Nokia 7650

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Nokia 7650

Photo taken by a Nokia 7650.

The Nokia 7650 is a smartphone belonging to the fashion and experimental (7xxx) series. The phone was released on the second quarter of 2002 for around €600. It was notable for a number of firsts: first Nokia smartphone with the Symbian OS (version 6.1); first Series 60 platform device; first Nokia with built-in camera. The handset's release was promoted in conjunction with the film Minority Report.

The Nokia 7650 has a 32-bit RISC CPU, based on ARM-9 series, a 104 Mhz CPU clock, 4 MB of non-expandable main memory (RAM) (3.6 MB available to the user) and 16 MB ROM. As the phone was released in the GSM 900/1800 dual band version only, it was not released in the U.S. market (where the only available bands are the GSM 850 band and the GSM 1900 band).

[edit] Technical data

[edit] Other features

• E-mail and MMS client
• Organizer and SyncML
• HSCSD and GPRS
• Java and EPOC application support

[edit] Mini-review

• The 7650 is a little taller, wider and deeper than many other contemporary mobiles, but when you consider what this phone is packing, it's understandable. Features like Bluetooth, GPRS, MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), and, best of all, the built-in camera, mean that this phone is set to be a hit.

The first thing you'll notice, is the apparent lack of a numeric keypad - don't be fooled into thinking that the device is touchscreen-driven - there is a slide-out keypad, that also doubles as a lens protector for the camera (of which, more later…). With the keypad retracted, the height is around 115mm, and when expanded, 160mm.

The phone is a comfy hold, although the camera lens isn't inset in any way, which tends to result in a little fingerprint smearing when the case is opened. The numeric keypad is quite responsive, but much of the device navigation is not done using the keypad, it's with the small black joystick below the screen. The joystick allows four-way navigation, with a press-in to select. There are two hardware buttons immediately below the screen, and their function changes depending on which application you're using. There's also a dedicated Menu, voice-record and On/off button (which also allows selection of a new profile if pressed for a short time). On the numeric keypad, there's also an 'ABC' button, that allows selection of T9 text recognition and some other general text options, such as Insert word and Insert symbol.

Software-wise, the device has SMS, Email and Wap built-in (No web browser, but the Opera browser for 7650 is available for download), and supports the new Multimedia Messaging format MMS. Standard PIM Contacts, To-do and Calendar are all there, as are a couple of fairly basic games (with a few extra ones on the supplied CD).

The killer app for this phone, is, of course, the camera. With a fairly empty memory, the 7650 can hold around 60 high-resolution 640x480 images. There's the option to switch image quality between High, Normal and Basic, to allow you to squeeze more photos into memory, and there's a fairly basic 'night mode' that can help with low-light image taking. When in camera mode, the screen becomes your view finder, and pressing the joystick in, takes the picture, and plays a 'click' effect at you, to confirm that the snap has been taken. Oddly, the 'click' happens slightly ahead of the actual photo being taken, which can ruin the snap if the photo subject moves during the half-second delay. Once taken, the snap can be saved to the Images application (for viewing and zooming), or sent on to your mates via Bluetooth, infrared, email or MMS. Photo quality itself isn't actually that great, but it's certainly good enough to be useful when out on the town for the night, or snapping pictures of family and friends to add to your Contacts address book In general, the phone is very responsive, feature-packed and surprisingly powerful.

[edit] Problems

Due the lack of a memory card feature and the relatively low amount of memory storage, memory storage will become a problem if the phone is not regulary maintained to keep its memory in low amount.

Also since its system memory and storage memory is shared, some applications might not run if there's not enough memory.

The shared memory might also make the phone's operating system to continously crash if its memory storage is almost full. Sometimes the only option is to restore the phone back into its default configuration, which lead to a deletion of all non-default memory.

[edit] External links

• Official product page