I've recently switched my main phone to a direct from Nokia Retail Nokia 6682. The firmware on it is V 3.00.14 27-05-05 RM-58. The box contains the phone, charger, stereo headset, 64MB dual-voltage reduced size multimedia card (DV RS-MMC), DKU-2 USB data cable, and Nokia CD with utilities and programs.
Quick facts:Name: Nokia 6682
Network: GSM 850/1800/1900
Weight: 131 g
Dimensions: 108 x 55 x 21 mm
Battery life (stand by): 264 hours
Battery life (talk): 360 minutes
My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) China
The 6682 is about the same size as Nokia's previous S60, the 6620. The 6682 feels very solid as it doesn't have removable faceplates but the camera slider makes creaking sounds.
AestheticsIt's a classic design that doesn't use any round aspects to the casing - unlike the 6630 and 6620. Speaking of brick, it looks heavy and it is pretty hefty but not to an unreasonable weight. The call keys and Symbian OS specific keys smudge easily. Unlike the SE T616, Nokia doesn't supply a cloth with the phone. The slider for the camera will eventually scratch the silver surrounding the camera lens. There is also a light sensor on the top left corner of the 6682 which will dim the keypad and screen under ideal lighting, or increase the keypad and screen under absence of light in an effort to conserve battery life.
The 6230 looks even slicker beside the 6682
DisplayThe 6682's display is bright and easily viewable in most lighting situations. The screen resolution is 176 x 208 and can display up to 262,000 colors. It is a high quality screen that is comparable to the S710a. However, the screen can't compare to the upcoming N90 or N70. You can change the display brightness, screen saver timeout and light timeout.
KeypadThe 5way D-pad on the 6682 is amazing unless you're playing games where you can accidentally push down on it. The numeric pad is extremely cramped and I initially had difficulty finding the right numbers without looking at the keypad. One fortunate design was the raised bottom edge of the numeric keys so at least you can tell the difference between rows of keys. Otherwise the columns of keys are flush with each other so you can hardly tell you're pressing the 5 key or the 6 key. The Send and End buttons are very thin and at far edges of the phone. I found the clear (C) and edit (Pencil) keys too small and I dreaded trying to hit them. The left and right soft keys are huge and a pleasure to use - thank goodness for that.
Now how is the 6682 keypad for gaming? I can comfortably play Super Mario 3 via vNES with the Dpad, 'B' set to 0, and 'A' set to #. This is where the flush nature of the columns of keys pays off. From a phone perspective, you can easily use the 6682 with one hand.
External MemoryThere is a slot to the left of the phone that supports dual-voltage reduced size multimedia cards (DV RS-MMC). Some people have had very limited success with non-dual voltage RS-MMCs and you can't stick a standard MMC into the 6682.
The memory card is hot swappable but I find myself rarely popping it out since all my apps and themes are on the card. With the limited internal memory of the 6682, you'll frequently run into that predicament and not swap your memory card often. Symbian will scan the memory card for themes/ringtones/images so can use them as themes ringtones/images. At each app installation, the OS will ask you whether you want to install the app on the phone memory or memory card - a great way to avoid using the phone memory.
Menu setupPhonebook & scrolling speedIt's no 6230b here. It takes a split second to pull up the Contacts. Unlike the S710a, it will always scroll at a normal rate. The search function is very quick pulling up matching names instantaneously. Unlike Windows Mobile phones it will not match phone numbers - just the names. You can change the Contacts list to show first name or last name first.
Also worth noting, you can set up different default numbers for calling, texting, MMS, and e-mail address for each contact.
ProfilesThe standard S60 profiles included: Normal, Silent, Meeting, Outdoor, Night, and Offline.
For each profile you can set Ringing time, Ringing type, Ringing volume, Message Alert Tone, E-mail alert tone, IM alert tone, vibrating alert, keypad tones, warning tones, and Alert for.
call listingsYou have the option of looking at Dialer Numbers, Received Calls, and Missing Calls. You need to go into the Log to access a "mess of a call list where everything is thrown into one window". I really like that huge list.
File managerYou can browse both the phone contents and memory card contents. The built-in File Manager is adequate for casual users build power users will prefer FExplorer since it will reveal system directories.
