’’Graham Bell, Graham Bell
If you listen to the telephones in India,
You’ll jump into the well’’
With apologies to Remo Fernandes
After evaluating Nokia, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson & LG - I went for Nokia primarily as it has the highest resale value.
Then within the models I went for 6610i primarily being a professional I did not want flashy models or models which are high on game/camera value. Also I was interested in the FM radio being a part of 6610i (nothing like music when travelling in a Mumbai local).
So lets get down to 6610i:
Got it for Rs.11, 150 (without Bills purchase 2 weeks back) - I know the shop well + Rs. 600 for the USB port(Not orginal Nokia one-that costs around Rs.2, 000/-) required to download pictures to your PC (after all what use is the camera if you cannot store the pics).
Data transfer
The USB driver is yet not working perhaps I need to buy the original Nokia perhaps but I will try again before shelling out more bucks. Other features here include GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), Data transfer up to 43.2 kbit/s, Circuit-Switched Data(?)..
The USB port is not working even with the original and I have been told that Nokia is aware of the problem and is sorting out - Added on 9th August 2004
General Features:(as mentioned in the book)
Tri-Band Operation, Automatic switching between bands, AMR Voice code for 1900 frequency band (by the way do these feature actually matter to all of us?)
Weight: 87 g, Dimensions: 106 mm x 44 mm x 19 mm, 72 cc
Camera
I started off with the Integrated camera, just click the up arrow and the camera gets activated. I captured my daughter in various moods and the best one was set as wallpaper on the phone. The other pics were added to the Gallery for future editing or deleting or zooming...
All these pics can be sent as MMS messages + you can add pics to your phone book, so now you have a face against the name of the person who’s calling!!
The camera has 3 different modes - Standard, portrait, and night modes and the image quality again has 3 options - High, normal, basic
Stereo Radio FM
First you need to have the headphone(integrated handsphone speaker) connected to activate the Radio (it seems like the antenna is in the base of the connector). Once you tune into a station the music is all yours, not only that you can start the Loudspeaker and share the music with people around you-very good output. WOW
Memory
First clear your phone of all the nonsense pics/cards to optimise on the 4MB shared memory. This memory is shared by phonebook, messages, gallery, calender, To-do notes, images, ringing tones etc. If you are into more into Games, apps, MMS messages and ring tones then you better be careful with memory but 4 MB is more than enough.
Display
High-resolution, passive Matrix Color Display
Supports up to 4096 colors within 128x128 pixels
Up to 8 lines in message viewing
Adjustable display brightness control
Fixed ringing tones: 20 polyphonic tones, 10 monophonic tones, and 1 Nokia tone
Other Regular features(as per the manual)
Timed/Customisable profiles, Changeable color schemes
Alarm clock, stopwatch, Countdown timer, Calculator
Wallpaper: Full-screen color image
Screen saver: Digital clock
Phone book: Up to 500 contacts with all entries filled in addition to SIM card contacts
SMS messages: Up to 150 text messages or 50 concatenated messages
Calendar notes: Up to 250 maximum-size entries
Fixed ringing tones (11 preset, not removable)
To-do list (up to 30 entries)
Email, Chat, Templates, Imaging, Infrared
Wallet - you can store your personal Credit card detials or any passwords here and lock it.
Java Applications: Downloadable games(Max Size 64kb) and personal applications
Games: PuzzleChess and Bounce
Well till now the honeymoon is pleasant, personally I do not like the keypad much its a bit uncomfortable but apart from that I highly recommend 6610i.
Added on 28th June 2004: The To-do list is not linked to Alarm, so one cannot set an alarm against a reminder.
Further the Alarm needs to be activated daily !!!!