Long Term Notes: Nokia 6650 Fold

After having used my free phone for a few more months, I thought I'd jot down a few more details on its state of being and what has and hasn't worked out.

The best thing about the newer smart phones is that once the manufacturer gets the hardware and software stable, a lot of the best things about your phone come from new and exciting ways to utilize its features through new software.  This has largely been the case with my 6650 Fold, so the majority of my discussion will be about the trials of various software solutions to my problems, some of which I never knew I had.

The only real complaints I've had about this phone have been about the button layout, which I discussed in my ealier post, and apparently haven't bothered doing anything more about since then.  I did purchase a USB cable, but haven't yet felt the need to actually attempt to make the changes so that I'm not always tapping the key to open the AT&T Navigator.  Maybe later...

One thing that has changed since I first wrote about my 6650 Fold, was the addition of an internet data plan.  This has allowed me to augment many of my favorite text-only services with new features.

The biggest shortcoming I've found with this phone is that it lacks a comfortable amount of RAM. There is a great web browser for S60 and WM phones called Skyfire, which I could only run after rebooting the phone or it would protest that there was not enough memory available.  SInce installing another helper application, I can't even run it after a reboot, but it was fun to use while I could.  If you have a data plan, and an S60 or Windows Mobile device, compare Skyfire to your packaged browser.  I'm willing to bet Skyfire will take you places you never thought possible from your phone.

Similar to Skyfire's problems with running short of memory, the same can be done with my built-in browser from time to time, so my browser of choice for this phone is Opera Mini. I use the full screen interface, almost exclusively, and it hardly ever malfunctions.  The Opera Link feature allows me to manage bookmarks and notes from my desktop, then synchronize with the browser on the phone later.  I only wish I could use it as my default browser.  Unfortunately, I have not found any way to do this yet.

Google has a full suite of applications for S60.  The ones I use are Search (accessible by pressing the C key from the idle screen, and now featuring voice recognition), Maps with Lattitude, Sync (SyncML or Exchange ActiveSync), and YouTube.  From Opera, I use Google Voice, Calendar, Reader, and iGoogle.

I would like to make special note of the Google Sync features for a couple of reasons.  The first is that being able to access your contacts and calendar features from your phone AND anywhere you can access the internet, is very, very handy.  The second? Something strange was happening when I was synchronizing both contact and calendar information that was causing the birthdays of my contacts to drift, making them all a few days younger!  Disabling the calendar sync has not helped, so I'm going back to the SyncML method.  Google? FIX IT!

The music application works well, and can be accessed with the phone either opened or closed, and there are many playback options to configure to your taste.  There isn't any 3.5mm headphone jack, so you're options are limited to using the somewhat proprietary 2.5mm headset jack or Bluetooth.  I'm using bluetooth, and it works great.  This phone does not appear to have any limitation as to what sort of audio is being listened to in order to pump audio through the bluetooth connection. One of my previous phones required a headset that supported A2DP in order to play back .wav or .mp3 files, or it would play throught the phone's speaker.  Nokia does not have that limitation.

One of the features not included with this phone is picture GeoTagging, but it can be added by installing Nokia's Location Tagger software.  This is built into many of their phones, but is not included with the 6650 fold, probably due to RAM constraints again. It loads up when you start the phone, grabs your location with the GPS, goes to sleep, then wakes up the GPS when you launch the camera application.  Any pictures taken after the GPS has reaquired your location are geotagged.

In closing, I have to say again that while there are a lot of limitations to what this phone comes with, there is plenty it can do if you know where to look, and while there are many signs saying Symbian might not have much longer to live in this world, the fact is that it allows for plenty of added functionality for a very cheap (and fairly durable) flip-phone. Thank you, Nokia 6650 Fold, for being a great temporary measure.

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So I guess I've been busy

What have I been doing, that would keep me from my most favoritest of blogs?  A few things.

