Nokia 6220
The phone measures 107 x 45 x 19 mm, and weights 92 grams. In size and shape it is a very typical Nokia mobile, but it comes with the latest high-end features.
The 6220 has a full-colour screen, although we have seen better screens on other mobiles. The screen has a good colour range, but is dimmer than some of the high-end phones and has a lower resolution. The layout of the keyboard is standard, although the centre of the keypad is a depression, for some reason. There are volume buttons on the side, which is useful, and the camera is fixed into the back of the mobile.
The mobile has a 16-polyphonic ringtone capability, which allows for some distinctive ringtunes but nothing approaching the quality and depth of Muzak. The phone does include a radio, which plays clearly in certain positions. In other positions the sound has a lot of static, or plays two radio stations at once.
The camera doubles as both a still and video camera. The still camera has three modes: standard, portrait and night mode. The camera has the common fault of blurring images if it moves while taking a picture - in order to get a good picture the phone has to be held steady for a few seconds. The portrait mode takes images about 2.5 Kb in size, while the standard and night mode takes images about 10Kb in size. As with most mobile cameras, you're not buying a high-end photographic kit, as we discovered with one picture we took with the night mode enabled, which was badly warped, for reasons we still can't explain.
The camera allows you to edit the picture by inserting text, thumbnails of other images or a large image over the picture being edited, and to move the inserted objects around the screen. This is quite a nifty feature, and there are definitely some interesting uses for it - although several ways to offend people also spring to mind.
The video camera works reasonably well, allowing you to take up to 20 seconds worth of footage, which uses around 90 Kb of data.
Naturally, the phone allows you to send the pictures you take as an MMS. For an MMS you can send 1,000 characters, and easily add slides, images, video and sound files up to 100 Kb. The ringtones that come with the phone are copyright protected, and can't be sent in an MMS. You can record your own sound, but have to do that before you start creating the message. The messages are easy to create, and can be sent to many people if desired.
The other messaging options available are SMS, chat and an e-mail application. Writing text can be done with multiple taps on keys or using the typical Nokia T9 predictive text technology.
The phone can support up to 500 contacts with names, numbers and text notes, enough for just about anyone's little black book. This is a maximum - the total number of contacts will fall depending on the amount of data entered for each person. You can also attach images, speed dial and voice tags to some of the contacts.
Nokia 6220 comes preloaded with two games, and the ability to download others wirelessly. The included games are backgammon and water rapids - which involves going down a river in a canoe and avoiding obstacles. The games are good, but there didn't seem to be a facility to turn off the sound for the games, which made playing them in public quite embarrassing. Even with the earpiece plugged in the phone would make game noise audible to other people.
There are three applications available with the mobile. Converter II (which converts various measurements), Portfolio II (which can keep track of your stock portfolio, if you enter in the details) and World Clock II (which is hopefully self-explanatory, although there is a limited number of cities you can choose to view).
The 6220 also includes an alarm clock, calendar, "to do list", notes, calculator, countdown timer, stopwatch and wallet feature. The wallet allows you to store credit card and other personal information in a secure way to make m-commerce easier. You can also synchronise information on your phone with your PC or a remote server.
The mobile also comes with a WAP connectivity on an xHTML browser, which improves the experience of using your mobile to browse the Internet. The phone is advertised as having up to 5 hours talk time or 300 hours standby time. We found the battery didn't last much beyond a couple of days with any realistic useage pattern.
The Nokia 6220 is a solid medium-range mobile phone. It won't stand out in a crowd, but if you're not looking to show off and just want the latest features, it could be the phone for you.
Nokia 6220
Company: Nokia
Price: AU$699
Distributor: Nokia
Phone: 1300 366 733