With the decision to allow the legal sale of camera phones in the Kingdom, the Saudi market is sure to be flooded in coming months with new models from many manufacturers. Till now, the most popular of the camera phones has been Nokia’s 6600, known in Saudi Arabia under the nickname, “The Panda.” It is certain though that new mobile handsets will quickly challenge the 6600’s supremacy. The Nokia 6600 lags behind newer handsets in sound quality and photo quality, both important features for use as an MP3 player and camera. Plus, the phone can only sync with a PC through IrDA or Bluetooth. Some of the latest Bluetooth headsets don’t work well with the phone and some applications run extremely slowly on the 6600. However, there are plenty of Nokia 6600s already in use and Abdulelah Dandachi has written in to tell us which of his Panda’s applications he finds most interesting.

RIYADH, 21 December 2004 — The Nokia 6600 has many nice features overlooked by most users. Outside of making and receiving phone calls, e-books are probably this phone’s most useful feature. A phone with a 32MB memory card can hold dozens of full-size novels. The Nokia 6600 supports e-books in the popular Mobipocket format. Electronic reading material ranges from monthly science fiction magazines to thrillers and autobiographies. In fact, Bill Clinton’s autobiography was made available in Mobipocket format on the same day as the hardback edition was released, giving Panda owners a headstart on those unfortunates ordering hard copies online. Mobipocket e-books are available from mobipocket.com, fictionwise.com and ebooks.com.

The next best feature of the 6600 is its ability to access the Internet/GPRS. Surprisingly, the rates charged by STC for Data/Internet access using ALJAWAL service are reasonable by the region’s standards; SR20 per month, plus SR5 per MB downloaded, will give you access to your e-mail and the Internet from your phone. This allows every city in the Kingdom to become your “hotspot.”

One thing to remember though when using GPRS is that users are charged according to the amount of data downloaded, and not the time spent connected, as is the case with dial-up connections. For this reason, all major Internet sites have pages built specifically for PDAs and web phones, such as http://cnn.com/togo/, and http://bbc.co.uk/mobile. These pages are mostly text, with very little in the way of graphics. Users should check for these “PDA-friendly” versions of their favorite websites beforehand. There are many sophisticated browsers available for the Nokia 6600, such as Opera and Netfront.

But reading mail or checking a news site isn’t all this phone can do. Thanks to the Nokia 6600’s support for the versatile J2ME platform, there are countless applications and games available for Panda users. However, a word of caution. Most mobile app developers deliver their applications directly to a user’s phone, via multi-media messaging. This service is not yet available in the Kingdom, so users here shouldn’t buy programs delivered this way. Instead, look for companies that send a message containing a link from which a game or application can be downloaded, such as Mobu.com.

Most games are priced very reasonably, usually five euros. One application that many users will doubtlessly be interested in is the Philips Camcoder phone video recorder. This offers unlimited recording time, as opposed to the puny 10-13 seconds limit on the Nokia’s built-in video recording software.

And one final thing to remember when buying applications. Just as software for the Apple computer won’t work on Windows, Panda users should always make sure the programs they buy support the Nokia 6600’s operating system, the Symbian Series 60.

Also, users will find it more cost-effective to first download the apps and e-books to their home PCs via dial up and then transfer them into the phone via infrared (IrDA) or Bluetooth.