nokia 6680 review

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Picture courtesy of andrew sherry.

Average Ratings

Value for Money	7.6/10
Reviewer Rating	7.8/10
Overall Rating	7.4/10

70% Recommended26 out of 37 Reviews

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By KrupaCymru on 6th Jun 2006

KrupaCymru's Ratings

Reviewers Network	Orange
Time Phone Owned	6 - 12 Months
Screen Quality	10/10
Battery Life	8/10
Features	10/10
Reception	7/10
Style	6/10
Value for money	9/10
Overall value	7/10
KrupaCymru's recommendation

Good Points

Lots of great features included
Expandable memory (I know someone with a 1GB card)
Screen quality is excellent
1.3MP camera takes decent pics
Nice and cheap now. In fact, it's free from most places, which makes it cracking value
Really tough case. The screen hasn't scratched like previous phones I've had, and the colour hasn't chipped off

Bad Points

Orange Homescreen makes this a bit of a pain to get used to
It's very slow, especially on Orange. Buy this phone on 3 or O2, or get it flashed to non-Orange software
Camera cover is creaky, and it doesn't feel that well built
It's, um, beige/gold if you buy it on Orange (picky I know)
Doesn't come with any games
Lack of backwards compatibility with some Symbian applications

General Comments

I have now had the Nokia 6680 mobile phone for 11 months, and I am coming up to an upgrade, so I thought I would add my comments on almost a year of using it.

When I first received the handset I was very impressed with it. The screen quality is stunning, which means all your pictures and videos look great. It's also got two cameras which makes video calling easy. It's not too big or chunky (compared to the 6600 I had before), and the shutter to protect the rear camera lens is a great idea (if a little poorly put together).

Software wise, this phone is obviously designed for the on-the-go businessman. There are no games, but a range of programs to read Microsoft Office documents and PDF files, which is nice. Being a Symbian phone, you can load all sorts on here though. But if you're upgrading from an old school Series 60 phone (7650, 3650 or 6600 for example) you may find a few applications aren't backwards compatible.

What I was less impressed with is the Orange branding this phone comes with. Get it out of the box and you're confronted with an ORANGE startup, an ORANGE theme with ORANGE wallpaper, and an ORANGE screensaver. Press the menu and, yes, that's ORANGE too. So, a couple of minutes were required to put the screen saver back to the Nokia clock, and the theme back to the discreet blue, which really shows off the quality screen.

What is a little less easy to get rid of though is the Orange homescreen. This fires up after the phone has booted, so you get a grey screen with "LOADING..." on it while the phone loads the unnecessary software.

This isn't too difficult to get rid of. There is an application called HSKILLER which forces it to run in the background, or you can press and hold the menu key and select Telephone to get rid temporarily. However, neither of these stop what the homescreen actually does.

The homescreen stops all the usual Nokia accessibility, and it is very frustrating. It completely overrides the Active Standby function (which, I'm told, is a principle attraction to the phone) and stops you having shortcuts off the two navi keys and central joypad. Even more annoying is the way it stops the received message windows from popping up, even when you wipe the damned homescreen out of visibility.

So, that was my first issue with the phone.

What I also discovered was that this software is slowing down an already none-too-quick phone and making it more unreliable. I have a friend with a 6680 on Three and his is markedly faster and more reliable. Mine is prone to crashing, cutting off phone calls, and even resetting randomly. Also, if you leave the Gallery open you can't take pictures, so make sure you close it down properly each time.

Fitting a larger memory card worsens this problem, so expect really slow gallery loading times if you do. You have been warned!

However, in spite of its faults, it's fine most of the time. It's just frustrating using a phone which is capable (in theory) of so much, but seems to be held back by a mixture of inadequate memory and Orange branding.

It's also worn very well. The sliding lens cover is slightly scratched, but it's hardly noticeable. The chrome around the front camera has also sustained some battle scars, but nothing serious. The screen itself seems to be very tough however, and has not picked up any scratches this year. The case, despite meeting with concrete a couple of times, is also fairly resistant to chips and scratches. I'm impressed!

Overall, it is a good phone but a little slow, and not quite up to the build quality of the N70. If you get offered it for a knock down price, it's well worth having.

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