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Smartphone Reviews Nokia 7610bEditor's rating (1-5): Review posted Nov. 12, 2004 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief Nokia, the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world, offers a wide array of phones from the most simple to power smartphones running Symbian Series 60. The 7610 is one of Nokia's high end beauties, running the new version 2 of Symbian Series 60 and offering just about every feature you could want. It's a GSM phone that comes in two flavors: the 7610 which runs on 900/1800/1900MHz bands (world phone) and the still hard to find 7610b which runs on the 850/1800/1900MHz bands for the US. The phone is widely available in Europe and Asia, and from importers in the US. As of late November 2004, Cingular will be offering the 7610b in the US: great news!
The 7610 caters not only to power users, but those who want a strong dose of style. Nokia makes many, many cookie-cutter candy bar phones; but they're also fond of playing with style, sometimes radically in certain models. Unlike the Nokia 3650 which had a round keypad design that was so radical it gave fervent SMS-ers apoplexy, the 7610's stylized keypad is striking but not impossible to use. The 7610 has a design that most folks find striking and very attractive and it turns heads wherever we go. It's available in black or white and as you'd expect, Nokia sells additional "Express On" covers should you feel like a color change. But the 7610 is more than just a pretty face, and features great reception, Bluetooth, a lovely 65,000 color 2" display and a stunning 1 megapixel camera capable of taking still shots and video. Design and Ergonomics This is a device that hopes to find its way into the Museum of Modern Art. The black version is particularly striking and has a gloss finish with silver (some versions add red) accents. It is perfectly symmetrical with right angles at the top left and lower right corners, and gentle curves on the top right and lower left. Turn it on its face, turn it upside down and the pleasing form will remain the same. The silver insets around the large display swoop down to meet the keypad where they widen, forming the backdrop for the outer keys. The keypad features a sweeping radial design and the left and lower keys are larger than the rest. Though the keys aren't uniformed in size and don't line up in the usual rectangular pattern with the 4 key directly below the 1 key, the keyboard isn't hard to use. In two hours I found it easy to use the keypad for dialing and SMS. Though the keyboard has a visually distinct appearance, Nokia didn't alter the keys enough to create usability problems.
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The center directional pad is small and stiff, nested perhaps a bit too close to the surrounding keys. It's usable and works well one-handed but you'll need a bit of coordination and a day of use to become proficient at it. A two inch display dominates the upper portion of the unit, with the speaker located above the display. The Nokia Pop-Port is located on the bottom of the phone and the camera lens on the back. The lens is relatively large compared to some other camera phones and that's a good thing: a larger lens usually means better photos. Rather than the usual tiny round self-portait mirror found next to the lens, the 7610 has a large mirror that incorporates nicely into the design on the back panel. Those of us who like to check our hair on the go will love that mirror, while those who score low on the vanity scale might prefer a completely black rear casing. Regardless of which camp you fall into, you'll likely agree that the mirror and and surrounding pattern are striking. And after all, this phone is both a smartphone and a fashion phone. If you like the features and specs of the 7610 but don't want the novel keyboard or standout looks, consider the Nokia 6670 instead. The 6670 is a triband world phone with the guts of a 7610 and a more "normal" appearance.
Horsepower and Expansion
According to Psiloc System Tools, the 7610 has a 123MHz ARM processor which is currently one of the fastest you'll find in a Series 60 phone. It has 8 megs of internal memory, which doesn't sound like much, but it's more than adequate because Symbian apps are generally quite small. The phone uses the new Reduced Size MMC cards (RS-MMC) which are half the length of standard MMC cards. But you won't have to scramble to find a card for your 7610 because Nokia generously includes a 64 meg card with the phone. You'll find a variety of 3rd party software demo apps on the card which you can test, purchase or delete as you see fit. Nokia says that the phone will work with up to 256meg RS-MMC cards and that was the largest capacity available when the phone was released. Now there are 512 meg cards on the market and they work fine with the 7610.
The phone has Bluetooth, a Nokia Pop-Port connector but no IR. It comes with the DKU-2 USB cable which attaches to the Pop-Port for syncing and using the phone as a wireless modem for a PC or Mac over USB. As Windows user who's struggled to sync PIM data over Bluetooth using PC Suite can tell you, the cable is a much more reliable and less crazy-making method of getting you Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Notes data synced to the phone. You can still transfer files to and from the phone via Bluetooth, but the 7610 doesn't support Serial Port Profile, so you will need to use the cable to sync PIM data.
