2009/10/02

Nokia 6600i slide review: I slide, you slide Price , pictures , Details , model specifications

A while back Nokia released the 6600 pair – the slide and the fold – which we fell for, big time. The seemingly more popular sibling got an update and the 6600i slide will keep on cashing in. Slightly revamped, it brings a beefier camera and a new paintjob to boot.

Nokia 6600i slide Price سعر نوكيا 6600 أى سلايد

Looks have changed just a bit and we honestly think they did it right. The consciously minimalist design of the original didn’t leave much room for frills anyway. Alright, the 6600i slide is a no-frills package overall, but don’t go saying we didn’t warn you. It’s enjoyable and addictive.

Nokia 6600i slide Price سعر نوكيا 6600 أى سلايد
Nokia 6600i slide

Key features:

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support, dual-band UMTS
2.2″ 16M-color QVGA display
5 megapixel camera, autofocus and LED flash
VGA video recording at 15fps
S40 user interface, 5th edition
Bluetooth (with A2DP)
Stereo FM radio with RDS
microSD card slot (up to 16 GB), 1GB included
Ovi Maps for S40 come preinstalled
Ovi Contacts, Share on Ovi, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook applications preinstalled
Really compact and extra smooth metal body
Sweet oval shapes and neat slider design
Accelerometer for tap-for-time and tap-to-mute

Main disadvantages:

No HSDPA
Display brightness is quite low
Poor browser and no Opera Mini preinstalled
Memory card slot under the battery, no hot-swap
No dedicated shutter key
Below par camera quality
No 3.5 mm audio jack or a two-piece headset in the box
No smart dialing
No multi-tasking, especially uncomfortable in Ovi Contacts and the social networking applications
No office document viewer
Loudspeaker loudness is only marginally improved

Nokia 6600i slide Price سعر نوكيا 6600 أى سلايد

No need to tell you, the “i” in any Nokia model designation is there to save face. It’s like Nokia saying: here’s a phone that sells big, so be our guest – keep on buying it. It’s more of a relaunch than an update. And we’re not pointing fingers here – if you have a massive seller the first thing on your mind would be to keep it rolling.

Just remember the 6300 – it did wonders for the Finns, so the 6300i followed in due course. Yes, it added Wi-Fi to its predecessor’s feature set but that can really be seen as an exception and was meant for select markets only. And by the way, Nokia might have a point. The 3G-enabled 6600 slide can do without WLAN and a better camera will perhaps serve its market better.

Anyway, “i” models are incremental updates – they build on the previous device rather than turn it into something completely new. In that sense, the last people to be viewed as potential customers are current 6600 slide owners. If we were to upgrade from Nokia 6600 slide, we’d probably be considering Symbian – or maybe an all-in-one feature phone like the 6260 slide.

Accordingly, the real job of the 6600i slide is to pick up the customers the original missed and serve the Nokia midrange more in keeping with the time.

Neat and friendly is the name of the game

We’ve made it safely to the first jump, so you get ready to head to the next page, while we bring up the Nokia 6600i slide retail box and prepare to look inside.

Nokia 6600i slide unboxed

The retail package of Nokia 6600i slide does well to cover the basics. In the box you’ll find a charger, a shortish microUSB cable and a microUSB headset and a BL-4U battery. The headset is one piece, which makes finding a good alternative quite hard. There’s a user manual of course, and a 1GB microSD card to get you started.

Nokia 6600i slide Price سعر نوكيا 6600 أى سلايد

The whole Nokia 6600i slide package

Nokia 6600i slide 360-degree spin

Nokia 6600i slide measures 93 x 45 x 14.2 mm for a volume of 52 cc. The handset is remarkably compact with very clean and simple styling. The 6600i slide is a real tiny slider with a pleasingly solid feel and extra friendly handling. The weight of 110 g is mostly attributed to the metal body.

Nokia 6600i slide Price سعر نوكيا 6600 أى سلايد

Design and construction

The Nokia 6600i slide stays very close to the original. The front has changed just a bit reinforcing the minimalist design of the lineup. The rocker style keys gave way to discrete little knobs, while the gloss of the predecessor was replaced by sedate brushed metal. The overall styling is absolutely intact though and the upgrade is just as sweetly compact as before.

The notch of an earpiece is centrally placed right above the Nokia logo up front. The 3G-enabled handset sports a video-call camera in the top right corner, right next to an ambient light sensor.

Nokia 6600i slide Price سعر نوكيا 6600 أى سلايد

Earpiece and secondary video-call camera above the display

The 2.2″ screen follows, which enjoys most of the slider estate. Instead of the glossy front of its predecessor, the Nokia 6600i slide sports brushed metal, which looks and feels better – and sure deals with the fingerprint issues of the original.

The display of the 6600i is different than the one of the original Nokia 6600 slide, which raised the bar quite high. There is only one improvement perhaps – and it’s the display is now totally flat as opposed to the convex screen of 6600 slide. That way, it sees quite less prone to scratching. And it also keeps the impressive side viewing angles.

On the negative side however, the backlight brightness is really not on par with what we’re used to on Nokia handsets and thus screen legibility suffers to an extent. Nokia S40 interface traditionally doesn’t provide any means for user control over the backlighting levels so we really hope Nokia would fix that with a future software update.

By the way, we had the same grudge with the Nokia 6720, so it might be some new manufacturer’s strategy to help battery life. Whatever the reason, we hope we don’t see it in future Nokia phones.

Nokia 6600i slide Price سعر نوكيا 6600 أى سلايد

The display could have been better

Beneath the display are the D-pad, the soft keys and the Call and End keys. The navigation frame of the D-pad is nicely projecting over a very spacious and responsive confirm key. The soft and call keys are on the thin side too, though they fair better in usability.
No rocker-style controls this time around

Sliding up unveils the alphanumeric keypad, which takes the entire lower deck of the phone. The plastic keys with pleasant metallic finish are amply sized, well defined and solid to press. Mistypes are quite unlikely, and we are very happy with the build quality and the comfort of use. Even the long-standing slider issue of insufficient headroom for the top row of keys is partly dealt with by the oval contour of the sliding bit.

Nokia 6600i slide Price سعر نوكيا 6600 أى سلايد

A very proper keypad

The white backlighting is strong enough to make using the handset easy enough.
The strong and even white backlighting of the keypad is a treat, but the display is too dim

On the top side of Nokia 6600i slide you’ll find the microUSB data/headset port under a neat plastic cap and the battery cover latch. The lanyard eyelet is on the right. The bottom part is a solid deck of matt plastic, which is completely clean.
The top and bottom sides of Nokia 6600i slide