My GPS Camera Phone

See a complete photo gallery of the Nokia 6650 at the end of this post.

The Nokia 6650 GSM phone is loaded down with just about every feature you might need on a phone, and then some. This phone is supposed to be a crowd pleaser for the Symbian fans, but I’m not so sure that this goal was accomplished, at least with regard to usability.

After a few weeks with my hands on a 6650, I feel like the it is a square peg in a round hole. The features, aside from running the Symbian OS (3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2), include GPS navigation, a camera, radio, music player, web browsing, Bluetooth, Push-to-Talk (PTT), multi-tasking and much more. Unfortunately, all of this potential functionality is rendered useless due to an improbable design that the 6650 brings to the table.

The Nokia 6650 comes off as a desperate attempt to combine power and features into a sleek, brushed metal case that is reminiscent of my Kitchen Aid® coffee maker (or any stainless steel kitchen appliance). Blending in with my kitchen decor is about all the 6650 does well, aside from finding the nearest gas station.

Camera

Not much to be excited about here. The 2 mega-pixel camera does just about what you would expect it to do, which is take barely acceptable photos. Using the 4x digital zoom is a sure way to instantly ruin the quality of the picture, so I wonder why it’s there in the first place. Attempting to record video is not recommended, but if you do, take solace in the fact that you can record up to 60 minutes (depending on storage availability). Image resolutions for the phone run high at 1600×1200, but it doesn’t help the image quality that much. Major image size reductions improve the quality, but you shouldn’t have to resort to that.

GPS

I enjoyed playing around with the mobile GPS via AT&T Navigator. Most of the time, the directions were spot on and almost as if a local resident supplied it with the shortcuts around town. However, I did notice two occasions where the GPS locked up after losing the mobile signal and then re-entering the coverage area. A complete phone restart was required in order to get things back on track. Finding anything in town – I mean ANYTHING – is easy, however, due to the easy search and “what’s nearby” feature. Like I said before, I found a gas station with no problem, and I even found a few that I didn’t know existed. If you plan on using this feature a lot, I highly recommend getting a dashboard mount – you’ll thank me later.

Mobile web

In a nutshell, don’t bother browsing the web on the 6650. Slow data transfer, repeated stalls/failures and a clunky browser interface. It’s everything mobile browsing shouldn’t be.

Design

It’s unfortunate that such a promising phone would be undermined by such poorly thought out design. Given a few physical tweaks, this phone could be much better. Read on for some high(low?)lights.

The keypad: The smooth surface of the keypad makes dialing, navigating or anything else extremely difficult. I often found myself hitting the wrong key or multiple keys due to the lack of an obvious tactile indicator between keys. There were tiny bumps that I assumed would serve this purpose, but they failed to do so. Additionally, the GPS key is located directly below the main selector, which caused me to unintentionally activate the mobile GPS program at least 50% of the time. While the keypad looks slick, it is an obvious and unfortunate form-over-function design decision made to sell phones.

User interface: The UI is typical of a Nokia mobile phone but not incredibly intuitive. I found myself flipping through menu after menu just to find simple settings. Even when I did find them, it seemed like there was a multitude of sub-menus and extraneous clicking to accomplish a simple task. On the bright side, the AT&T Navigator interface was easy to understand and offers little resistance for even a novice user.

Touchscreen: The 6650 makes use of a tiny touchscreen on the front of the phone when it is in the closed position. It allows for quick access to things like the camera and music player without having to open the phone. This is a great idea, but I think it needs to be revisited. The screen is tiny and the sensitivity was unpredictable. To avoid any false input, you have to lock the phone, which seems to negate the purpose of the touchscreen to begin with. It’s a great concept with a flawed execution.

Phone body: The body itself is a solid design with nice lines and a modern, brushed metal finish accented with flat black trim. Unfortunately, this makes the phone look like a kitchen appliance. The smooth lines may look nice, but they pose a problem when trying to open the phone – it is a two-handed operation every time. The volume buttons were a bit too narrow and in an odd position, but it was something I got used to. The winner of worst button location goes to the PTT button, which was inadvertently pressed many times when opening the phone. Overall, the ideas are good (again), but it seems like there was no real-life testing associated with the final design decisions.

