Nokia 6820 / 6820i
Average Ratings
Great Phone!
I have had this phone for about 6 months now and i absolutely love it. It is by far the best phone i have ever had. I am a Nokia freak, I will never own anything but a Nokia for the rest of my life. For all you people that complain about the camera, bye a digital. This is a phone, not a camera.
PROS:
-Very reliable (mine has never broke)
-Flip open QWERTY keyboard
-Easy to navigate menu
-Durable
-Nicely placed and sized buttons
-Bluetooth
-Infrared
-Email
-Internet
-Speakerphone is loud
-Ear piece is loud
-Great Phone overall
CONS:
-No MP3 ringtones (but you can get them through bluetooth)
Overall i think this phone is excellent. Good choice.
My provider is CellularOne and i wouldn't change that either.
excellent
I am reviewing the GSM 900/1800/1900 version of the 6820.
The RF performance on GSM 1900 is excellent. It rivals the Nokia 6310i. Unlike the Nokia 6200 and 7210, the sound quality is also very good. The speaker volume is nice and loud.
This is a series 40 class 2 EDGE phone with Bluetooth. I typically see about 70-95Kbps on the AT&T GSM/EDGE network here in Seattle. It connected flawlessly with my Mac Powerbook G4 without any special effort.
The screen is typical of the series 40 Nokia phones - it is certainly adequate.
The supports both the newer grid layout and the more traditional list menu layout we're used to with Nokia phones. Otherwise, the user interface is typical Nokia.
The foldout keyboard works well. However, it is not backlit, so is difficult to use in the dark. The usual phone keypad, of course, is backlit, so one can resort to that and using T9 in the dark.
The built-in email client works fine. Nothing special to report - I plugged in my ISPs settings and it worked.
The WAP browser is WAP 2.0 and wants a proxy server like the Nokia 6600. AT&T mmode is obviously not fully compatible with it yet, so WAP on this phone is not yet particularly useful (many of the mmode pages won't load properly)
The phone does have a camera, but the quality isn't great. I'm not particularly surprised, but don't expect to use the pictures it produces for much of anything.
Polyphonic ringtones can be simply copied to the phone via Bluetooth.
This is the first phone on the market with support for EDGE and Bluetooth - and it does that well. The keyboard works nicely for messaging, and the good RF performance and sound quality make this an excellent all round phone.
Why not 5 stars? Well, I would give it 5 stars if it had class 8 or 10 EDGE and was quad-band. However, it is certainly one of the best GSM phones I've ever owned.
Ed. note: The keyboard is backlit - the backlight must be manually activated, however.
What an AMAZING PHONE!!!!
S/W version: 3.21
Which band version: European 900/1800/1900
This phone is my personal 7210 successor. It will include only a couple of references to the 7210. With its ultra-compact size, QWERTY keypad, and camera W/ video recording, this is probably going to be my best phone ever!
PROS:
-Video recording w/ sound is awesome
-The general color of it is very nice
-ultra-compact --> smaller than a 7210!!
-new nokia user-interface with an icon-style menu and a 5-way joystick --> i've been waiting for this for sooo long!
-beautiful back-light
-great battery life and RF: i have used this phone in Springfield, Massachusettes and the New York City metro area so far on the T-Mobile network.
-finally, Nokia allows the fone to send things other than contacts thru Infrared!!
-bluetooth
-wap 2.0 browser
-wallet client stores info on any credit cards, tickets, receipts, etc.
-new 16-tone polyphonic speaker (up from 4-tone on the 7210) sounds grrreat!
-for all you [music-ringtone]-haters, there are plenty of regular "ring-ring" ringtones
-operator logos work finally (on 7210 they didn't with the same SIM card)
-EDGE data connectivity
CONS:
-camera is below-par with quality and size of photos
-standard ringtones (not downloaded) are very bad and have almost no music to them!
Some last thoughts:
When i had the 7210 as my main phone and as my favorite phone ever, i didn't know that nokia could ever make a successor to this bug-free phone.
