Product Review: Nokia 6650

Participating in the Nokia Chronicles has been a fun and eye-opening exercise. I was selected along with 19 other bloggers across the country to participate.

The lovely folks at Nokia sent me a shiny, new Nokia 6650 to use for a couple of weeks and to record day-in-the-life pictures to their Web site.

The Phone:

Comparing the Nokia 6650 to my Motorola Razr, I found the Nokia to be smaller and more compact than my Razr. It's brushed aluminum exterior looks and feels nice (because, yes, the feel of my cell phone is important — I've had a skull-adorned cover on my Razr for two years even though it's broken and falls off just because I like how it feels).

Even though it's smaller than my Razr the screen is big and easy to read. The buttons are easy to use even for a clumsy-handed person such as myself.


The Features:

This phone is fat-packed with nifty features that are lacking on my Razr.

It has an easy-to-use music player (why carry a cell phone and an iPod when you can have it all in one handy device). AND it has a turn-by-turn GPS that will tell you where to turn when you're trying to find a good restaurant or a bathroom fast!

Those two things alone make this more than just a phone.

But as Ron Popeil would say, that's not all.

It also has G3 Web surfing ... people, this is awesome.

I'm just a regular, old cell phone user. I call people with my cell phone (I know, I'm so archaic) and I do some texting. That's pretty much it.

But man, was it nice to have Web access. I could check my e-mail and Facebook pages quickly and easily.

I really like that feature.



(Oh and when you have the phone flipped open, the lights on the keypad change colors which is an added coolness factor that I enjoyed ... oh, look bright lights ... shiny things.)

Overall, I found the phone easy to use and loaded with features.

The Nokia Chronicles (I'm in Chapter 2) and the Camera Phone:

When I was asked to participate in this project, I was told we'd be able to upload text and movies from the phone. Unfortunately, only the photos were used on the site.

I was asked to record photos that inspire me in my daily life. It was very interesting to start thinking about what inspired me on a day-to-day basis. But I found that I ended up with pictures of my kid, my kitten and myself ... and I'm sure as hell not inspired by myself — but really I was inspired by the assignment and the camera phone itself.

I did a series of self-portraits because I thought it was funny. I had them all wittily titled: Self-Portrait with Kitten and Self-Portrait of Myself Sleeping (which is hilarious in my own anxiety-addled brain).

That one is Self-Portrait with Kitten and Sleeping. Notice my green pallor, that is from the 6650's flash.

When I first found that the camera had a flash, I was excited. I never use the camera on my Razr simply because unless you have full sun, the pictures are dark and grainy.

Unfortunately, the flash on the 6650 is way too harsh ... that is unless you like your skin being seafoam in color (which I kinda do).

I also found that the flash did weird things to people's eyes in low light. Look at this picture of my daughter and son:

Those white shiny eyes make them look like robots — nicely smiling robots standing in front of our Christmas tree. It's just too weird.

Below is a picture taken in the bathroom of a club (What? You don't take pictures of your bandmates in bathrooms before shows?). I had turned the flash off and while the image is definitely grainy, I like this one simply because you can see me in the mirror taking the picture with my mouth open (spewing pearls of wisdom, no doubt).
Having said that, the 6650 takes really nice, full-sun, outdoor pictures. Look at this one I snapped while we were riding the hayride when we cut down our Christmas tree. We were moving and still the picture is crystal clear.
And then there's this picture of the 3rd grade from my daughter's school singing Christmas songs at the local Barnes & Nobel as a fundraiser for children in the hospital. It was a well-lit indoor shot without the flash and came out quite nice (my kid is there in the second row ... right there, the one with the head).

Overall, the camera phone is easy and quick and takes nice pictures in full light. But avoid situations that require the flash unless you like horror films and green skin.

So, again, thanks to Nokia for asking me to participate. I'm always game for telling people what I think.