The Nokia 6630


I finally upgraded from my old Nokia 3650 to its natural successor, the Nokia 6630.

When the Nokia 3650 was released it had it all, Java, GPRS, Bluetooth, Camera, Memory Card, and could be used around the world. The Nokia 6630 is a smaller, lighter, faster, upgraded version of the same thing. It not only has Java, but it has the newest specification, MIDP 2.0 with CLDC 1.1. In addition to GPRS it has EDGE and W-CDMA support. It's bluetooth support is generally the same, however, it is not yet supported by iSync on the Mac. The camera is 1.3MP (1280x960) which is higher resolution but it is also a higher quality lens. Here are some side-by-side photos of taken from the two phones:

36506630
Nokia 3650 Nokia 6630

This is probably the most amazing feature of the phone since I take a lot of photos and now they are much better quality when all I have with me is my phone. The memory card that is included with the device is a 64M card. The only problem with it is that it only takes 1.8V RS-MMC (Reduced Size Multimedia Card). Most of the RS-MMCs on the market are 3.0V and you need to find what's generally known as DV (dual-voltage) media that is in short supply right now. Nokia claims that 3rd parties will have larger versions of it by March. Since you can't even buy this phone in the US yet (I got mine from an importer who bought it from someone in Italy), I don't think that is going to be a problem. Here is a size comparison between various devices to give you an idea of how big the 6630 is:

Phone Size Comparison
3650, Blackberry, Old Nokia, 6630, Old Nokia, RAZR, Business Card

It's enough smaller than the 3650 to satisfy me, however, phones like the RAZR are really quite small. The RAZR has a similar set of features, but they are all just worse than the 6630 except for size.

I have used the 3650 to browse the web but it only really supports WAP. The 6630 browser supports normal HTML and Javascript so most sites work, though they are hard to read and download too much stuff. The browser latency with EDGE is also significantly reduced over regular GPRS connections so browsing with the phone is a much better experience.

The email application is an upgraded version of the 3650 application. The notable enhancement is that it now properly supports IMAP over SSL so I can read mail from my own email server without a problem.

Since the phone came from an cellular carrier in Italy it was all setup to be used there. This is annoying but I found the best resource for configuring unlocked Nokia phones for GPRS and MMS. You tell it where you are located, what network you are on, and your phone number and it sends you a provisioning SMS message that you just have to open and accept to configure your phone for use on the network. The girl at the Cingular store didn't know anything about this and gave me a complicated, unhelpful document for guesswork configuration.

Posted: Thu - January 6, 2005 at 03:03 PM           |

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