Here it is! the 6820 is the new bug-free handset that successes my 7210 (personally), I'm changing my mind on my favorite phone. this is probably it.
my other phones that i('ve) used and their provider:
Samsung SGH-E715 (T-Mobile)
Sony Ericsson T68i (Cingular)
Nokia 6800 (Cingular)
Nokia 7210 (Cingular and T-Mobile)
Nokia N-Gage (T-Mobile)
Nokia 6820
-Video recording w/ sound is awesome
-The general color of it is very nice
-new nokia user-interface with an icon-style menu and a 5-way joystick!
-fair battery life if you are a heavy user
-finally, Nokia allows the fone to send things other than contacts thru Infrared!!
-FINALLY ANOTHER Phone that has BLUETOOTH
-wap 2.0 browser
-wallet client stores info on any credit cards, tickets, receipts, etc.
-new 16-tone polyphonic speaker (up from 4-tone on the 7210) needs standard ring tones. Sounds not the best when outdoors cant be heard if music is selected.!
-for all you [music-ringtone]-haters, there are plenty of regular "ring-ring" ringtones
-operator logos work finally (on 7210 they didn't with the same SIM card)
-EDGE data connectivity
CONS:
-camera is below-par with quality and size of photos
-standard ringtones (not downloaded) are very bad and have almost no music to them!
Some last thoughts:
I had the 6800 as my main phone and as my favorite phone ever, i purchased the 6820 for my wife to send pictures when she see something interesting. Didn't know that nokia 6820 to live up to what the 6800 started which was not bug-free, but close.
Here it is! is the new bug-free handset that successes my (personally), I'm changing my mind on my favorite phone. this is probably it.
my other phones that i('ve) used and provider:
Nokia 3100 (ATT)
Sony Ericsson T68i (ATT)
Nokia 6800 (ATT)
It's OK, not great
I have the 6820 with AT&T service. Nokia gave this phone a lot of thought, and a lot of features, but my phone is buggy and unreliable.
I started with AT&T long ago, with its TDMA network. This was the worst network known to mankind -- beat even by two cans and a string. Their customer service was terrible too. I waited it out to take my number with me to another carrier (i.e., Verizon), but, at the last moment, decided to try GSM because I often travel to Europe and Verizon's phones stink.
First, a few comments about AT&T's GSM. It is much, much better than TDMA, but it still falls short of Verizon's CDMA. I'm in the NY metro area and calls are still dropped and/or become temporarily inaudible (although this is now an uncommon event). AT&T customer service is greatly improved (probably because, with increased competition, they are fighting to retain customers).
Now, turning to the phone:
PROS:
It is small and light.
QWERTY keyboard works well, and can be backlit.
Bluetooth and IR.
Contact list easy to use.
CONS:
On/Off button works intermittently.
Volumn switch works intermittently.
Phone turns off by itself sometimes.
Backlit screen inexplicably turns off at the most inopportune times.
SIM errors every few days that require removal of SIM card to reset.
Bang the phone by accident, get a SIM error.
Putting the phone in your pocket or briefcase, etc., often results in accidentally pressed keys (e.g., an unintentionally connection to AT&T's M-Mode Internet).
The best feature of this phone, and the reason I bought it, was because it was supposed to implement RIM/Blackberry e-mail service (RIM licensed Nokia for this technology). But AT&T quietly retracted this feature a few days after I purchased the phone.
Since I received an early 6820, I imagine I received one of the more buggy operating systems. Nevertheless, I have decided to return this phone for the Motorola V600, which arrives tomorrow.
The best
This is the best phone I've bought so far. I had a Nokia 3300 but the novelty of the mp3 player played out. The flip out keyboard is a real conversation piece. I also like how the keyboard lites up unlike the Nokia 3300 which was a challenge typing at night. The only con I have is the picture quality of the camera. All in all a must have!!
6820: a compromise solution
I purchased this phone as I wanted something as a stopgap until the Motorola MPx arrived. I was disappointed that some basic features were missing.
PROS:
--------
Great ergonomics, even for someone with big hands.
RF appears good.
Good Battery life.
Easy workable keyboard.
Good integration with Outlook 2002.
NEUTRAL:
---------
Small Screen:
It's a phone people, not a 50" plasma TV.
MP3 Player:
It's a phone people. I don't care if it can store and play the entire catalog of Beethoven's works.
Camera:
It's a phone people. I used the camera to take some quick shots of fans I was thinking of buying. It was adequate for that. It's not designed to be a Minox SpyCam or anything like that.
