normal user i would say 6600 and business user should go for SPV

😉

Originally posted by Arakin
Options -> Find -> web address. Options -> Find -> Phone number and you get a clickable link list.

Oh, and true multitasking. You can switch easily between apps by pressing long on the "apps" key - one thing I haven't seen in SPV. You can leave the app running in the background - e.g. no need to wait for five seconds each time you want to browse with Opera - just jump between apps....

1 - What a lot of fiddling about just to click a URL in an email - It should just appear as an underlined link.

2 - The MS Smartphone is truely multitasking. You can be downloading email, internet browsing, on MSN and playing a game all at the same time. Switch between apps and they are all still where you left them.

Originally posted by Pagemakers
Nokia have let the side down with the Symbian OS. Version 7 should have been better and more complete.

Blame Nokia for Series 60, NOT for the Symbian OS.

I'm not a fan of S60 either, but it seems like you need to invest some time to adopt, and do some serious "RTFM'ing". 😉

I can't believe you prefer IE over Opera, but then again I've never tried Opera on S60, just the UIQ and PC version.

I am looking for a smallish phone, with no touch screen, 64K colours, good email and internet browsing, good software support and efficient to use and i9t must be able to sync with my PC. P800/900 - no. 7650/3650 - no.

Have you considered a Treo 600? Yes it is a touch screen device but you can do everything via the 5 way D-pad. You need not use the stylus at all. If durability is your main concern, you can safely leave the Treo in a pocket with keys or sit down with it in your back pocket; the display is the most durable touch screen in the world to date. It's much smaller than the dimensions printed online suggest (they include the antenna) and has brilliant software support.

The web browser is as good as the one on my iPaq H2210, and thats saying something, while the email support is easily the best i've ever seen on a smartphone. It syncs easily with a PC or Mac and sync *EVERYTHING* not just contacts and calendar. Your notes, to-do's, emails and anything else you'd care to mention can be synced. There are plent of applications avalible for it, and at least 10 replica's of Microsoft's "today" screen, all of whihc can be set as the main standby screen or acessed via a singe button press. GPRS is much faster than any other handset i've tried in the past.

As you can tell, I'm very happy with mine. Its managed to replace my 8 week old �370 iPaq which is no mean feat for a device you can get free with a contract. It destroys the SPV E-100 in every area you've mentioned, although I am keen to have a "hands on" with an E-200 before my 14 day money back period ends on Wednesday.

Anyone want a dirt cheap iPaq? 😃

Very tempted, but my fingers are too big for the tiny keys.

I have spent hours in my local Orange shop with it and nearly bought one last week.

Originally posted by Pagemakers
1 - What a lot of fiddling about just to click a URL in an email - It should just appear as an underlined link.

2 - The MS Smartphone is truely multitasking. You can be downloading email, internet browsing, on MSN and playing a game all at the same time. Switch between apps and they are all still where you left them.

1. But it is possible. You really need to spend more time with your 6600 😉

2. Yes I know, but no task manager... You have no control of apps that are on. The task manager in S60 phones is really a nice feature and multitasking is much more integrated in S60.

I use a free 3rd pary task manager.

I can't quite believe the 6600 is the same speed as the SPV, it must be bloody slow! I regularly have to wait 5+ seconds for applications to load, the program menu to come up or the phone to recover from the shock of me adding a new appointment (well over 5 seconds!).

Anyway, I was wondering what the 6600 is missing that makes you prefer the SPV for contacts and calendar? I only need basic functionality in either but was wondering if there is a glaring problem with the 6600?

Seems like the MSMobiles bloke has decided to grab only the bits that show the SPV as being better. Not that I expected anything else from him as he is extremely biased. No mention at all about the screen or battery life... 🙄

I prefer the contacts feature in the SPV for the following reasons.

SPV: Say I want to call "Justin". From the standby screen I just start to type "Justin" as soon as I press J mark will appear and I just select and call. 2 Clicks - I don't need to be in the contact program to call.

6600: First I must select Contacts (from my shortcut key). Then I type J and I am taken to the beginning of the J's. then I either have to scroll down through all the J's or I type U. Then I select Justin, scroll to the number I want to call and click. Then the phone asks me "call?". I select yes and the call is placed. What I can do in 1 second on the SPV takes me 5 on the 6600.

