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Photograph courtesy of NOKIA
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By WILSON ROTHMAN
I've been worried about Nokia for a while. A powerhouse in earlier days of the digital cell phone, the company seemed to be resting on its laurels for some time with super-reliable yet super-dull phones. Although other cool color-screen Nokias can be found in Europe, the 3650 is the first model seen stateside which demonstrates that Nokia hasn't been sleeping on the job.
At a glance, the 3650 is unlike any phone you've ever seen. For one thing, it has a circular keypad. If you use muscle-memory to dial numbers, you're in trouble. But when I looked straight at the keys while typing, it wasn't so bad.
One of the cooler features of the phone is the camera that rides on its back. Other phones also have cameras with 640x480 still resolution, but the 3650 also lets you shoot a 10-second video clip complete with sound, and transmit it to other 3650s or desktop PCs via e-mail, Bluetooth or infrared. The video option is enticing but still buggy. First, the sound is muffled even at point-blank range, and the video quality is poor. Second, people receiving your video clips must download 7.5 MB worth of proprietary Nokia software to view the 100KB clip. (Mac users need not apply.) Third, while upload of pictures and video is remarkably fast, speedy delivery is not always guaranteed. One video clip took 18 hours to land in my AOL inbox. Of course, that could easily be AOL's fault.
The phone comes with other features that make it well-worth price — after rebates, T-Mobile sells it for $200 (and it's $150 from AT&T Wireless). You'll get the best still photos offered by any cell phone today, a C drive's worth of games, activities and utilities, a beautiful color screen and quick and easy interface handling, not to mention the T-Mobile T-Zones or AT&T Wireless mMode suites of downloadable Java applications.
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