Review: Nokia 6600 Fold

Nokia 6600 Fold Review

Phone rating:

In a nutshell: The Nokia 6600 Fold is a very attractive clamshell phone. With an invisible outer display that lights up when you tap it, and an electromagnetic opening mechanism that opens the fold automatically, it's definitely not a run of the mill phone, but is a little but special. You'll find that it includes the full range of features that you'd expect: a 2 megapixel camera, 3G video calling, a stereo music player, an FM radio, Bluetooth and support for memory cards up to 4GB.
Best buy: *Free* from Three.

The Nokia 6600 Fold is a mid-range 3G clamshell phone that fell into Nokia's "Cool & Funky" department on the way to the production line. As a result, it got the full Cool & Funky treatment, and you should buy it if you like to be surprised by your mobile. For starters, the outer display is invisible and comes to life when you tap it twice. It then lights up to show the time, and display messages and missed calls. You can also tap the display to reject calls. That's cool. Now press a special key, and the phone swings open gracefully, like one of those new kitchen drawers from Magnet. That's the funky bit.

The phone's very compact, although it's quite heavy, weighing in at 110g (what on earth do Nokia put in their clamshells to make them so heavy? Certainly not a powerful battery, as this one is just average.) Open it up (love pressing that button!) and the phone reveals a surprisingly normal and usable keypad and a compact, but very well defined LCD display. We were kind of expecting a jack in the box to leap out at us, or something equally wacky. But there's nothing wacky, just a very high quality OLED display with 16 million colours and 240 x 320 pixels. Stunning. When opened, the phone fits snugly in the palm of your hand, and feels just right. The weight and metallic finish lend a feeling of quality, and the keypad and balance are just right for texting.

The 6600 Fold has the full range of features that you'd expect from a mid-range 3G phone. The camera is rated at 2 megapixels, and has a double LED flash. It's lacking autofocus, which is a shame, but can take some decent photos in reasonable lighting conditions. It can also record video at VGA resolution (0.3 megapixels) and 15 frames per second. It's an average quality camera for this price range. The phone can also make video calls using a secondary camera on the inside of the clam.

The 6600 Fold is great for music, with a stereo digital music player that can play not just MP3 tracks, but also WMA, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+. A stereo FM radio is also built into the phone. There's no 3.5mm headphone jack, so you can't plug in your own headphones, but the 2.5mm headphone jack will accept Nokia headphones, and a Nokia Stereo Headset WH-501 is included in the sales package. If you prefer, you can use a wireless Bluetooth stereo headset instead. The built-in memory of 15 Mbytes won't get you very far at all, but you can fit around 100 - 150 songs on the 512 MB microSD memory card included, or you can expand the storage to a 4GB card, which will be enough for 1,000 songs or more.

Connectivity is good, with support for Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) and a micro USB connection too. You can send messages via SMS or MMS, as well as email or the Audio messaging service for sending voice clips over-the-air. The 6600 Fold has a web browser (Opera Mini browser) and also has the Nokia Mini Map browser with the Nokia Maps application, although it doesn't support GPS. Battery life seems about average.

The 6600 Fold is exclusive to Three, and you won't see that many around on the streets. If you're looking for something attractive in this price range, with a broad range of functionality, and some exclusivity too, then we think that you'll like the 6600 Fold. We certainly do!

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Features of the Nokia 6600 Fold include:

• 2 megapixel camera with double LED flash and 8x digital zoom
• Video camera (VGA, 15 fps / QVGA, 30 fps) with 4x digital zoom
• 3G video calling (VGA resolution)
• Display: OLED, 16.7 million colours, 320 x 240 pixels (2.1 inches)
• Music player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, and WMA formats)
• FM radio
• 64-voice polyphonic ringtones
• Voice commands and recording
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Audio messaging service, email
• Themes with wallpapers and screensavers
• Java 2.0 games & applications
• Internet: WAP 2.0, GPRS, EDGE, 3G
• xHTML web browser (Opera Mini browser), Nokia Mini Map browser, Adobe Flash Lite 3.0
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, micro USB 2.0, 2.5mm headset socket
• Memory: 15 Mbytes plus microSD memory card slot (expandable to 4 Gbytes)
• Quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) plus dual band 3G (WCDMA 850/2100)
• Size: 88 x 44 x 16 mm
• Weight: 110g
• Talktime: 4 hours
• Battery standby: 300 hours

Nokia 6600 Fold Consumer Reviews

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Average rating from 8 reviews:

Reviewed by jess and leah from united kingdom on 7th Oct 2008
This is a good phone!!! The flip is cool but the screen is too dark! I would recommend this to people that dont use a phone very much!
Rating:

Reviewed by Ed .W from UK on 1st Oct 2008
It's a natty, compact design and the double tapping revealing a clock on the shell [or message symbol, if one has arrived]is a plus point if, say, away from home in a hotel overnight. Otherwise it breaks no real extra ground over the 6500 slide and mine has hung once during an incoming call. The screen colours seem a bit gaudy, with only a 2MP camera being a bit of a disappointment these days. Living in a slightly dodgy signal area I'm not convinced the antenna really does the job either. I'm seemingly losing signal where I previously didn't on other Nokias or Sonys. As a very compact-in-the-pocket conversation piece go for it, but otherwise there are many more useful phones.
Rating:

Reviewed by Rudolph from Switzerland on 1st Oct 2008
I needed a small phone for travelling and got the Nokia 6600 Fold 2 days ago. When trying it out in the office I noticed that the "auto open" function did not work, when the button was pressed, the outer display said "Open fold maually". I brought it back to Mobilezone where they tried out the second phone they had in stock. The mechanism didn't work either. They called another Mobilezone shop, they tried it out too, it didn't work! They called up Nokia who had no Idea what could be wrong. I wanted to give it back, they said they can't do that, and they have to send it in to Nokia. Great, I'll go on vacation on Thursday and won't see my new phone for 2 to 3 weeks, and they wouldn't give me my money back. It's a neat phone, apart from the problems with the flaunted "electromagnetic opening mechanism".
Rating:

Reviewed by Emily Rose from Uk on 28th Sep 2008
absoloute rubbish! broke after a week. DON'T GET THIS PHONE!
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Reviewed by Wayne from Australia on 25th Sep 2008
Pros: Really nice design, small, compact and very smooth lines. If you're fed up with Sony Ericcsons' useless keypad designs of late, then the good sized functional keys of the Nokia will please. There are no real gimicks, just a good all-rounder phone. Cons: The automatic flip open action often sticks. No big deal as it can also be opened manually. The display is quite dark, even when set to full brightness. I really like this phone. It looks much better in real life too.
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Reviewed by fanil from india on 8th Sep 2008
good and streaming looks
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Reviewed by 3GTec from Japan on 22nd Aug 2008
Beside the "knocking on the phonething"...there is nothing new with this phone, the OLED screen doesnt stay as sharp after a couples of month. Just a piece of junk! Komouoto Hai!!
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Reviewed by phone from england on 28th Jul 2008
Excellent phone the best that i have ever had i love it.
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