NEC e606 review

The arrival of any new technology based on an entirely new phone network is going to raise expectations to high levels. Couple this with the frankly unbelievable price paid - more than £20 billion - by the network companies to the UK government for the 3G licences and it's not surprising that expectations for this new service are at impossibly high levels.

However, the service alone is no good without a suitable handset, and NEC's e606 is the first to arrive at our door. Integrating both 2G and 3G capabilities means the e606 is a huge phone that leaves an unsightly bulge in your trouser pocket.

The e606 has a large colour screen and two video/stills cameras - one pointing towards you, one away. The lower half contains the keypad together with the function keys and a large four-way rocker control with a select button in the centre. Build quality feels fairly solid, if a little plasticky and cheap. The screen is clear and crisp, but the keypad is poorly illuminated.

Additional features include Bluetooth and USB for connection to a PC, and NEC supplies data-transfer software in the box. This is mainly used for synchronising contacts and calendar appointments to the phone's built-in PIM applications and is nothing to get excited about.

Many of the remaining functions are designed to take advantage of Three's 3G service. Or provided in part, at least, because coverage is limited to major cities and is almost non-existent outside. In my home area of Suffolk, the phone fell back onto the standard 2G Orange network, at which point almost all the advanced functions ceased to exist. Voice calls and picture messaging were still available, but little else.

Entering a 3G area brings a wealth of impressive extra capabilities. However, while some are of use to the business user, such as financial- and location-based services (finding the nearest train station, for example), many are frivolous (see Toy story). Video calls were disappointing too - the resolution was poor and the updating speed was slow. Think of a modem-connected webcam doing NetMeeting and you'd be spot on. This is a long way short of the implicit quality demonstrated in the Three television adverts. You can also record your own videos and messages, as well as perform standard photo messaging, plus with 32MB of memory there's a decent amount of storage.

But, as with all new technologies, costs aren't cheap and despite handsets being discounted initially and offered with pay-as-you-go schemes, up to £100 per month for a fixed tariff came as a shock to me. And even this doesn't provide unlimited use.

I also tried making an incoming call from a GSM phone to the e606 while downloading a video clip. Rather than get a busy tone, Orange told me the number wasn't available, which is somewhat worrying. A business phone must work at all times, and cutting yourself off from phone calls while doing entertaining 3G tasks isn't clever.

Some aspects of the user interface drove me completely potty too. The main menu is a grid of icons, which you can traverse using the rocker control, but for the 3G menu you have to use the up/down controls to scroll left/right, which is as mad as it sounds.

While it might be churlish to complain about coverage, it's a long time since GSM coverage was as bad as the current 3G service, and I wonder if potential users will accept this. In addition, I'm far from convinced that the service has found its feet. I'd love this type of connectivity built into a souped-up Tablet PC, for example, but video phone calls in a handset seems vaguely daft to me and is a technology in search of a use, especially in the early days when nobody else can receive them. Everything rests on how this market develops over the next year or so. If the initial wrinkles can be ironed out and handsets made less clunky, there will probably be a good business case for it. At the moment, however, being a pioneer is something for the enthusiast, and business users should wait a while longer.

Author: Jon Honeyball