Finally after 6 months, managed to get a cell phone without any deposits. I guess my credit history is starting to build up now. The last time when I asked for a cell phone service, I was told to deposit $750!!
I still say cell phone market in US sucks. The service providers dictate the market. No good handsets to choose too. You are kind of forced to buy from the limited range of handsets that the services providers have to offer.
After doing some major research, I opted for T-Mobile service. The service plan is pretty decent (Get More 1500), but is quite expensive compared to the mobile service back in India. With the plan, you are kind of forced to buy a cell phone, and T-mobile had very limited variety. Nothing compared to the barrage of cell phones available in India!.
I picked the Motorola Razr V3 (silver), since it was decently priced (keep in mind that I have an 1 year contract!). I had also read lots about its looks, and its coolness factor. Its supposed to be the Best and the “Most Happening” phone in the US of A currently in the market!.
The Razr V3 definitely has the looks! Its cool & sexy. Very sleek and slim. Its got a very beautiful finish, and a 260K color TFT display. It has a decent battery life too. And that’s where it ends. I being a Nokia 6600 user, feel like a total handicapped using this phone.
Here are some things which suck big time about the Razr V3…
- Its a flip phone. So, you need to open the flap to make/receive calls. And, the Razr V3 is designed in such a way that its next to impossible to open the phone with one hand. So, if you receive a call while you are eating or using your other hand, its a struggle.
- The phone is not at all extensible. Its got very little internal memory (5 MB), and there is no way to increase it. No slots for memory cards either.
- The phone boasts that it can play MP3 tones. Yes. It does have a great stereo sound, but with 5 MB of space, you can only store ring tones, and if you are lucky enough, you can store a MP3 song or two.
- It has a 4x digital Zoom camera – but the 640 x 480 resolution sucks big time. This phone deserves a better resolution camera.
- No Video recording. …….. and even if you could, you wouldn’t have enough space to store the recorded clips.
- Using Bluetooth, the phone could not detect most of the other Bluetooth devices that were around. But the other devices could detect and connect to the Razr V3. Once connected, I could transfer files as usual.
- There is an small stamp sized display on the outside (on the flap). But, you cannot do any customization specific to this display.
- The phone supports Java, but its very very slow. Again due to space constraints, you cannot load lots of applications
- The phone does not recognize WAV files!!! However, it plays Midi files, and MP3 files as ring tones.
- No support for .rm (real media) files when it comes to video. Neither can it play DivX encoded files (.avi).
Compared to the above, if you consider the features, my Nokia 6600 beats the Motorola Razr V3 hands down! While I came here to the US, I had brought my Nokia 6600 from India. So, after using the Razr V3 for couple of days, Now I am back to my Nokia 6600! I plan to use the Razr as a back up phone! Just in case. Or may be… just to ‘show off’. hahaha…
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July 25th, 2006 at 01:14am
Got hold of Nokia 9300 smartphone for a day. My uncle has bought this handset. He handed it over to me for a test drive / setup kind of stuff. Was experimenting with it for all the time today morning.
I always thought that my Nokia 6600 was kind of bulky, but after using this, i am kind of happy ;). This one is bigger, and heavier too. But it looks cool. Infact, it looks very professional. Kind of very high tech.
Ok. Coming to my observation…
The only major difference feature wise between nokia 9300 and nokia 6600 is the keyboard or keypad. Otherwise both the phones have more or less the same features, including most of the software (not all). 6600 has a camera/imaging functions. Nokia 9300 does not have it. Its cousin nokia 9500 has the camera too.
The screen is kind of too narrow. 640*200 (w*h). Like an tower. The aspect ratio is 3.2:1. On the other hand, nokia 6600 is 176*208 (h*w) pixels.
Nokia 9300 runs on Series 80 platform. The UI is pretty neat, but i found that it lacks consistency. Could have been better. And since it runs on a series 80 platform (s80) , the programs that run on s60, (i.e., nokia 6600) wont directly run on Nokia 9300. You have to find the appropriate versions.
I managed to get Smart Movie player, and Ultra MP3 for Nokia 9300. Ultra mp3 player rocks on 9300. But when it comes to smart movie player, the broad screen is of little use. Most of the screen is unused. I also installed some games on it. Clearly, 9300 is not a gaming machine.
One very good thing about nokia 9300 is the response time. The UI is pretty fast and responsive at most of the times compared to Nokia 6600. Also, lot of stuff is natively supported. For e.g., you can open word docs, spreadsheets, presentations etc. But in case of Nokia 6600, you need to add some additional software. The same is the case with MP3 playback. Also found that the bluetooth transfer works much faster with this phone. It rocks. Internal memory is 80 MB, which is one major plus point.
