Camera Phones Plaza

The Nokia 6708 is the latest smartphone from Nokia, and the first to feature a touch screen. Looking suspiciously like the BenQ P31 that was announced eons ago, the 6708 runs on the UIQ platform, similar to the one found in the Sony Ericsson P-series of smartphones.

With a 1.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth v1.1, the Nokia 6708 seems equipped with yesterday's technology. It is a tri band GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz) phone, so business users who travel frequently will have to look elsewhere, since this isn't a world phone.

The Nokia 6708's 65k color 208x320 pixel display is relatively small when compared against typical PDAs on the market today, but quite massive for the typical phone. The display covers a good 60% of the face of the phone, and is used as the primary input mechanism for many of the phone's functions since it is touch sensitive. It is decently bright, though not as bright as some of the current PDAs on the market.

It is viewable in just about all lighting conditions, though again perhaps not as much so as many current Palm OS or Pocket PC devices. With 262k color displays the norm these days, a 65k color screen isn't really up to scratch on a smartphone. However, the 6708's display does handle colors well, and overall I would say the display is quite good.

As a still camera, the 6708 is capable of taking photos of up to 1280x1024 pixel resolution at one of three quality settings. The camera can also be used to take smaller 640x480, 320x240, or 160x120 sized images, too. When shooting 3GP or MPEG4 video clips, the image resolution is 176x144 pixels in one of the same three quality settings, and the audio can be set to one of two levels or off.

Whether using the camera for video or still images, you have the choice of a number of other settings, including a few manual white balance options (indoors, outdoors, fluorescent, automatic), TV flicker control for both 50Hz and 60Hz sets, adjustments for contrast and brightness, and an option for compensating for a backlit subject. Overall, it is quite impressive for a camera phone. The image quality itself is decent, considering the camera is of the non auto-focus type.

Once you have an image or video clip created, you can easily and quickly send it off to another person via MMS, Bluetooth, or Infrared. I was able to use all of these quite easily, sending myself MMS messages (to both a mobile phone and an email address), and files to my various Bluetooth/IR capable computers and PDAs. You can also move these onto your PC by way of the USB data cable.

The conclusion is that the Nokia 6708 is a dated machine. It is similar to the Sony Ericsson P900 in many ways, and if it were released three years ago, it might have been a real hit. I cannot recommend this phone, even if it is a slight improvement over the P900. There is still the fantastic P910i to recommend over this. Moreover, the terrible handwriting recognition software is a huge hurdle for anyone who wants to use this phone. Therefore, if you're looking for a touch screen phone running on the UIQ platform, go for the Sony Ericsson P910i or the new P990i. The Nokia 6708 is better off in the days of yesteryear.

Read full review on mobileburn.