On the SPV if I select a contact, the contact is displayed showing name, address and, other details as a clean complete list. On the 6600 there are titles for everything: Telephone, Postal Code, Street, Address, making the page much longer and scrolling is required to see the entire contact listing.

On the SPV I can sync to outlook and only sync MY contacts. My partner here can sync to the same version of Outlook (we use for our business) and he can sync just HIS contacts. On the 6600 all of his contacts are unnecessarily on my phone and vice versa.

The calendar programs are comparable, now Nokia have changed the way the day view displays. The SPV integrates well with the built in Today Screen.

Regarding the speed of the 2 phones - I have them here in front of me. I choose calendar - SPV is faster. Email - SPV is faster. Browsing html pages - SPV is significantly faster. Program opening - SPV is slightly faster. Yes, the SPV does run into catch up mode occasionally. Just look round this forum, 7650 users say it is slower than that, and that phone came out years ago! The 2003 MS OS is significantly faster than 2002 and does not suffer from the same bugs. Owner reviews of 2003 say there is NO comparison between the 2 phones.

I guess you either love or hate the MS Smartphone. Same could be said for the Symbian OS. I have both phones, I don't work for MS, Nokia or Symbian so my view is totally unbiased (unlike MS Mobiles). The 6600 is a far better phone physically, but the OS just isn�t powerful enough although it could be very done easily and I thought it would be in V7. The 6600 and SPV e100 are comparable at the moment. Next week when the e200 the 6600 just wont be able to compete. Before anyone flames me - do what I did, get both phones and make your own calculated judgement.

Originally posted by Pagemakers

SPV: Say I want to call "Justin". From the standby screen I just start to type "Justin" as soon as I press J mark will appear and I just select and call. 2 Clicks - I don't need to be in the contact program to call.

I'm confused. "from standby screen, i just start to type justin", but in standby screen, how do you type numbers then?

The SPV is very clever here.

If you type J on the standby screen the top of the screen shows the number 5 and the lower half of the screen shows all your contacts beginning with J. Then you type U and the top of the screen shows 58 and the bottom shows all your contacts with JU I them and so on. You can either continue to type the number or select from the list below. Very clever and fast.

As you can see below I have typed DA. Now I can type more numbers to dial directly or select from a contact below.

One more thing about the SPV. When the phone is in the docking cradle you can connect to the internet at broadband speeds if you have broadband on your PC. Very cool. 😊

Regarding the comments about the Opera browser. Look at the difference between the Opera browser and the SPV's Pocket IE.

This is a SIMPLE html page. Image what it looks like on a complicated one.

Opera always opens all drop down menus, making page displays ugly, cumbersome and scrolling. The SPV displays it correctly and in about half the time.

Now tell me Opera looks better!

PS: Also look at the quality of the 2 different screen shot software.

I guess it's the bugs in the SPV that annoy me. T9 not remembering how I spell things, random pauses, a lack of understanding of "silent" (eg set to silent profile and try adding a name to the "to" part of an SMS, "DOINK!"😉

Oh, and battery life, which I bet isn't improved much with the SPV E200. I'm lucky sometimes and get almost a day and a half out of my SPV!

I had looked to the 6600 to be what I wanted, but now I am starting to think I might have to look elsewhere. Will see when I go have a look at it in the shop. Maybe wait a bit for other smart phones to come out, maybe the P900, maybe a non-smart phone, or could try and get a 7650 cheap.

All in all a very good thread Pagemakers, lots to think about now!

Originally posted by RobP
I guess it's the bugs in the SPV that annoy me. T9 not remembering how I spell things, random pauses, a lack of understanding of "silent" (eg set to silent profile and try adding a name to the "to" part of an SMS, "DOINK!"😉

Oh, and battery life, which I bet isn't improved much with the SPV E200. I'm lucky sometimes and get almost a day and a half out of my SPV!

I had looked to the 6600 to be what I wanted, but now I am starting to think I might have to look elsewhere. Will see when I go have a look at it in the shop. Maybe wait a bit for other smart phones to come out, maybe the P900, maybe a non-smart phone, or could try and get a 7650 cheap.