A sad ending

While I dislike bashing a phone completely, I have to say that I couldn’t find anything worth speaking positively about, aside from the GPS. In my opinion, this phone could have been so much more than the placation that it is. A little more effort and thought into usability would have put this phone into the first-tier, but short-sighted design choices completely eliminated that possibility. Additionally, if you’re going to cram so many great features into a phone, why tack on a measly 2 mega-pixel camera? Maybe Nokia will revisit this one in the near future and come up with something that properly showcases the technology rather than miring it in thoughtless and unoriginal design.

Its time for another round of new photos with a new phone. The Nokia team at WOM World hooked me up once again, this time with the GPS-enabled Nokia 6650. While it only sports a 2 mega-pixel camera, the quality of the shots are not too bad, at least when compared to the the Nokia 3555.

This shot was taken in the morning at my nature hangout on US441, Paynes Prairie. The exposure color is off a bit and it has quite a lot of noise, but again, not bad for a low-end camera. I would think, though, that a phone with so many features would have at least a 3 mega-pixel camera.

I’m also uploading photos and video clips at the Nokia Chronicles website for their 6650 promotion. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t appear to be fully operational, but keep checking back.

Man, I got so caught up in the iPhone/Blackberry hype yesterday that I forgot it was (Wordless) Wednesday. I’ll post next week, barring any mobile industry gossip worth sharing.

If anyone knows what the name of this butterfly is, please let me know in the comments. I found it outside in the yard on a cold morning, waiting for the day to warm up a little. The cold worked to my advantage because the butterfly, who was unable to fly, was a “willing” participant in the photo session.

Continuing from the touchscreen talk of late, Nokia has introduced their latest “iPhone killer” as described by a generous reader. The name had escaped me, but this reader – someone at Tube5800.com – sent me an e-mail providing the model number and then some (check their website for lots of info). The 5800 is a slick touchscreen, but only time will tell how it will fare in the highly competitive mobile market.

For more details on the Nokia 5800, check out the write-ups on WOM World or this other review from Gizmodo.

I am continually amazed at the quality of photos this Nokia 5610 can take. I think the best part is that with the macro ability and the lens focus, you can achieve a much better depth of field. The results are so much better than most photos from camera phones, which usually come out flat and lacking depth (which is what makes creating content for this site so hard!).

Happy Monday!

The Nokia 5610 is here and I am a happy camper. I don’t want to talk smack about my phone, but it pales in comparison when put against the Nokia 5610. I’ve had a busy week, but things slowed down enough to allow me some quality time with the new phone. So far, so good.

What I like the most about this camera phone is the capability of the camera. Weighing in at 3.2 mega-pixels, the 5610 packs a decent punch, capturing shots with reasonable quality and good exposure. It’s loaded with features (for a camera phone), including auto-focus, night mode, image sequence and a self-timer. My favorite feature, though, is its ability to shoot macro photos. See the results for yourself.

I was skeptical when I read about it and even still while previewing the photos on the phone. I was floored when they hit the computer. Seeing such detail come out of a camera phone leaves me speechless and wanting to shoot more. Personally, I like getting close to subjects and I feel disappointed when the hardware doesn’t let me do it. The Nokia 5610 doesn’t disappoint in this respect and I can’t wait to try some more photographic experimenting.

The big down side I see so far is the lack of attention to the image quality. While you could shoot images fit to size for a desktop background, you wouldn’t want to. The images at 100% reveal a chink in the armor: granulation and compression artifacts all over the place like rust eats away at a piece of steel (see below). The plus side is that the lack of quality at full-size can be compensated for by reducing the image size (as seen above), but that negates the point of having a 3.2 mega-pixel camera in the first place. With that said, I concede the fact that this is a camera phone we’re talking about, not a Nikon D300.

I’m looking forward to a lot of shooting before this thing makes it’s long journey back to England. Thanks to everyone at WOM World once again for this opportunity.

It’s time for camera phone reviews again and this time it’s the yet-to-be-released Nokia 5610 XpressMusic. Thanks to the crew over at WOM World, I’ll be receiving a shiny new 5610 this week. As I did with the 5310 XpressMusic, I’ll put myself out there as the guinea pig and suffer through hours of painstaking photography and endure hours of listening to mp3s. As an added bonus, I’ll actually do an un-boxing for you this time around, because it’s always fun to open presents with your friends.