ThemesThe 6682 supports S60 themes. In one click you change the whole appearance of your phone, including bundled icons, clock, and text. I don't think S60 supports animated icons. It takes a good amount of time for S60 to change themes. There are a lot of themes available and, if you're inclined, you can make your own.
Included Office toolsStandard S60 tools are included.
Calendar - calendar to find out today's date and important bdays
To-Do - remind yourself to do something (like remember to buy the bday present for important bday to noted in the calendar)
Notes - write down some information. It's dated too!
clock - you can set a one time alarm. You must have your phone on for the alarm to go off.
Converter - currency converter so you can see how much that thing on EBay will really cost you in CDN.
Calculator - just a basic calculator
Wallet - allows you to save passwords and such on the 6682 behind a protected area requiring a password
ConnectivityYou can connect the 6682 to your computer using Bluetooth or data cable. There is no infrared support. You can install Nokia PC Suite to synchronize the 6682 with your computer. You can also use PC Suite to download pictures, ringtones and games/programs to the 6682. The e-mail client handles attachments, MMS. If you don't like any included apps you can install your own.
BluetoothNokia's bluetooth is pretty good.
You can pair devices, you can send images/files/ringtones/themes and virtually any content via bluetooth to another device. There are not as many BT profiles as SE phones but you can install a number of applications that work around that. For example, you can download Control Freak and control all the popular aspects of your PC with the 6682 as well as a mouse on a PC for presentations via BT.
When you select to send media via BT the list of devices returns quickly, it will list you the last devices it found or you can have it search again. Searching again is a good thing since you won't be trying to send to a device that isn't in the area.
If your BT is off you can still send media, the phone prompts you to turn on BT but you'll need to manually turn it off after transfer.
Pairing the 6682 with a PC gives you these features in the included OBEX profiles:
Dial up networking
HS Audio gateway
OBEX Object Push
OBEX File Transfer
It pales in comparison to the S710a but what other manufacturer can match SE?
SynchronizingThe Nokia Suite makes syncing with Outlook a breeze. Mac users have iSync where the 6682 is on their list of compatible devices.
ReceptionThe 6682 is very comparable if not slightly better than the 6230.
Carmovies was comparing his 6230 5.24 w/ netmon to the 6682 FTP netmon and the signal strength on the 6682 is usually a couple dBm better. (
http://www.symbian-freak.com/quides/netmon.htm)
Sound QualityThe phone sounds good, it's not too trebly, and it's not all bass. It sounds similar to the 6230b.
SpeakerphoneThe Speakerphone works well and louder than both 6230b and 6620. Voices come out clear.
Headset useI haven't tested this.
Multimedia FeaturesCameraThe 6682 mega pixel CMOS camera is a good one. Daytime shots are good, nighttime shots are pretty good, a bit nosier than the night mode on the 6230b but better than the night mode found on the S710a. Night mode requires you to have a fairly still hand to make the shots effective. Unlike previous Nokia camera phones and like the S710a, pictures taken with the 6682 are in Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) format. It's a variation on the JPEG that includes extra interchange information such as shutter speed, focal length, and lens aperture.
Like the S60 cameras phones before this, the UI is the same so you can refer to a 6620 review.
Shoot modeAllows normal, sequence mode and self-timer.
A normal shot dependant on other settings of the phone. The sequence mode will take 6 quick shots and the self-timer allows a shot to be taken 10, 20, or 30 seconds after setting it.
there are 2 pic sizes
1280 * 960
640 * 480
there are 3 quality settings for each pic size
Basic
Normal
High
A bit odd they don't have a smaller size for you to use for picture ID in the address book. But picture ID isn't standard on the S60 address book, something they haven't addressed yet.
Normal modeThe 3 second shutter lag will annoy some people looking for a quick shooting camera phone. But shutter speed in daylight is very fast.
6682 (default settings)
6230
6682 (default settings)
6230
The edges of the pictures taken by the 6682 are fairly clear but color reproduction seems to suffer or at least needs you to play around with the camera settings
night modeThere's a night mode as well, but it's fairly hard to use as it requires you to be completely still.
