Lena’s Nokia 6500 mobile phone was giving her trouble since day one when she bought it. It would hang while being used and the ringing tone would automatically revert back to the default Nokia tone. She finally call it quits and decided to change her phone. Going to her favourite mobile phone shop in SS2 Petaling Jaya, the Atlantis Communication shop, she was having a tough time trying to figure out which mobile phone to go for. She was also considering Sony Ericson range of hand phones as well. Thinking of style and functionality at the same time makes the selection pretty tough.

At first she looked at the Nokia N series but didn’t like the bulkiness, while Sony Ericson range were nice but without the slide feature which she took quite a fancy. So I suggested looking into the Nokia E series which my friend Eric used to owned. The boss, Christopher and his wife Jessica were pretty accommodating though they were also busy serving other customers. Since they know us pretty well and we had bought many phones from them, they showed many models to Lena. When I suggested the E series they brought out the Nokia E66 and it caught both Lena and my eyes. It was really sleek looking and felt very good when held. However Lena worried that she might not like the Symbian S60 v3 operating system. She was familiar with the Nokia and Sony Ericson O/S platform but was not too sure whether she would like the Symbian S60 platform. Though I had used it before, I could say that it was pretty alright. It was more like a cross between a normal phone and full fledge PDA phone. It has the ability to be as sophisticated as a PDA and yet there was a certain lack to it that didn’t quite make it as useful as a PDA phone. And another is the software availability is not as extensive as that of Palm or Windows Mobile system. Still the Symbian S60 was a good operating system to rely on.

Having finally decided to go for Nokia E66, Lena wanted to trade her old Nokia 6500. Unfortunately our recent trip to Perth has caused moisture build up within the LCD screen, and Atlantis insisted that it should be repaired before they accepted a trade in. The reason was that it would be difficult for them to sell it off if as potential customer would be weary of purchasing a mobile device that would breakdown on them anytime. Though the trade in price for Nokia 6500 was about RM400, after deducting the repair cost the trade in value came to RM250, so it was not worth trading in and Lena decided to pass the old phone to her brother Victor who wanted a second phone.

Bringing back the Nokia E66, I gave it a quick spin. The slide was really smooth, able to slide in and out without any squeak. Only time will tell whether it will last. The Nokia 6500 started squeaking after using it for about 9 months, so let’s hope this E66 will last longer.

Display

Not only the LCD display was bright, it was really crisp and crystal clear. When I compare it side by side with her previous Nokia 6500, though that display sharp and clear too, but it could not match with the Nokia E66.

The home screen was really useful and we place various shortcuts for quick access to those functions and application that would be used regularly. In addition it could function like those PDA phone and display appointments, to do list, incoming missed calls and how many text messages in your inbox pending to be read. You could control what information to be display so as to control the required information that you want display and also to avoid clutter on the display screen.

Features

The Nokia E66 has some interesting features; the screen would change from portrait to landscape when you tilt the phone accordingly. The tilting function was rather sensitive so if you were to tilt it at an angle the screen would rotate so if that wasn’t to your liking just switch off this function.

While in a meeting or having a conversation and suddenly your phone rings and you didn’t want to let the ringing rattle on you could instant silence it by tapping or turning the phone face down and let the phone ring on. Interesting feature though it would be much better if you just change the profile to silent mode if you were in a business discussion, but of course you might have forgotten to change the profile and this feature might come in handy. But I guess this would be a seldom used feature and that of course depends whether you can remember you have this feature and use it in the first place!

Connection

The Nokia E66 comes with 3G/GPRS and WIFI capability and I was able to connect to the internet using either reception. Though it would save a lot if switched to WIFI mode. The E66 also has GPS and I could pinpoint my location by using it together with Google map. However, if a location does not have free WIFI, it would cost a bundle to download the map data using 3G/GPRS. It also has the ability to guide you from one place to another, but sadly that service requires a paid subscription. Oh well, we can manage quite well without this anyway.

Software

Good thing about Symbian S60 v3.0 is that you could install software to enhance the Nokia E66 features. There were a number of free software provided by Nokia and I could download and install them. Another software that was not available on normal phones was the installation of Olive Tree Bible Reader Software. Normally they only have the Palm and Windows Mobile version, however, now they also have the Symbian Bible reader version which I could download for free. Since I have purchased my NKJV and NIV Holy Bible previously I could reuse those Bibles and installed them into the Nokia E66. With a 2GB MicroSD card provided I could easily install many versions of the Holy Bibles. After all at slightly more than 1MB each, the bibles didn’t take up that much space. Some people were surprised that I placed as many as 10 different versions of the Bible, though Lena and I would seldom to refer to the other versions but the NIV and NKJV versions. The extras were more like for fun than for serious reference.

While installing software, I wasn’t sure what I did and somehow one of the software didn’t install properly and it kept trying to install itself and fail every time the mobile phone was switch on. I tried to eliminate this irritating procedure but could not isolate the installer that was causing this problem. I learned from Lena that her colleague who also owned the same model also had this problem and he too didn’t know what program he installed that caused the bugging thing to come out every time he switched on his phone. Just have to live with it as the only way I could think of to kill this bug was to do a full device format and I wasn’t too keen to do it as it involves major re-installation and updating of data.

Digital Camera

The 3.2 Mega Pixels digital camera that came with it was simply superb. Seldom camera phones has that kind of crispness to it. And the color tone and contrast was just great. Perhaps the phone was still new and the lens was clean. I guess after carrying the mobile phone for a while all the grit and grime would eventually sully the lens and all you get are fuzzy photos. While the phone is new, the pictures that was taken was sharp and detailed. Here’s a sample mobile photo below.

Overall Conclusion

Overall, Lena was really pleased with the Nokia E66, and many of her colleagues who saw the phone also fell in love with it and wanted to change their phone to this one too. It was easy to use, and there was no problem for Lena to adapt to using Symbian S60 platform. The size was right and the screen display bright, clear and crisp and functioned as well as was expected. I get to have a little more peace and quiet from her whining about the Nokia 6500 hanging and not functioning properly. Cheers!