Nokia 9300, current cost in Bangalore/India – around 30K INR
Nokia 6600, current cost in Bangalore/India – around 11.5K INR
At the end of it, i am still happy with Nokia 6600 :) One major plus point about nokia 6600 is … there are tons of software already available for it, and its very popular, and affordable.
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July 17th, 2005 at 08:17pm
Finally after lot of R&D, yesterday i could finally browse the net over my 6600 using my PC’s internet connection over bluetooth !
Two things are possible.
1. You use the GPRS of your Mobile phone and browse on your PC.
2. You use the DSL (or other high speed connection) of your PC to browse on your Mobile phone.
#1 is pretty simple, and is very easy to setup on Nokia 6600. But #2 is not that simple. After reading lot of forums, i found that Nokia has on purpose blocked this feature in 6600.
If you have already done a search on this topic, you would have definitely come across this page. But the instructions there are quite cryptic, and not very clear. So, i did lot of search on various forums, and finally got it right. What i have done is, i have basically documented the steps that i followed to make it work. Do give it a try!. It might work for you as well. If it works (or doesn’t) do comment here!
Steps…
First lets set up the PC. Things to do on PC :
- Deactivate all the Checkboxes in mRouter (at least the ones of the Bluetooth COM ports)
- Goto Bluetooth settings and Deactivate everything else in Local services than Bluetooth serial port, note the com port you set as bluetooth serial port
- Goto Phone and Modem options, go to “Modems” add a new one, activate “I will select it from a list”
- Choose “Communications cable between 2 Computers” from the list (in Standard Modem Types)
- Select the COM port from step3
- In the modem settings set maximum port speed to 115200
- Goto Network Connections and create a new connection (wizard)
- Select Set up an advanced connection -> Next
- Accept incoming connections -> Next
- Check the Communications cable between two computers -> Next
- Do not allow VPN connections ->
- select a username you want to give access to your pc over Bluetooth (that’s the username you will set on the phone later) -> Next
- Select Internet Protocol -> Properties, select “TCI/IP address assignment” and set the IP range to something like 10.0.2.2-10.0.2.254
- Remove Internet Connection Sharing from all interfaces
- run cmd.exe and enter the following commands:
netsh routing ip nat install
netsh routing ip nat add interface "YOUR LAN INTERFACE NAME" full
netsh routing ip nat add interface Internal private
YOUR LAN INTERFACE NAME has to be replaced with the name of the interface connected to the internet
- if there is a “Bluetooth Network” connection in Network Connections delete it
- In network connections choose the incoming connection just created, and open its properties.
- Click on the users tab, check the last checkbox which says “Always allow directly connected devices to such as palmtop computers to connect without using a password” (this step helped me!)
So, that’s the setup on the PC. Next we need to configure the 6600
- Download gnubox6600.SIS and install it on your phone. Search Google for GnuBox
- Create a new Access Point on the phone (Setting|Connection|Access points|New access point|Use default settings).
- Use the following settings for it:
- Name: Bt (This name is important, the gnubox software will look for it, since its hard-coded in the code)
- Data Bearer: High speed (GSM)
- Dial-up number: e.g. 2222. It doesn’t matter what you have here as long as it’s not empty
- Username: the username you gave access to the incoming connection earlier
- Prompt password: No
- Password: Password for the user on Windows
- Authentication: Normal
- Advanced Settings: Use Login Script Yes
- Advanced Settings: Login Script
CHARMAP [windows-1252]
LOOP 10
{
SEND “CLIENT”+<0x0d>
WAIT 3
{
“SERVER” OK
}
}
EXIT KErrNoAnswer$OK:
EXIT
Be careful that you get it exactly as show here, including line breaks. You could save it to a file, send to the phone and copy-paste to the settings.
- Advanced Settings: Use PPP Compression Yes
- Run the program you installed at step1 (gnubox)
- Inside gnubox: Options-> 2box Direct -> Bluetooth, select your computer, leave gnubox running in background
- Run the nokia wml browser select “Bt” as access point and connect.
- You can also use any other internet app like Agile messenger, real player, opera, profimail etc
I was able to connect, and view my website and could read this blog too. I was also able to receive and send out mail using profimail, and the built-in mail client.
I hope this posting helps all the Nokia 6600 owners, specially in India!
Update (Sep-16-2005) : Check this page and this page for more info on GnuBox for nokia 6600
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March 30th, 2005 at 04:36pm