Allison and I started dieting the South Beach way, and have each been losing weight in a steady fashion.  Along those lines, I've been using my new phone to keep track of the miles I have been walking or riding on my bike.  Nokia Sports Tracker is my weapon of choice.  I can use downloaded maps from Ovi Maps, or grab them from an active internet connection and see where I've been.  After the workout, I can check my stats and compare them to other workouts on the phone, or upload them to the website and do the same thing.  You have a number of privacy options for the workouts you upload, so you can share with your friends, or everybody, or nobody.  The other nice thing it does after uploading your trip is it offers to scan your phone for any pictures or video you may have taken during that time.  It then places those pictures on the map of your route, similar to geo-tagging.  I love this phone.

We sold my car, Ellie, which had served us for many years.  While it made me sad to see her go, the money we are saving on insurance has gone to adding Internet service to our phones, which is kinda nice.  Since we already have unlimited family messaging, and neither one of us has a "smart phone" it only costs us an extra $10 per phone, per month.  I've been taking advantage of the weather and biking to and from the vanpool most days.  Good times!

We took a trip to Ohio to see Allison's friends and family for the part of July.  We had LOTS of fun, and of course it was with faces full of tears that we left to come back home.  We flew out of Portland, so we spent a little bit of time with my family before and after the trip.  We did lots of hiking and exploring and generally had a great time.

I have graduated to keeping the books for the Vanpool.  I actually have a legitimate use for Remember The Milk besides just for my own personal purposes.  I set up monthly reminders for processing the vanpool log, collecting fees from the riders, and sending the reports to Intercity Transit.  I can access the reminders and check them off from anywhere.

I think you are up to date for now.  I'll be writing more about my experience with my phone later.

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A new toy in my pocket

I got a new phone. Not one of the ones I've been aspiring to reacquire from Sony Ericsson, but an upgrade nonetheless. I was going to hold out and just purchase an SE model this summer, but was tired of being frustrated by the Samsung Blackjack I had been using. The Blackjack has lots of features, but is overall very unsatisfying.

My new phone is a Nokia 6650 Fold (not anywhere close to the original 6650), from AT&T Wireless, which is different yet than the regular 6650 Fold you might find from other networks or independent dealers. AT&T wanted to make it a little different, to show off their navigation software and PTT features on this phone, so it has a few more buttons to mess with.

Part of my agenda with this phone is to undo some of the crap AT&T has done to make it "theirs," and make it a little more my own. Symbian is a new beast to me, so I'll be learning for a long time to come, but I am already enjoying some of the benefits of this phone.

Bluetooth: I can conclusively say that bluetooth reception and transmission on the Blackjack sucks. I went back to trying out my Sony Ericsson over-the-ear headset for this phone, because it is the best sounding, least intrusive, and most comfortable headset I have. This headset had a problem with the microphone not always working with the Blackjack, and I still need to test this out. The other problem I saw with this headset was in being able to keep it connected to the phone. This is no longer a problem with the 6650 (hooray!!). The NEW feature with the Nokia is that it pings the headset when a message is received, so I can set the phone to complete silence and tell from the headset when something has happened.

Flexibility: The phone's menu system can be presented in a number of ways, and I still haven't decided what I like more. The addition of touch sensitive buttons for the external display allows for some nice features. I can scan text messages without opening it up, and have access to the calendar, stopwatch, timer, camera, and music player!

The funny thing I see with this phone is that it is running what is normally recognized as a smart phone operating system, but because it isn't from Microsoft or Apple, and only has a numeric keypad, it has been given access to the cheaper data plan from AT&T. I love that.

What I'll be doing next is adding some applications to use the GPS built into it. The phone comes with the AT&T Navigator software built in, but that costs money for the service and data (separately). There is navigation software available that can be used with map data stored on the memory card, which is preferable right now, as I only want to be able to see how far I'm walking at lunch, or whenever else. I would also like to see if it has any geotagging options.

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