Nokia 7650 - An In-Depth Analysis
by Chris 

26th July 2002

Introduction

    It's has been a good 3 weeks of 'torturing' the Nokia 7650 (a "Made in Finland" retail set) and looking over the horizon with tons of new phones appearing soon, the mobile market has never been better. If you have no idea what this phone is all about, catch my preview here to warm yourself up. 

    I remembered my 1st contact with a mobile equipment back when I was a kid in the early 80s; The mobile carphone in my dad's car. A built-in chucky black box with a handset behind the handbrake in his boxy looking Volvo. When I was enlisted into the army, I was presented with a Motorola MicroTac, an ETAC phone with an extensible antenna and a red LEDs display. My dad called it the "seven head" (local jargon for ETAC mobile service). 2 years on and barely surviving on a pathetic army allowance, I bought the then "smallest & slimmest" GSM phone in the world, the Motorola 8200 with a nifty flip cover for a cool SG$2200 (US$1220). Since then, I am hooked on this technology thingy and have spent a fortune on subsequent models like the Motorola StarTac 90/X/V60, Nokia 6210/8110/8810/8850, Siemens S25/SL45/ME45, Ericsson 768/788/T18/T29/T68m, SE T68i, Samsung SGH600/T100. There are other models I couldn't really remember and it's a good thing! It kinda soften the financial aspect of this crazy "hobby"!

My drawer of 'sin' - A handphone Graveyard / A comparison of size (T100, Sl45, T68i, 7650, iPAQ 3850)

Nokia 7650 - A New Beginning

    Well, it's exciting times ahead. The all-in-one phone is now the trend, no less started by the Nokia 7650. Please note that this phone is not meant to be a PDA replacement! It's the 1st multimedia mobile device on the market with an integrated camera and more. It has Bluetooth for PAN (Personal Area Network), an IR port, a 4096 color STN LCD screen, PIM, supports Java^TM midlets, MMS and 24 poly ringtones. Almost everything that you can ever dream of and I will try to cover every aspects of this Digital Imaging Phone.

The Phone - External Front

    The Nokia 7650 comes with some unique features which I will touch on along the way. The Nokia 7650 is probably the 'toughest' phone I have came across from Nokia apart from the 88XX series. A general intro. on the exterior. The phone has a slide-out keypad which reveals the camera lens when fully opened and protects it when closed. The mechanism on the "slide" works alot like the banana phone, the Nokia 8110. The slide is pretty tight and that's a good thing and I have no problem opening and closing the phone with one hand. *Don't mind the screen protector with silver tab*

Features

1.    On the front of the phone, you will find two black spots and one tiny translucent dot. The 2 black spots are the Proximity Sensors. Having used the Siemens ME45 before in loudspeaker mode, the proximity sensors are in fact, a very cool idea. Why? You need to turn off the loudspeaker mode on the Siemens before bringing it up to your ear but with the Nokia, it sense your presence and switches back to normal mode automatically! 

2.    Now for the one tiny translucent dot. This is your lighting sensor. It measures the brightness of your surrounding (more of light falling on your phone) to determine how long the LCD backlight should stays on. I was skeptical at first but after much testing, it really works! When I am outdoors, the backlight didn't even come into play. I moved into the shade (under the tree), the backlight switches on for 1-2 seconds and it goes off. In my office, it stays on for around 10-15 seconds depending on my location e.g. pantry, LAN room etc.

3.    The Nokia 7650 is probably the 1st mobile phone in the world to offer true support for midi, wav and amr files as your ringtone/message alert. Although my old Siemens SL45 has the capability to use midi files as your personal ringtone, I have to admit they don't even come close to sounding like one.

4.    An integrated camera offering various shooting modes and file's quality. More on that in the next few pages.

5.    Easy access to Profiles and functions via. power button. With the keypad closed, press the power button to change your profile or to lock your keypad.

6.    The Menu button functions like the Windows' "Alt-Tab" key. Pressing it for a second, it will bring up a list of active tasks running in the background.

    The Phone - External Back

    When you slide out the keypad, it expose the integrated camera on the back. You will need to remove the cover above the camera lens to insert your SIM card. The battery compartment is in the usual place, near the bottom. However, the battery cover is held in place by a spring loaded plastic tab and this is not ideal. The spring is soft and it feels like it gonna break soon! The Nokia 7650 uses the same BLB-2 Li-ion battery for the older 8210, 8250, 8850 etc and I am using a 3rd party high capacity battery 900mAh.

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