Full disclosure up front: The Sony Ericsson m600i smartphone is not for everyone. It has some quirks and flaws, and the fact that it's only compatible with European high speed networks is a major shortcoming for a smartphone to be used in the U.S.
That being said, I love this phone. There's no camera and I still love this phone. I'm a righty and the jog wheel is placed for left thumb scrolling and I still love this phone. The first m600i I got my hands on had buggy firmware and wouldn't connect to the Internet and I still love this phone.
Why? Because it's so elegant and pretty that I like using it. Sometime's it's just that simple.
A lot of the reasons I like using the m600i have to do with the UIQ 3.0 interface it's running on top of Symbian OS 9.1. That and the phone's clean, simple look and it's innovative QWERTY keypad. This hardware/software duo makes the m600i one of the most elegant phones I've ever had the pleasure of using. Of course some people find that same combination to be strange, annoying, and even ugly. Like I said, this phone's not for everyone. But I love it. And no matter what you think of the look, there's no denying the flexible power of a phone with Symbian under the hood.
The m600i is tall and wide and slim. At 107 x 57 x 15 mm, it's noticeably taller than your average candybar phone, slimmer than most smartphones, and wider than nearly everything this side of the MOTORAZR.(it's actually nearly a full centimeter wider than the V3). Given these dimensions, the device has a propensity to make a dramatic first impression: people aren't used to a handheld that's so "wide and flat." Some people l showed it to loved it while others ... well, not so much.
A 2.6" QVGA touchscreen takes up the upper two-thirds of the front panel, with a very cleanly laid-out 20-button keypad dominating the lower third. Perhaps it's the use of simple shapes that makes the device look so elegantly simple to me - the phone is a rectangle, the screen a similar but smaller rectangle, and the keypad a symmetrical grid of even smaller rectangles. Whatever the philosophy behind the m600i's industrial design magic, it worked on me: I find the phone's overall look stylish and calming, as though it can somehow help me "Zen" my way through my daily affairs.
Available in Crystal White and Granit Black, the m600i is constructed from plastic with a matte finish. The black version I tested featured silver plastic side panels and sky blue accents. Labeling on the keypad was in white with ALT-activated functions in sky blue. The keypad is unique in that the fifteen main buttons are actually rocker switches that can be pressed to the left or right to access different functions. The top left key, for instance, is Q to the left and W to the right. As such, SE was able to spread the alphabet out over only 15 buttons.
I really took to the dual-button keys, though I can easily imagine that some people would hate this system. The concave keys are large enough and comfortably spaced for easy typing, and the upturned left/right edges make for easier hunting and pecking. More on the use of the keypad for messaging and other applications will follow later in the review.
The rear panel of the phone is empty save for an SE logo and a blue accent mark, as the M600i does not have a camera. A panel covering the lower 60% of the rear panel slides off to give access to the battery and a rather difficult to access SIM card slot.
On the left side of the phone, we find the jog wheel and return button as well as a corner-mounted slot for the included stylus. The jog wheel is odd in that it's mounted on the left panel - as opposed to the more common right-panel placement - and that there's a raised plastic ridge in front of the wheel. The left-side placement can be justified by the idea that most users will use their right hand to access the touchscreen (via stylus or fingertip) and so want the left thumb in proximity to the wheel. Why there's a plastic ridge in front of the wheel, I'm still not sure - whatever tactile guidance it might be meant to afford quickly turned into a game of "Wait, is this the wheel? No, I'm trying to press the ridge again" for me.
The right panel of the device features a single programmable button labeled with an @ symbol, and the M2 memory card slot. Sony Ericsson built the m600i with yet another version of their Memory Stick removable memory line, the M2 Micro. What's nice about the M2 is that it's super small, which likely helped keep the m600i so slim. What's a pain about the M2 is that it's neither compatible with nor as inexpensive as the original Memory Stick lines. A 64MB M2 card was included in the box.
A power button and IR sensor are mounted on the top panel of the phone, while the accessory port and microphone are found on the bottom. As is the trend in most mobile phones these days, a single accessory port is used to connect the m600i to the included AC adapter, stereo headset, and data cable - only one of which may be used at a time.
The m600i felt great in my hand and when held to my ear for phone calls. The phone's wide profile made it quite natural to hold, and I took pretty quickly to typing with my thumb tips on the dual button keys. While the jog wheel took a little getting used to, I ultimately found it no harder or easier to use than the jog wheels on BlackBerries and other mobiles. The overall look and feel of the m600i is very European to me, in the sense of a simple, functional design characteristic of our neighbors across the pond.
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4.5
