Nokia 6590: Rock solid GSM/GPRS phone

I used my Nokia 6160 phone for many years. This was a very well built phone with a very nice, intuitive user interface. Most of the newer Nokia phones like the 3360 looked pretty cheaply built, so I never upgraded my phone until recently when I switched to AT&T GSM/GPRS service.

Initially, I was planning to get a Nokia 8390 or Ericsson T68i but I liked the 6590 I saw at the store much better. It did seem to be very well built and had a much more solid feel than the 8390. Even though Ericsson T68i also seems to be a very nice phone, I decided to go with the 6590 since it was smaller, more elegant looking and also had the same familiar Nokia interface and menus I was used to.

After using this phone for about 2 months, I am convinced that I made the right decision. My wife has a T68i so I was able to made several side-by-side comparisons. The T68i definitely has a better browser and a nicer color display, however, I use my phone primarily for voice. Of course, web access through GPRS is useful, as it is convenient to be able to check the arrival time of a plane, get directions, etc. every once in a while. It is even useful to be able to read the news when you are waiting at a doctor's office, etc, and the 6590s browser is good enough for these types of occasional web usage. The web browser that comes with the 6590 is a little bit counter intuitive, especially selecting text boxes and entering text is somewhat tedious, but for basic browsing it does an OK job.

Even though it is on the rather small side, the display on the 6590 is very crisp, and the blue backlight is way cool.

One of the best features of the 6590 is battery life. I can talk for more than 3 hours on one charge, and standby time is from many days to over a week depending on how good a signal you get and how much browsing you do. Voice quality, which is mostly dependent on the quality of signal reception, is generally decent and I don't get many dropped calls. This phone definitely seems to be a little bit better than my wife's T68i in terms of voice quality, signal reception and dropped calls.

6590 has many built in bonus functions. The phone book has been much improved compared to what I had on my 6160. You can now store multiple numbers per name and the number of contacts has been increased to 500. There is also a much nicer calendar that can keep track of your appointments, birthdays, etc. and can even display a month view.

It is possible to synchronize the contacts, calendar and to-do list with Outlook or a few other PC applications using the PC Suite you can download from the Nokia site. The PC Suite also comes with a few fun, if not useful, applications like the ring tone composer. 6590 does not have bluetooth, so you have to use an irDA port to synchronize with your PC. I have a notebook with an irDA port, so this was very convenient for me, but if you have a desktop, you may have to get one of the USB to irDA adapters that cost around $40 if you need to sync with your phone. Now hat irDA ports are disappearing from most newer laptops, maybe Nokia should sell these USB to irDA adapters on their accessories web site.

The headset that comes with the 6590 is pretty nice. It has a button that enables you to answer calls or hang-up. 6590 also has voice recognition based dialing and control features, which can be very useful if you are wearing the headset and you don't want to use the keyboard on the phone.

One of the bonus features on the 6590 is an FM radio. The radio has pretty good reception, but it only supports mono through the supplied Nokia headset. You can set preset stations using the keyboard and then change stations using the button on the headset without touching the phone. Apparently, some of the newer Nokia phones, which are not yet being sold in the US, also support stereo FM radio functionality.

One thing to watch for is the antenna. The entire upper back section of the phone, which is a darker color than the rest of the phone, is the antenna, so you should not touch this area, especially when talking, otherwise, you can lose the signal. With such a small phone, it takes a little practice to get used to this.