CONS:
-----
RINGTONES:
Weird MIDI format makes using other ringtones a bit problematic at times.
Inablility to assign specific ringtones to specific people (groups are not individuals...and I have more than 5 "groups") is a minus. Even my MOT V60 could do that.
Lack of ability to use MP3's for this purpose appears to put Nokia behind the curve here. This is not to be confused with the lack of an MP3 Player.
Limited memory locations:
I know it has one-touch dialing...but how about some shortcuts for other numbers rather than having to dig through the screens to find them.
Limited Voice Dialing:
Takes this out of the road-warrior category.
Volume/Ring Control:
Burying this deep in the menus makes this a pain to change. This could be allevieated by allowing it to be controlled through a voice command.
Bluetooth: A power eater. Easy to turn off, by using the built-in voice shortcut to turn on infrared, but the command to turn it back on is buried deep in the menu tree.
Menus in general:
I wish there was a way to make some shortcuts appear in a quick menu.
I would recommend this phone to almost any power phone user.
Nokia 6820 PC Suite
I find this a great phone, but the PC suite software delivered with it disappointed me very much. It is almost impossible to connect PC suite to the 6820 via bluetooth.
Version 5.65 didn't do it at all, version 5.7 did it, but has a terrible UI. Version 6.0 has a better UI, but is a connection disaster. The only thing that helps me is to re-install the complete PC suite software, than always 1 time it connects immediately without problems (proving it is a software problem and not a hardware or bluetooth problem), but after that, 9 out of 10 days it doesn't find my phone again.
I must say I am very disappointed with this software. The phone itself is great, but Nokia doesn't seem capable of writing this kind of connection software and also the functionality of the PC software is very limited. It's really nothing compared to a real PIM package (such as Lotus organizer or Act). And they claim to be able to sync with Lotus, but this really fails. If it succeeds to connect, it will soon tell you the phone's memory is full, while I am still using only a fraction of its shared memory.
So, I think Nokia still has a long way to go...
Regards, paul.
The Glory of the Nokia 6820
I intend to compare this phone to how it fairs when compared to the other phones available in the market right now as of Aug 23rd 2004.
I will rate this phone with a 0-10 rating in each category:
Price: 5/10
Reception: 8.5/10
Features: 9/10
Appearance: 10/10
The strong points of this phone:
-It's attractive and an eye catcher, which tends to warrant a lot of attention (which seems almost solely due to its flip keypad).
-This phone has everything except a Radio and a Flip, but seems to make up for it
-Reception is decent and sounds to be identical to the reception on its predecessor, the 6800.
Some of it features have gone somewhat obsolete as compared to other high end phones, which has affected my rating of the phone to slide down a bit.
-More recently released phones havethousands more colors than this one which only has 4096 compared with the 64k+ colors appearing on color screen models that came out during the same time period as this phone.
-The graphics on this phone are just a notch below par when compared to recent Motorola, LG or Samsung models.
-The price of this phone kills my rating for it because I believe it's a $100.00 above where it ought to have been when released (369.99 retail). I do take into fact that the phone is packed with a lot of neat features which probably bumped up the typical developement cost for this phone to being more than average, but needs to be more competitive with a price around 269.99 to strengthen its overall appeal to new and existing customers.
-To keep this high priced phone from falling short in appearance, a protective case is recommended because it lacks a cover for its screen.
Remember: Technology, technology, technology. Us spoiled Americans and other 1st world countries around the world need to be on the cutting edge in order to be satisfied...
but let us not assume that we're in the right mind...
Overall Satisfaction as of 8-23-04: 4.5
Excellent Design and Quality
This is my first cell phone in almost 8 years. I decided to buy one because of the MMS/SMS text messaging, wireless internet, camera and email options that are now available on today's mobile phones. I decided on the Nokia 6820 for the brand name quality, bluetooth connectivity and for the fold out QWERT keyboard that has a back light for use in the dark. I am a bit disappointed that sending an email with a picture attachment to another email address is not allowed with the Nokia 6820. You can only send a picture to another phone number via MMS messaging. With the Bluetooth option or by using a USB adapter you can upload the pictures to a PC and send them to an email address thus taking some of the fun away from sending a picture to a friend's email address while on the beach. Other than that this is a great phone and I look forward to much use and fun from this masterfully designed piece of technology.
