Nokia Series 60 Camera Phone Duel : The Nokia 6680 vs. the Nokia 7610
After weeks and weeks of looking at them, after being given one in a promotion last July but it has never arrived, last friday during a very good Vodafone holiday promotion, I went out and bought a Nokia 6680. The deal was that if I signed up for a one year contract, of which I have been meaning to do, I could get a Nokia 6680 for cheap. Relatively cheap.
Now with my lovely and beloved 7610, I could blog directly from the phone with Lifeblog in the US with AT&T Wireless as well as send and receive any email amongst a host of other features for a reasonable price per month. But Vodafone in Ireland does not provide such features, to blog my photos from my Nokia 7610 phone, I have had to use MMS rather than Lifeblog, there is no email with the Pay as you Go plan, as well as very little other features, and data transfer and/or internet features are expensive. It has been a frustrating eleven weeks in moblogging land.
Upon the purchase of the Nokia 6680 and the signing of the contract, most of these troubles dissolved, but at a price. From the 6680, I can moblog to any Typepad installation with Vodafone ISP (their email access point, not their GPRS/WAP access point), but I can't moblog to my Movable Type 3.2 installation (once again, Martin has kindly provided a hack, but it is not working for me). I can use the Lifeblog on the 6680 and on my PC to send photos to Flickr and then to this blog via email or MMS.
But how does the 6680 perform compared to the 7610?
Well, the 6680's 1.3 megapixel photos are 300 dpi and they are at 1280 by 960, rather than the 7610's 1.0 megapixel photos which are at 72 dpi and 1152 by 864 dpi. The 6680's photos are also warmer where as the 7610's are a bit skewed to the blue range.
On the 6680, the LifeBlog (not installed on the phone by Vodafone by downloaded by me from the Nokia website) allows for multiple blog settings, supposedly to more blogging software than just Typepad (also to Movable Type, Live Journal, etc.). The 6680 has a keypad that is more straightforward than the 7610's in many folks estimation, but I am now pushing the wrong buttons as I am used to the 7610's curved keypad. The keypads are springier on the 6680 than on the 7610 and react faster.
My biggest disappointments with the 6680 so far are the complete lack of a hook for a wrist leash. The 7610 and other Nokia's have an area where you can attach a wrist "leash" to the camera as to not lose it when you are taking pictures or have it in your pocket, as it is attached to your wrist. I use this ALL the time, esp. when taking concert photos. The 6680 does not have any type of hooking area for a leash nor does it come with a wristband leash. This is a problem for me, esp. since the 6680 is bulkier than the 7610 and bit too big for my hands, I will drop it at some point and insured it with Vodafone.
Let's talk design. The 7610 is beautiful. Hands down, no contest, much better looking in terms of the exterior case product design than the 6680 or even any of the new lustful 2.0 megapixel N-Series cameraphones. Why has Nokia returned to the generic brick? Why? If the customer is going to spend hundreds of dollars or Euros for a high end cameraphone, can Nokia not make it beautiful, functional, and safe?
Nokia, please make any future cameraphones with a leash, it makes me highly nervous to have such a high end cameraphone with no abilit y to safely hold it with small hands.
Now for the good part, a photo comparison of the Nokia 7610 versus the Nokia 6680.
I took the following photos on Sunday, Dec. 11th standing in the same place for each shot. For processing, I made the field equal by setting both cameraphone's photos to 72dpi and at 500 by 375 pixels. Click on each photo to expand the thumbnail.
| Nokia 7610 in the left column | Nokia 6680 in the right column | |
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Elemmaciltur
Yup, one notices the difference between both phones.
About the look, you have to consider the fact that the 60-series phones, as well as those sumptuous and lustful N-series, are actually pre-concepted as business smart-phones. So, the look is classical. Whilst the 70-series are fashion phones, so they can be extravagant. I mean, if I were to go for the look, I'd try to treasure on my patience-pot and wait out until early next year when the l'amour collection comes out (1st quarter 2006) and choose either between the 7380 (2 megapixel camera-stick phone) or the 7370 (1.3 megapixel camera-slip phone).