Display & Audio
With such a tall, wide form factor, the m600i has space for a nice roomy screen. Some 2.6" in size with support for 262,000 colors at QVGA resolution (240 x 320), this display does not disappoint. Everything looks great on the m600i, from menus to photos and videos. The display can be rotated to landscape orientation, which is useful when viewing multimedia or browsing Web pages on the pre-installed Opera 8 browser.
While the lack of a camera means that you'll have to download or transfer images via Bluetooth, USB, or memory card to the m600i, once they're on the phone photos can be used as wallpapers, caller ID images, and even icons on the Activity Menu.
The m600i's display is a touchscreen, and it worked quite well using the included stylus or my fingers. Calibration of the screen was easy, handwriting recognition is excellent, and general functionality was quite good. I do wish that there were more ways to navigate the device with one hand - many tasks seem to require use of either the touchscreen or both the screen and jog wheel. Being a Symbian device, however, it's more than possible that I just didn't dig deep enough to find keypad shortcuts suited to one-hand use.
You'll definitely want to keep the phone in a case or use a screen protector, since the front-mounted display is at risk to scratches (especially if you carry your phone in a pants pocket).
The m600i is a European-spec GSM phone and so lacks support for the US-only 850 band. That being said, I tested the phone in the San Francisco Bay Area on T-Mobile, which has good 900-band coverage. The tri-band 900/1800/1900 MHz GSM radio performed well, and audio quality on phone calls was very good. If you're considering the m600i, check into your carrier's 900-band coverage in your area.
Quality was fairly good using the built-in speakerphone, as well. The m600i comes with a wired stereo headset with an inline microphone, which provided very good sound during both calls and media player use. During music playback, the phone beeps to indicate an incoming call and automatically pauses and resumes your song before/after your conversation. I was able to plug the handsfree adapter from my w800i Walkman phone into the m600i and use it with other 3.5mm headphones as well as my car stereo adapter. Stereo music playback was excellent, and the integrated equalizer features useful presets as well as a full-on manual mode.
The m600i supports stereo over Bluetooth, as well. I didn't have a stereo Bluetooth device on hand, so I paired the phone with a mono Bluetooth earpiece, and the results were quite good.
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4.5