Sporting a 3.2 mega-pixel camera, this phone is poised to take My GPS Camera Phone to a new level. Features include:

• 8 x smooth zoom
• LED flash
• Macroshot, landscape mode, sequential shots
• Dedicated 2-step capture key (not sure what this is)

I’m really looking forward to seeing what this camera phone can do with macros. The sequential shot feature also sounds fun, but I’m not getting my hopes up just yet.

In addition to a sweet camera, this GSM slider also sports an mp3 player, FM radio, high-resolution display, 8GB MicroSD expansion slot (packaged with a 2GB card) and many other features you would expect from a mid-level phone.

I’ll post more when the phone arrives sometime this week. Could the un-boxing be in video format? Maybe, just maybe.

My time with the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic is winding down and I anticipate an e-mail from the folks at WOM World any day now regarding the return of the phone. Since I’ve had the phone, I’ve put it through a rigorous test to see if it can come anywhere near my photo quality standards. Since pictures speak louder than words, I’ve pulled together a few representative photos from the Nokia 5310 and my Casio G’zOne Type-V as a control so you can see the difference in image quality for yourself.

The four images below are untouched (except for re-sizing) and directly out of the camera using default settings. I’ve attempted to shoot objects that cover four areas: bright, medium and low light, and contrasting colors. All images are shot in 1200×1600 resolution. Let’s start with the first image.

Bright light/color tones:

As previously experienced, the Casio tends to overexpose, possibly mistaking the actual light conditions with a dark object in the image. In this case, the trees at the bottom might be confusing the light meter. The Nokia 5310, however, seems to read the light level accurately and manages to capture the subtle details in the clouds without exposure problems.

The winner: Nokia 5310.

Medium light/color tones:

The office building I work in is painted this horrific color all over. Any time I’ve tried to include it in a camera phone photo, I’ve had problems where the center is a different color than the rest of the wall. This can easily be seen on the left in the sample image from the Casio. The right side depicts the photo from the Nokia 5310, which is incredibly crisp and evenly colored. The red, white and black pop against the earth-tone background and there’s no deterioration or bleeding of color, unlike the Casio image which is washed out and just blah.

The winner: Nokia 5310.

Low light/color tones:

In this case, the two exposures come out pretty close, with no major differences. The driveway lettering in the contrasting off-white appears similarly in both images, however, with a bit of that color issue coming through in the Casio image. In spite of that, I’m going to leave it up to personal preference. For a true “dark” image, see the post on shooting fireworks at night with a camera phone.

The winner: Tie

Contrasting colors:

Although this isn’t the best image, it reinforces the point about the Casio and earth tones. The Casio captured the image somewhat nicely, but still overexposed the concrete, resulting in missing details and washed-out green grass. The Nokia was able to precisely measure the contrast and compensate accordingly, resulting in a nice deep green alongside the grayish concrete, complete with the little details clearly visible in the grass and the concrete.

The winner: Nokia 5310.

Surprisingly, the Nokia 5310 comes out on top. I fully expected a phone that was so dedicated to music to be inferior in the photo department, but I was wrong. You can rock out and still take decent pictures, which raises the appeal of this phone significantly.

One interesting thing about the Nokia 5310 camera settings is that it saves a 1200×1600 image as a 4″ x 5.33″ file at 300dpi, which is the recommended resolution for printing. Most others usually default to a 16.67″ x 22.22″ file at 72dpi. (Thanks, Dan!)

Overall, the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic is a solid choice for a camera phone, providing quality images in variable light conditions. The added benefit of the removable microSD card (up to 4GB) and a simple USB connection makes high resolution photography a breeze, with no worries about available storage or file transfers.

So, get your groove on and shoot some great photos with the Nokia 5310. You won’t be disappointed.

Disclaimer: No compensation was received for this review nor is there any affiliation between T-Mobile/Nokia or Verizon/Casio and this web site. All reviews and statements herein are based on a trial/regular usage and personal experience.