Nokia 3650 : 08/14/2003
By Ralph J.
You’ve seen the pictures, its on your birthday list, its on your Christmas list, its number one at Amazon.com. But how good is the Nokia 3650? I had the opportunity to play with it for a good three weeks and let me tell you, I LOVED IT:
Operating System/Software
First this is not your regular mobile phone with a cheesy OS. The Nokia 3650
is running Series 60 of the popular Symbian OS. This in itself means that
it is possible to load a good deal of applications on to the device. I wont
review those, lets just say that they are so many, you can find the good
ones on your own; just to mention a few: Blacklist allows you to block calls
from certain callers, they wont even go to your voicemail, AppMan gives you
functionality for the OS, freeing memory tweaking applications, etc, SmartLauncher
gives you the ability to skin the desktop on the phone, among other things.
Symbian also supports Java, which allows compatibility with even more applications
out on the market. As all operating systems memory is an issue and there
are apps that allow you to tweak your memory and actually kill certain applications
that you might not need, or even run applications at specific times. Menu
navigation is essentially done using a d-pad style key that is located dead
center right under the screen. Selecting can be done by pressing the middle
of that pad. The phone comes preloaded with your basic PIM applications,
which CAN be synced to Outlook, excellent option. Images can be used as wallpaper
and you can even add a picture to each caller in your address book, allowing
that picture to appear when that person calls you. A nice little feature,
one that most people don’t notice, but is pretty much inherent in most
Nokia phones is that when you set an alarm, even if the phone is off, the
alarm WILL ring. 9 out of 10 for this category!
Hardware
The first thing you notice about the phone is its strange keypad layout. I read somewhere that they were trying to make it look retro, kinda like rotary phones back in the day. I don’t know how true it is, but it makes text entry a bit awkward, most of us are used to our regular 3-row layout. The layout of the keys is similar to a U and is in order. T9 is also supported, just gotta get used to the weird layout. There are some apps that allow for changing the way the OS handles text input. The phone is equipped with an IR port for transferring data. It can be used for syncing with Outlook and also using the Nokia PC Suite Software (free) to load more applications, games, images and ringtones.
The phone also has Bluetooth support, excellent option if you have a Bluetooth adapter at home or if you decide to purchase a wireless headset for the phone. There are even some games that use the Bluetooth connectivity in order to enable multiplayer support.
A camera is also embedded in the backside of the phone. Excellent if you love to just take pictures of everything, trust me you can find a use for it! It is VGA quality (600x480) and pictures can be send using MultiMedia Messages or email setup on the phone.
The best hardware piece in the phone is the MMC expansion slot, which allows you to add more memory for applications and files. Every standard application that needs memory will ask you if you want to save data in the phones memory or on the MMC card. The phone comes standard with a 16MB card, more than enough, unless you plan to have MP3 files on the phone, which YES is entirely possible.
Sounds quality is exceptional along with reception and battery life. The longest I was on the phone, on one charge, was approximately 3 hours and 40 minutes. Whatever you might think, that’s a pretty long time. Standby time is also pretty high, I went about 3 days on one full charge, talking for small periods of time and with a decent amount of usage of the apps and games. Hardware gets an 8 out of 10, Nokia please lets get real with the keypad! It’s the only thing holding this phone back from being more than excellent.
Another HUGE problem I have, and it isn’t so much with Nokia as it
is with almost EVERY mobile phone vendor! As our phones get more high tech
people forget that we like it when our contact numbers are stored on our
SIM cards!! It makes it easy for us to switch back and forth between phones!
Hello!!?? Is that too much to ask? There are TOO many phones that don’t
allow for you copying from your address book on the phone to the SIM card
memory. This is something that should be added, there may be a Symbian App
out there that allows for this, but unfortunately I never found one.
That’s only two cons so far: the keyboard layout, which you CAN get
used to, and the phones inability to transfer existing contacts from your
address book to your SIM card (it can however do the opposite). The third
con is really the size of the phone, it is a tad bigger than what you might
be used to. However the functionality, options and customizability of this
device definitely outweigh the few setbacks.
That being said, this is an excellent phone, no need to even get too involved
in it. Out of the box this phone is entirely functional, not much setup,
just pop the MMC into its slot as well as your SIM card and power on the
phone. The Nokia PC Suite needs to be downloaded from Nokia but
that isn’t too difficult. 8.5 out of 10! EXCELLENT MOBILE PHONE! What
are you waiting for!?
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