All in all a very good thread Pagemakers, lots to think about now!

Totally agree. The T9 thing irritates the tits off me. Battery life of the SPV is awful. Getting double or triple on the 6600.

I have attached a cab file for your SPV. Download it, rename it back to .cab and install it on your phone. You will never get a 'Doink' again!

hehe, I'm used to it now, just made me jump the first time I did it. Cheers for the cab, will plonk it on my phone later! 😊

Mind you, I do wonder if the 6600 will get an upgrade soon (doesn't it do over the air upgrading like the SPV?) which will speed it up. Certainly they first SPV software was awful!

Just thought of another thing, can you save e-mail attachments on the 6600? I have to do a pretty nasty hack on the SPV. Find the weirdly named file on the phone, copy and paste and rename it!

You need to take it to your Nokia Service Centre for the upgrade. No internet updates like the SPV.

You can save attachments on the 6600.

I haven't come across the Opera thing in the same way you have. It looks like your using SSR in that screenshot (switch it off and you get rendering like PIE).

I've used both quite a bit and I'd say Opera can't be touched. However I can accept that this is very much a personal thing (much in the same way some people prefer Firebird over IE over Opera etc). I'd recommend people try it at the least (and hey its free on the 6600 which is nice).

Speed issues - its funny because having tried a SPV E200 I'd agree with you that it is a considerable improvement over the E100. However I would say the speed is equivalent to the 6600 (and this was a virgin E200 as oposed to a loaded with info 6600). I've seen this before with discpancies between different phones. (One 3650 is faster than another etc etc). Still thats my personal experience.

I agree about Smart Dial - that is a really nice feature.

Like you I've tried both, and I prefer the 6600. Like so many of these things its very personal choice. I think the Spv E200 is ahead in some areas, but on the whole its problems (battery life etc) outweigh those in day to day use. The 6600 has some real killer advantages (whatever OS you use design is still one of the most important things). That and OS stability. I don't want my phone locking up!

I said before that the E200 is interesting because hardware parity with Symbian devices is achieved (in terms of features). Software becomes more important. However at the moment Series 60 will win because it is more mass market. What will happen is a real fight at the high end of the bell curve (all of you reading this are likely to be on this high part). Thus while for high end users the SPV is quite compelling I think Series 60 is more compelling for the mid and low end user because its more intuitive and easy to use.

Still at the end of the day it about personal choice. Its nice that people can express their opinions and not get shouted down!

Rafe

Rafe. I agree with your sentiments entirely.

Some people will love the 6600 and some will not. Some people will prefer the SPV and some will not.

I like both, but the features I need most are done better in the SPV. I agree the SPV is far from perfect.

Incidentally, turned SSR off and the page displays exactly the same. The drop down menus still open up. There is no way to close them.

If the email software was improved and data suite made better and a docking cradle released I would buy the 6600 again tomorrow and keep it over my SPV. Have to wait and see what I would do if I had an E200 though 😉

Originally posted by Pagemakers
Incidentally, turned SSR off and the page displays exactly the same. The drop down menus still open up. There is no way to close them.

If the email software was improved and data suite made better and a docking cradle released I would buy the 6600 again tomorrow and keep it over my SPV. Have to wait and see what I would do if I had an E200 though 😉

That's strange on the drop down menu's, I dont recall getting them. As I remember it I have to make them active (like you do with a link), then click - and then they pop up as a list. Obviously much the same way as PIE - and really the way that seems good.

Having read your comments about the SPV I'm sure you'll like the E200! It catches up hardware wise (though not design), I just dont like the software!

Just referring to a point you made in your original review of the 6600 about the email capabilities.

I too find it annoying that it starts to download the whole email I mean I have this problem on the 7650 and esp considering its limited memory capabilites, however if you click cancel after it has downloaded the headers of the emails then you will only have to download the emails you select...

can save mucho time and data costs...

P

Rafe, where did you see the E200? It's not out yet.

With e-mail - I don't know what others do but here what works for me.

I choose connect to mailbox - that connects and download headers. I then choose which I wish to receive (choosing to mark each message I want). Then I select retrieve e-mail (selected).

That works fine for me.

Rafe