Nokia 6610, The Almost Perfect Phone

This is my first Nokia phone and I am impressed. I recently switched from Sprint to T-Mobile service and couldn't be happier. I travel around the Washington, DC metro area for work and have no problems getting a strong signal anywhere around the Beltway.

I have previously owned Samsung and Sanyo phones with Sprint PCS service. Both (the phones and service) were reliable and worked well. I have also used 2 Motorolas with Nextel which I hated. My job provided these phones (i30 & i60) and they were crappy. The i60 actually wasn't a bad phone, but the Nextel service in the DC area is suspect. Choppy signal and to many dropped calls. Also, the Nextel walkie-talkie feature is overrated. Enough Nextel bashing.

Back to the Nokia 6610. The reason I chose this phone was because it had a speaker phone feature (the 1 thing I liked about the i60). I considered getting the Samsung SCH-400 with Sprint because it had a speaker phone, but opted against it because of the weak reception I get at my house in Silver Spring and the fact that I was tired of breaking the tops of flip phones.

The speaker phone option is really nice, especially if you hate wearing the headsets. In the car the speaker phone allows hands free use, people don't even know they are talking to me over the speaker. It is also nice when I am working. It allows me to talk on the phone and work on the computer at the same time.

The Nokia offered all of the features I was looking for (size, speaker phone, color screen) and was offered with the T-Mobile service which gets excellent reception at my house and elsewhere in the DC area. Plus, I had talked with other T-Mobile users and all were very satisfied with the service. I also couldn't beat the price. I got the phone for free with rebate from www.letstalk.com.

The only downside with this phone is the lack of voice dialing. The phone has every other feature you would want, but no voice dialing. Go figure...