A Few Weeks With Nokia 6682
I received the Nokia 6682 as part of a marketing programme. It’s a smartphone with a whole lot of quality features and it doesn’t forget that its primary function is a phone.
As a phone
The Nokia 6682 does everything a phone should do. The phone ring and the speaker are loud enough that you don’t need to listen intently. The keys are small, but there is an angle to them so it’s easy to type something without mistyping.
The volume of the phone is incredible. I was at the Under Pressure event not so long ago and I was about 10 meters away from the big loud speakers when somebody called me. While talking and listening, it occurred to me that the sound was crystal clear even with the loud noise around me.
As a music player
The loudspeaker is great. It’s even better than the MacBook’s speakers. I am not so crazy about the earphones. They are so big and ugly.
The music files are sorted by artists and albums. You can also display all songs. There is also something called Recently added which sorts the songs by date added. Searching for songs is possible simply by typing anything.
The back/next and volume up/down buttons are very badly located. Back/next should be left and right and volume up/down should be… well, up and down. The Nokia 6682 puts it all the other way around. It’s not very intuitive.
As a digital camera
The Nokia 6682 has a 1.3 megapixels camera which can capture photos that are 1280 by 980 pixels in size. As with any digital camera whether they cost 100$ or 1000$, the digital zoom feature is useless. I still wonder why every company keeps putting that as a feature if nobody is going to do anything to improve it. The photos are good enough to recognize the main subject of a picture. Here is one of the first photos I ever took with this smartphone.
As a video camera
The maximum resolution is 176×144 which is very small. I don’t know what the frame rate is, but it must be very low. The videos are not so good. They really are just to send quick clips over MMS or email.
As a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)
Contacts, calendar, messaging, to-do list, calculator, recorder, notes and bluetooth connectivity; this smartphone has it all. It’s only missing wifi capability.
Contacts
Many details can be added to a contact like different type of phone numbers and addresses. Searching is possible and very easy.Calendar
The calendar has the three traditionnal views: daily, monthly and weekly. The monthly calendar even has tooltips that appear on days that have events.Messaging
There are three types of messages: text messages (SMS), multimedia messages (MMS) and e-mail. I haven’t sent any messages yet, but I have received text messages and the font is clear enough to read at an adequate distance. It’s good to be able to switch from one message to another just with the arrows.To-do list
The list is pretty basic. Checkboxes, dates and titles is pretty much all that is needed. One thing I don’t like to having to access the menu in order to check or uncheck an entry.Calculator
The calculator is pretty basic. I haven’t seen a mobile phone or a PDA without one. The one on the Nokia 6682 has a very nice interface. Calculations are displayed on an area shaped like a sheet of paper and there are buttons on the screen that look like those on most calculators. You can scroll up and down to see all the calculations so far.Recorder
I haven’t really used the Recorder yet, except to check it out. I intend to turn it on in a classroom or with the phone in my hand while talking to someone. The timer always displays 1 minutes, so that is pretty short. I don’t know if it is extendable.Notes
I don’t use it, but it looks pretty simple to me. Add a note and type.Converter
Converter is a tool to make conversions. It can convert power, pressure, temperature, time, velocity and volume. A high school kid would love this smartphone.Bluetooth connectivity
The Nokia 6682 has detected everything I wanted it to detect. That only includes my PDA and my computer. I use bluetooth to sync my contacts, to-do list and calendar. It works great. So far, no syncing mistakes have been made.
One of the things I really like is the Edit button. When managing files, music or lists, I can just press the edit button and hold it on an item and use the arrow to select several of them at once. A checkmark is displayed next to the selected items. All of this allows to manage many things at once.
I also very much like the light sensor. It works like a charm. The light and backlight change intensity depending on the ambient light. The display is never too bright or too dark wherever the phone is, but it doesn’t light up when the phone is locked. That brings me to something I don’t like: locking is not automatic.
The Nokia 6682 syncs easily with Mac. I don’t know about Windows because I haven’t tried, but it seems that there are drivers to install and all kinds of other crap. The other reason why I haven’t tried is because since I bought my MacBook, I find that Windows doesn’t have any calendar and contacts software that deserves any recognition. Windows doesn’t even have those agenda-like features out of the box.
Even though I received this phone for free as part of a marketing programme, I think I would have been very satisfied if I spent money for it.
