Standby Screen/Menu Interface

    The Nokia 7650 has a standby screen whereby a background of your choice will be displayed. The network signal strength is shown on the right side. The battery level on the left. You can choose between an analog or digital clock display. It also shows the current date/time + GPRS availability (optional) + name of your shortcut keys (programmable with up to 28 different items to choose from).

    There is a screen-saver mode whereby the Date & Time will be displayed as a moving bar across the screen. You can choose to insert your texts too but sadly there are no options for animations or pictures. You can choose any duration between 1 - 30 mins. 

    Pressing the menu button will brings you to the main menu. Let's call it the desktop. This is the area where you can access and modify the various functions of this phone. You can choose to view the menu in the default Grid view (Icons) or the alternate List view. You can re-arrange the icons to your personal preference i.e. placing your most-used icons near the top. You can also create, name and customize (choose a nice folder icon) a new folder to store some of your un-used icons for a cleaner desktop. 

    The 'Options' button is an important key. More often than not, this button brings you to the sub-menu. Be sure to press it to find some additional settings. Pressing the menu button will bring you back to the standby screen.

Telephone/Contacts/Log

    The Telephone icon has the same function as the menu button. Clicking on it will brings you back to the standby screen. 

    Under Contacts, you can view the list of contacts that you have copied over from your SIM card (otherwise you have to access your SIM card directly to make a call) and the usual search function. You can easily create a SMS/MMS/Email by simply highlighting the name and pressing the Options button. You also have the option to create a Group for mass SMS/MMS/Email, an option to forward your contact's information via SMS/Email/Bluetooth/IR, attaching a VoiceTag to a particular person and of course a thumbnail to identify your contact. 

    The Log has 2 sections. The 1st keeps a detailed list of the last 20 Recent calls (i.e. Received/Missed/Dialled), Total  duration, Totalcosts and a GPRS counter (total kB transferred/received). Ok, how much can the phone store? Well, the answer is up to 30 days! In fact, you can choose between No log, 1 day, 10 days and 30 days.

    The 2nd is what they called a General Log. This section details every single data/voice transaction made on the phone (i.e. incoming, outgoing, GPRS, SMS, missed calls etc). Under Options, you can view the details of that particular transaction and the choice to filter out and display only certain transaction (e.g. Outgoing only). However, the filter function is not refined enough yet. For example you want to know how many outgoing calls you have made so far. It's impossible as the filter only allows you to choose a broad heading under "Voice calls" which includes both incoming and outgoing.

Messaging/Calendar/To-do/Services

    Ok, on to the 'hot' zone, the Messaging system. As a past user of the Ericsson T68m and SonyEricsson T68i, the T9 in both phones left much to be desired. There is a serious lag as the screen fails to keep up with each press of the button.  The recent Samsung T100 is much faster but I noticed that it does 'skip' certain characters once in awhile in order to keep up. The Nokia 7650 comes with a much powerful  processor (identical to the Communicator) and has absolutely no problem in displaying T9 or whatsoever. It works like a charm ... fast and accurate like a Nokia. New words can also added to the T9 dictionary.

    The Messaging panel is clear and concise. New message is basically to create a new SMS/MMS/Email. If you remember, you can also do this via. the Contacts panel! A pretty flexible system! There is an Inbox (for storing incoming SMS/MMS), My folders (Pre-set templates), email accts (POP3 & IMAP4), Drafts, Sent, Outbox and reports. You can choose to save a copy of every SMS/MMS sent and also to set a limit on the quantity to be stored. The messages will then be removed based on FIFO (first in first out). You can also configure the phone to read your remote email (SMTP, POP3 and IMAP4) and to download attachments as well.

    The Calendar feature provides 3 views which are i) Day ii) Week iii) Month and of course these are customizable. For example, you can select your preferred view to be the default when you open calendar or the which day to start the week on. There is also a repeat option should you have a recurring appt or meeting every Thursday at 3.00pm. The phone will automatically make an entry into the following weeks ahead (you can set the end date for the recurring as well).

    There is also the Tasks/To-do listing which is pretty standard and useful for keeping track of bills payment/collecting laundry etc.

    The Nokia 7650 is also the world's first SyncML compatible phone. SyncML was developed to be the universal synchronization standard for mobiles, PCs and PDAs. For the time being, I am using Nokia PC Suite to sync from Outlook to the 7650. *This sentence is made with need for clarifications. See forum.* 

    The Services section keeps a list of your last visited WAP sites, served as the place to store your bookmarks and to personalize your WAP browser settings. You can clear your cache under "Clear cache" if you have enabled cookies to remove any trace of your password or bank acct. nos.

Next

(C) Copyright 1998-2009 OCWorkbench.com