Nokia 6555 Sand Cell Phone

Cons: Nowhere near 6.5 hours talk time. More like 1.5. External speaker not great. Need to turn down the volume in order to prevent distortion in speakerphone conversations and ringing. Morally bankrupt service providers (Such as Fido) are able to lock out features such as mp3 ringtones in order to extort extra money from their subscribers.

Summary: I purchased this phone for 3 reasons. 1. Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities for connection to my car hands free and head set. 2. Advertised talk time and battery life. 3. Advertised (On Nokia's web site specifications) ability to play mp3 ringtones and use them as a sort of caller id. Well 1 out of 3 isn't too bad I guess. After purchasing this phone I found it was really easy to transfer my previously purchased mp3 ringtones via bluetooth to either the phone memory or the microSD card. I was really happy about that until I went to use them and got the "Not allowed by activation key" error. After talking with both Nokia and Fido I was basically told that the ringtones have to be drm enabled in order to be played. I was told this is to protect the Artists rights. I have a couple of problems with that explanation. 1. Why are only the ringtones protected and not the actual music player? 2. Why should I have to pay $3.00 or more for a 30 second clip of a song when the whole song can normally be purchased for $0.99. Obviously this is simply the service provider distorting the intended use of DRM and trying to create some extra revenue. Personally when my contract with Fido expires I will be moving to a service provider that has higher ethical standards than this. I quite like the phone and would even be willing to put up with the mythical battery life. But I like my ringtones. and since the manufacturer (Nokia) is complicit in this scheme by allowing Fido and other service providers to alter their phone in this manner i will be given this phone a lower score than I might otherwise have given it.

Cons: Flimsy construction, fragile, slippery plastic housing hard to grasp

Summary: We got these phones with our AT&T (ex-Cingular) GSM account in December 2007 ( 2 phones.) While they have great voice quality and good performance, they are in my opinion about as robust as a canary. The plastic shell is soft, too slippery and thin. Dropping it or accidentally sitting on it when it's in your pocket will likely result in a cracked and broken LCD display either on the back side or interior screen. The menus are arranged to direct you into pay-extra services when first opened, such as AT&T's music downloader, instead of something more obvious and useful such as the address book. The "push to talk" button (should really be "push for extra charges") is too close to the earpiece volume control buttons for me and easy to hit by accident. One of our 6555's comes up with "SIM card not initialized" regularly for no reason and has to be turned off and re-booted to clear this. I use the phone about an hour a day and it requires charging every other day for 2.5 hours, which is better than my previous phone. The charger jack is on the side instead of the bottom, making it awkward to use the phone while the charger is in use. In my opinion, this is another example of the latest 3G phone with too many features you don't need and will never use (unless you are a trendy high school kid.) A minor inconvenience is that the backlights on the keyboard, and the screen, don't stay lit long enough. Pause while dialing a number manually and everything will go dark until the next key is pressed, which is awkward in the dark. The display is a decent size and bright (so far) and the menu button easy to use. I haven't used the camera, so can't comment on it. All in all, I am satisfied with this phone, which is what AT&T is presently giving you here when you initiate service with a contract, however I am constantly worried about accidentally breaking it, which I never was with any other phone.

Cons: The camera is easy to use, but I have yet to figure out how to email pictures directly from the phone. You can bluetooth or text the pictures to another phone, (and then send to your email from that phone) but not straight to your email without a special usb adaptor link that you must purchase/order separate.

Summary: We love this phone. It was a decent price, and it has great graphics and enough music featues to impress my first time, cell phone owning teenage son.