Nokia 3650 Released in US Market

A Swing Dancing Dork writes "Check out the new Nokia 3650! Video and still imaging, MMS support,Bluetooth,Triband, and polyphonic bliss all wraped up in a uber-modern package." I was looking phones all morning so I'm glad this showed up. Anyone have advice on cel phones? I'd like IMAP, HTTP, and IM, as well as PDA functionality that can sync via bluetooth to a Mac. I was looking at the Sony Ericsons, but this may work as well.

Comments

T-Mobile's Sidekick

[ChaoticChaos]

Two words - T-Mobile's Sidekick. Color units are coming in a month or two. Has SMS, full HTML web browsing (not WAP!), POP3 email, AIM messaging, scheduler, notes, games, hidden keyboard! GSM/GPRS device. Uber c00l!

All of your data is fully backed up to Danger's servers so there is never a chance of losing anything. Unbeatable deal for less than $100 with unlimited data for $39.95 a month.

No IMAP or syncing via Bluetooth though.

Re:T-Mobile's Sidekick

[isaac]

Why do you wacky American's call it a "cell" phone? What is "cellular" about it?

The radio network. The phone associates with the tower in a given cell, then gets handed off to another cell when the phone moves to it. This is as opposed to older radiotelephone technology that didn't have automatic hand-offs.

-Isaac

Re:T-Mobile's Sidekick

[steelerguy]

So here is my quick review of it.

It can be annoying as hell to talk on until you get used to it. Most phones have a natural sweet spot that just feels right when you hold it to you head. The screen of the Sidekick gets pressed on your check while the ear piece is not so close to your ear. Once you get used to it is not a big deal. Also, pressing that phone up to your greasy ass cheek gets smudges on it.

Not a great PDA but if you use your PDA for what a lot of people do, as an address book and appointment book, it will do just fine.

The ring tones are gay. People will all look when it rings to see who the ass is. Then they think you are crazy when you press a 'Gameboy' to you head and start talking. Once they see you get off the phone, flip the screen, and start browsing the web or checking email they think it is the most kick ass thing they have seen.

It is better than any phone at browing the web. You actually get decent pictues and number of lines per page. Some site are designed kind of weird though and you have to scroll. Also not so good for site that use a lot of cookies to store data, but then no phones are good at that.

Games are lame, but sometimes you get desperate.

Email is great. If you get a web based account with pop access you are pretty much set for home and while on the road.

Wish they have more than just AIM but it works pretty good. Just have to convince your friends they need AIM accounts and to stay logged into them.

Some people have said it feels cheap. Well compared to the Motorola Pagewriter is does a little bit. But I had a lot more problems with the Pagewriter and it was not a phone nor did it have games. It does not feel any cheaper than most lightweight mobile phones.

The design is great. The flip screen that hides the keyboard when not in use works perfectly. The only bad part is if you have to dial a number not in your address book you have to flip the screen, dial, then flip back..well I suppose you could leave the screen out but that would just be weird.

It lacks good syncing. Kind of scary, if you store a lot on it, but I hear they are working on it. I would also wait for color if it is going ot be out soon, although their greyscale is pretty damn good.

Uglly and big phone- hard to use

[miradu2000]

I saw this device yesterday at the AT&T wireless store in the mall of america. Two word - it sucked. Sure it had a great camera, and big screen - but the buttons felt cheap, the device is huge, and feels realy lcheap in your hands. The 5 way navigator didn't click down very well, and.. you get my point. I think the size of this thing kills it. Sitting right next to it was some uber tiny color nokia that i really liked . It had a much nicer feel to it - nokia has good and bad designs.

As for a perfect cell phone i would wait for the Sony Ericsson T608 and T610 (CDMA/GPRS respectivly) They are compeltly new phones with the features of the t68i and more. I can't wait for them to be released.

Sending mine back

[LtBurrito]

I just got call tags sent so that I can return mine to ATT. The phone is good. It has good rf performance, better than my T68i. But... It claims to be bluetooth audio, but doesn't work with any bluetooth headset but Nokias. It only works with the bluetooth 'handsfree' profile, not the headset profile that most bluetooth headsets obviously support.

It does synch over bluetooth with outlook, but the alarm for calendar events is fixed. You can't shut it off without silencing the whole phone (or turning it off). I was awakened at midnight the other night by an alarm for my mom's birthday. I like my mom and all, but that sucks. I want to be able to have just visual alarms for calendar events.

For $150, it's a nice phone, it just has a few issues. I'll wait for the P800 to be available through ATT. For now, I really do like my old T68i better.

Found it

[billstr78]

Here is the latest story from an advertising trade rag. Here is the link to the commercial if you just can't wait.

Re:I can' t even imagine...

[cpeterso]

I've used a 3650 for a few months now. The circular "arrow keys" button especially sucks. The button is so sensitive that it often registers the wrong direction when pressed. Very frustrating..

The Sidekick has IMAP support

[Wonko42]

The Sidekick does have IMAP support. It even supports SSL connections over both IMAP and POP3. The only drawback is that it doesn't support server-side IMAP folders (i.e., it will connect to the server and download the contents of your inbox, but that's it).

I love my Sidekick.

the 3650 is a disaster

[jedrek]

I've been working on a project with the 3650 over the past 2 1/2 months and, what can I say, it's a piece of shit. If other Nokias are going to be like this, then they will fall off their pedestal - Nokia is popular as hell, but they're not a monopoly. Their total disregard for quality has pushed a lot of users, including me, to Motorola, Samsung, SonyEricsson and Siemens. The 6210 was a fiasco, bluetooth in the 6310 was buggy as hell (fixed a bit into the 6310i).

Anyway, what sucks in the 3650?

* The keypad. This is definately the *worst* element, it flies in the face of convention and not in a cool and edgy way. I've been using this phone non-stop for the last 11 weeks and I haven't gotten used to it.

* Usability. Nokia took over by offering good usability. Phones used to have a different button for everything, Nokia took that, stripped it down (in the 3110, 51x0, etc) to a single nav key. It's been worse lately - the 6310 has like 13 or 14 main menu options so you can't even use shortcuts (like menu, 2, 2, 1 to write an SMS) to control all the functions.

While it's been slowly getting worse, the 3650 is just a leap ahead. The menus are organized so poorly that it took me 10 minutes to find the clock, took me a cab ride home (25km) to figure out how to turn the keypad tones off. It's just... complicated. Plus, the software is inconsistent - you can link some elements, you can't link others - even tough they seem identical to you.

Anyway, the phone is a total pain in the ass, I hope we start doing something for a newer model but - knowing my luck - it'll be this model all the way until autumn.

Ugh.