6682 no flash (default settings)
6682 with flash (default settings)
6230
I thought the 6230 had a really good night mode. The 6682 puts it to shame.
self timerSelf descriptive, it allows you to set up a timer and get into the shot
color tonenormal/negative/sepia/black and White
These are all filters that can be applied to a picture for added effect.
white balanceAutomatic/Sunny/Cloudy/Incandescent/Fluorescent.
Various modes of course for various conditions, I left the phone on auto to take pics but I'm starting to see the overly yellow appearance compared to the 6230. I would suggest using Incandescent as it keeps white looking white.
contrastAllows you to adjust the picture contrasting.
brightnessAllows you to adjust the brightness of the image being taken
Here are a few camera shots in various lighting conditions as well so you can see the cam in 640x480 and 1.3mpix modes.
Click the image once the page loads to get the real size of the images
Note: For my firmware version, the camera settings are not saved so you'll have to adjust the contrast/brightness/white balance/tone/flash each time you open the Camera app. I hear later firmware fix this overlook.
VideoThe phone also does Video, which is your standard QCIF 174 x 144 pixels or Sub-QCIF 128 x 96 pixel sizing. You can't use flash in video mode. About the only thing good from the standard video recording app from Nokia is you can record directly to the memory card.
ApplicationsA number of people have reported memory issues on the 6682. I'm not a type to multitask on a phone so I didn't run into such problems. The camera app has not clashed on me yet. If you're a hard core S60 app user, you might be running into memory issues where applications will close abruptly or not open at all.
JavaI've downloaded a few java games for the 6682. With a 176 x 208 TFT 265k screen, the standard size for all S60 phones as of late, Java games look good. I downloaded and played Splintered Cell - Chaos Theory, Gem Jam, and Platinum Solitaire. Even with no apps running in the background, Splintered Cell lagged as the game's background scrolled with the character and 2 other sprites were onscreen.
S60I have Frozen Bubble, vBoy, and vNES for the 6682. Frozen bubble had no troubles running and played very smoothly. vBoy and vNES played games at 100% rate but exited the game without prompting the user. I'm not sure if the app crashed as you're taken back to the standby screen but vNES or vBoy is still running in the background. Quick Office works well on the 6682 but the limited size of the screen makes reading documents in Quicksheet difficult.
N-gageI've only tried Nokia's Snakes and that doesn't want to start. Expect to run into problems running N-gage games since they were not designed for the 6682. There's a number of compatibility lists on the net.
MP3 PlayerThe phone has 8MB of internal phone memory so that's best left for ringtones and apps. At least there's the RS-MMC option where current cards are up to 512MB support. The 6682 includes stereo headset that doubles as a handsfree headset. Sound quality from the headset is good but won't take out any real quality stereo headphones. With S60 you can use the included RealPlayer or use alternatives such as OggPlay or Ultra MP3 player.
BatteryIt uses the same battery as the Nokia 6230b (BL-5C: Extended 850 mAh) so as you can imagine battery life on the 6682 is pretty weak but I've heard it's better than other S60 phones from Nokia. I get three days with medium to light usage - you'll need to recharge a bit over a day under heavy usage. If your main concern is battery life, the 6682 is not your phone. Something of very little use, but I find nice, is the Velcro on the battery charger so you can wrap it up while traveling. It's nice not to need one of those twisties or rubber band.
Ratings:
Performance...........9
Build quality...........9
Keypad...................7
Connectivity...............8
Features for $.........6
Software................9
Camera..................9, lacks auto focus but it's only a phone
Battery life.............7
Overall.....................8.5
PROS:*Strong RF
*Excellent build quality
*powerful Series 60 Symbian OS
*Beautiful screen
*Camera. 1.3 MP takes a great shot
*class 10 EDGE
*Great sound/clarity
*Amazing phonebook organization
*Customizable Active Standby
*traditional phone design
CONS:*Price. $599 USD, you can get a 6620 from Rogers with a 2 year contract for a lot less
*Battery life, huge screen, medium battery
*lack of memory
*lags pulling up S60 menus
*form factor, some won't like, it's a brick
*3 second delay on pictures captured
*cramped keyboard
*S60 UI is not for everyone
*feels like a 6620
*dual voltage RS-MMC is rare
Thanks to Treatz for lending me his stylz for this review and carmovies for some of the apps included in this review - like netmon.