A Bit about Bands and the 7610 vs. 7610b
As mentioned, the phone comes in two versions, the 7610 and the 7610b. The 7610 is a world phone that works anywhere GSM service is available. It has 900MHz (Europe), 1800MHz (Asia) and 1900MHz (US). The 7610b targets the US, and trades the 900MHz band for 850MHz which is a relatively new band used in the US by AT&T/Cingular. You'll still get reception in the US using the non-b version of the phone on the 1900MHz band. 1900MHz is used by every US GSM carrier, but some metro areas have been built out with added 850MHz service in the past year. Note that if you get the b version, you won't be able to use the phone in Europe. If you're a T-Mobile US customer, you don't need to worry about the 850MHz band because T-Mobile only uses 1900MHz.
Phone Features, Reception and Data
Nokia phones have great reception and the 7610b is no exception. In fact, it tops other recent Nokias we've tested including the 3650, N-Gage QD and the 6820. The phone gets a signal where other phones can't and shows very high db readings overall for signal strength. The unit hasn't dropped a call in two weeks of testing, even when in a very poor signal area with 1 bar. Miraculously, call sound quality was good even with 1 bar. We tested the unit with a T-Mobile SIM on the 1900MHz band in the US. No doubt, US customers with AT&T/Cingular on 850MHz towers will see even better performance indoors as will 900MHz users in Europe.
The 7610 has all the standard phone features you'll find on other Series 60 phones such as voice dialing using voice tags, a loud speaker phone, speed dialing for up to 99 numbers, support for conference calling, call waiting and picture caller ID. The phone's earpiece and mic volume are good and are loud and clear enough for use in public places. The 7610 ups the ante with voice commands that allow you to launch applications or even toggle Bluetooth on and off. You'll record voice tags for commands, just as you do for voice dialing. We did note that there's a longer delay after you hear the voice prompt before you can speak your command compared to other phones. Wait one full second after you hear the auditory prompt to speak your command or wait for the on-screen progress bar to start moving before you speak. Voice dialing and voice commands work darned near 100% if you wait and will surely fail if you don't.
Display, Sound and Multimedia
Certainly this is one of the nicest displays we've seen on a Nokia phone. The 2" TFT display is capable of displaying 65,000 colors and runs at the standard Series 60 176 x 208 resolution. The screen is contrasty and has very good color saturation. While there are LCDs that can display even more colors and are a bit brighter such as the Motorola MPx220, photos actually look more natural and show more gradations in contrast and intensity on the Nokia. Indeed the 7610's display is plenty bright and you can adjust the brightness if you wish but you can't change the backlight timeout which can be annoying if you like to surf, read ebooks and the like. There are utilities that will turn the backlight on indefinitely such as the free FExplorer, thank goodness.
Surprisingly, the 7610 doesn't have stereo output even though it can play MP3s and movies. What a shame. . . Sound quality when listening to music and videos with audio is good though but this unit won't put your iPod out of a job. The included earbud headset has low volume for multimedia and voice calls, so do consider getting a different Pop-Port headset or a Bluetooth headset. Volume through the speaker is quite good, as is volume through Bluetooth headsets. The 7610 supports MP3 ringtones which opens a entire realm of free and custom ringers.
RealPlayer is included for playback of MP3, Real Audio, Real Video and 3GP videos shot with the phone's camera.
Battery Life
For a smartphone, the 7610 had good battery life, lasting
us about 2 days of moderate use per charge. It has a 900 mAh Lithium
Ion BL-5C battery which is larger than some prior Series 60 devices'
batteries, though not as large as the N-Gage QD's 1,000 mAh battery which
will not physically fit in the 7610 in case you were wondering 
.
In our tests we spoke for 30 to 45 minutes per day on the phone, surfed
for one hour using the included web browser and Opera, used the phone
as a wireless modem over Bluetooth with a Dell Axim X50v and an HP iPAQ
hx4700 for one hour per day, watched a few short videos and played games
for 30 minutes per day. Most but not all of our phone conversations involved
Bluetooth headsets and we left Bluetooth turned on 80% of the time.
Software and Syncing
Thanks to the included USB syncing cable, syncing to Windows PCs is now easy. One caveat: ignore the version of PC Suite on the CD and download the latest version from Nokia's web site. Right now, that's version 6.4 and it not only works reliably with the 7610 but it has many new features and a spiffy user interface. You'll use PC Suite to browse the phone's contents, transfer files, sync PIM data to Outlook, play movies taken with the camera and more. If you prefer Bluetooth, you can transfer files but you won't be able to sync PIM data because the phone doesn't have the serial port profile.
Speaking of PIM apps, the 7610 has very strong Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and a Notes app too. The Contacts application includes a large number of fields and will suit most Outlook users nicely. The Calendar defaults to month view with appointments appearing as blue triangles, and has week and day views as well which you can switch to at any time or select as your default view. Of course it has alarms and you can create new entries categorized as Meeting, Memo or Anniversary. To-to is a task management app that supports priorities and Notes (nested in the Extras folder) is a note taking application. All of these sync to Outlook on the desktop.
Specs:
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