Nokia nostalgia - the 3650 pops up again!

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Having highlighted the 2003 Nokia 3650's video capture in my top 20 phone camera innovations yesterday, Stephen Quin has pointed out that he did a whole retrospective on the 3650 recently. With some great photos and a look back at how smartphone life was in 2003, he also presents some thoughts on how much things have improved in all areas!

From Stephen's piece:

The 3650 will make calls and send text messages fine, but when looking for apps or trying to use the web you discover, or in my case remember just how bad WAP was, or maybe not. I remember being amazed using WAP for the first time and yet now it seems about as good as two cans and a piece of string, I did manage to find a version of Opera mini that simplified web navigation, but actually loading a page was timed in minutes instead of seconds and the availability of what are now expected as 'standard applications' Twitter, Facebook, Maps etc is almost nil, but then in 2003 they didn't exist and mobile web was really in its infancy. But as my main phone usage now seems to be 90% web based, I simply couldn't have coped with the 3650 on a daily basis now in 2012.

Also transferring anything onto or off the 3650 was painful, both because I had no cables for it and also because Bluetooth connection to anything except my N9 was extremely difficult. That being said, as a piece of history and an objet d'art, it's a really nice thing, a bit funky, and very colourful compared to my normal choice of handset, although Nokia seem to be increasing the availabilty of colourful handsets both with the Lumia and Asha ranges all available in a choice of bright colours and the shortly to be released Nokia 808 camera phone. Despite its size, the 3650 actually feels quite nice in the hand, the screen isn't bad and the little 0.3 Megapixel camera actually doesn't take a bad snap and I actually managed to post a couple of Tweets on it using Opera mini !!

My main conclusion is that tech just gets better and better, and that looking forward is the way to go and looking back can crack your rose tinted glasses. I'm really pleased with my new 'Toy' and really do appreciate receiving it and having the chance to use it, but I doubt I'll be using it very much !! So on with the pictures of and from the Nokia 3650.

Nokia 3650

 

Good stuff, though I was glad to rid of the horrible 3650 keypad design when I sold mine in about 2005. Although I used the 3650 for a short while, the arrival of the 6630 with stereo audio and a better camera was the real turning point for me, where I jumped from the Palm-based Treo 270 back to Symbian.

Happy days! 8-)

Source / Credit: Stephen Quin