Nokia Nostalgia – Nokia 7650 Cameraphone (2002), a smartphone ahead of its time

*** UPDATE May 2011 ***

Click below for an exclusive Techspot.tv ‘Retro Review’ video of the Nokia 7650:

Still recovering from the torrent of mobile telephone tech unfurled at Nokia World earlier this week? Calm yourself, put down those paracetamols and take some deep breaths because here at the Techspot.tv Surgery we have concocted the perfect antidote…

Back in the heady days of 2002, Japan and Korea hosted an enthralling football World Cup, Tom Cruise’s hit Minority Report inspired a generation of user-interface design, and the all-conquering Nokians from Finland were at the top of the mobile pile with their four digit handhelds.

Nokia 7650 in action

Amongst Nokia’s headline acts was the 7650 which introduced a number of ground-breaking features to the consumer mobile market: it was the first Nokia camera phone (in fact Nokia was one of the first consumer mobile makers to combine phone and camera), one of Nokia’s first colour screens, their first Symbian OS phone and the first in a long tradition Series 60 devices still going strong today.

We’re suckers for a spot of tech nostalgia here at techspot.tv, and with Nokia attempting to rock the world with their tempting new releases, we had all the excuses we needed to dust off, charge-up and power-on the vintage Nokia 7650 to see how it compares with the current crop of smart phones. A day’s use down the line, and this is how it fared:

Features – undoubtedly, this handset was way ahead of its time. Aside from featuring a camera (heralding a new age of MMS bullying and citizen papping) which could record and send both still snaps as well as movies (which Apple’s God-phone didn’t get around to until 2009), it also featured downloadable applications and a multitasking OS. Above all, the Symbian S60 operating system made – and still makes – it a pleasure to use.

Battery Life – surprisingly good: still sporting its original battery, after an overnight charge it lasts all day having made a few calls, taken a few snaps and played a few games of the timeless classic Snake.

Pocketability – it is a tad bulky, but no more than many of Nok’s newer smarties; the compact slide-out keyboard stows away tidily and, despite the lack of touchscreen, many functions are fully accessible when the keys are hidden.

Killer Apps – “What do you mean, your phone has a camera? It’ll never catch on.”; Snake.

Eight years on and the Nok's still got a solid slide

Multimedia – A let-down by today’s standards, its Achilles heel being its proprietary headphone socket and a meagre 4MB of RAM. But perhaps this isn’t surprising: Creative’s DAP MP3 player was still niche in 2002 and Apple’s iPod was still Mac/FireWire only, so solid state music hadn’t captured the public imagination quite yet.

Connectivity – Bluetooth, Infrared and GPRS GSM; unfortunately 3G wasn’t yet a feature on phones of 2002 (and still isn’t on some Blackberrys of today) and Wi-Fi was just beginning to gain acceptance. It is email capable but web-browsing was courtesy of a the hapless WAP. Nevertheless, it featured both Bluetooth and data-cable tethering to a PC via the Nokia Data Suite, along with phone backup, syncing etc.

Screen – retina display it ain’t, but a bold bright and colourful display it is, blowing away the mostly monochrome mobile market of the time.

Cool Factor – the phone benefitted from being promoted in one of the top-grossing sci-tech films of the year, Minority Report, and its quirky retro-future looks still imbue it with gallons of geek chic.

We’ve loved having this phone out and about for the day. No, perhaps it’s not the all-singing, all-dancing and all-enveloping mobile experience to which we’ve slowly grown accustomed but, perhaps surprisingly given its age, in many areas it can still stand proudly on its own as a remarkably capable smart-phone. We look forward to seeing if the newest bevy of smart phones announced by the Finnish wizards earlier this week will still fare as well in another 8 years’ time.

Do you have an old mobile sadly gathering dust in the cupboard that could give some of today’s super-phones a run for their money? Leave a comment below and let us know…