If you were around in 2003, you remember the "Egg." That’s what everyone called the Nokia 6600. It was thick. It was curvy in all the wrong places. Honestly, it looked more like a smooth river stone or a piece of futuristic soap than a communication device. But here’s the thing: while everyone else was flipping open Razrs to look cool, the people carrying the 6600 were actually holding the future.
It wasn’t just a phone. It was the first time a lot of us realized that a mobile device could be a computer.
The Symbian S60 Revolution
Before the Nokia 6600, phones were mostly "dumb." You could call, you could text, and if you were lucky, you could play a choppy version of Snake. Then Symbian OS 7.0s arrived on the Series 60 (S60) platform. This changed everything. Suddenly, you weren't stuck with what came out of the box. You could actually install apps. Real apps.
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I’m talking about things like UltraMP3, which turned your phone into a legitimate music player, or Agile Messenger, which let you stay on ICQ and MSN Messenger while sitting in a boring math class. It felt illegal. The Nokia 6600 gave us a glimpse of the "App Store" economy five years before Apple even launched the iPhone 3G. It had a VGA camera on the back. By today’s standards, 640x480 resolution is literal garbage. It’s blurry. It’s noisy. But in 2003? Being able to take a digital photo and send it via Bluetooth or Infrared to a friend's phone was pure magic.
The hardware was a bit of a mixed bag. You had that 2.1-inch TFT display. It boasted 65,536 colors. That sounds like a joke now, but compared to the monochrome or 256-color screens of the era, the 6600 looked vibrant. The joystick in the middle was the primary way to navigate, and man, those joysticks were notorious for failing. If you used your 6600 heavily, that little nub would eventually get "crunchy" or stop responding to downward clicks.
Why the Design Was Actually Genius
People mocked the shape. They really did. It was 108mm long and 58mm wide, tapering at the top and bottom. It felt massive in a pocket. But it fit the human hand perfectly.
When you held the Nokia 6600, your thumb naturally rested on the keypad, and the palm-swell made it stable for one-handed use. It wasn't trying to be a thin slab of glass. It was built for ergonomics before "ergonomics" was a marketing buzzword. It also had a dedicated power button on the top and a MMC (Multimedia Card) slot. You had to take the battery out to change the memory card, which was a huge pain, but having expandable storage at all was a luxury. Most people rocked a 32MB card and thought they were living in the year 3000.
The Business Powerhouse Nobody Expected
Nokia originally marketed this toward the "business professional." They wanted it to be the successor to the 6310i. It had a calendar that actually worked. It had email support. You could view Word and Excel attachments using third-party software.
But a funny thing happened.
The "business" phone became the ultimate gaming and multimedia device. Because it ran Symbian, it could handle emulators. You could play Game Boy games on it. You could play N-Gage titles. It became a Swiss Army knife. This versatility is exactly why the Nokia 6600 sold over 150 million units. Think about that number. That makes it one of the most successful handsets in history, rivaling the sheer volume of the legendary 3310, but at a much higher price point.
The 104MHz ARM processor was the heart of the beast. It sounds pathetic today—your smart fridge probably has ten times that power—but for 2003, it was snappy. It handled multi-tasking surprisingly well. You could have a browser open (usually Opera Mini because the built-in browser was slow) and switch back to your messages without the whole system crashing.
Common Misconceptions and Issues
A lot of people remember the 6600 as being "waterproof" or "indestructible." It wasn't. Unlike the Nokia 5210, the 6600 had no official IP rating. If you dropped it in a puddle, it was probably game over. The "indestructible" reputation came from the high-quality polycarbonate shell. It didn't shatter; it just got scuffed.
Another myth is that it was the first camera phone. Not even close. Nokia had the 7650 before it, and Sharp had been doing camera phones in Japan for a while. The Nokia 6600 was just the first one that made the camera feel integrated into a device that people actually wanted to use every day.
There was also the "White Screen of Death." If you messed with the system files too much or installed a corrupted .sis app, the phone would get stuck on a bright white screen during boot. The only fix? The "Three Finger Salute" (holding *, 3, and the green call button while powering on) to hard reset the device. We were all mini-IT experts back then just to keep our phones running.
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Legacy and the 2023 "Reimagining"
Nokia (under HMD Global) eventually tried to capitalize on the nostalgia. They released a "New" 6600 (the 6600 5G or the 2023 version), but let's be real—it’s not the same. It’s a feature phone with a 4G/5G radio. It lacks the soul of the original because it doesn’t have a truly open operating system like Symbian was in its prime.
The original Nokia 6600 represents a specific era of mobile tech where manufacturers weren't afraid to be weird. Every phone looked different. Now, everything is a black rectangle. The 6600 was a bold, rounded, clunky statement. It proved that people wanted more from their pockets. They wanted the internet. They wanted apps. They wanted to take photos of their lunch, even if that lunch looked like a pile of brown pixels.
If you find one in a drawer today, it’ll probably still boot up. The batteries (the classic BL-5C) are still being made because they fit a thousand different devices. Putting a SIM card into an original 6600 today is a trip. You'll realize how much we’ve gained in speed, but also how much we’ve lost in terms of tactile satisfaction and personality.
How to Buy or Restore One Today
If you're looking to grab a Nokia 6600 for the sake of nostalgia, there are a few things you absolutely need to check. First, the joystick. If it doesn't "click" in all four directions and centers, walk away. Replacing them requires soldering skills that most people don't have.
- Check the housing: Most "Refurbished" units on eBay use cheap third-party plastic shells. They feel creaky and thin. Try to find one with the original "Made in Finland" housing if possible.
- Battery: Don't use the original battery from 2003. It’s likely bloated or holds a charge for six minutes. Buy a fresh BL-5C. They are cheap and everywhere.
- Storage: It uses MMC, not SD or MicroSD. You can still find 512MB or 1GB MMC cards on second-hand sites. Don't go over 1GB, as the phone often struggles to index that much data.
- Software: Look for "S60v2" archive sites. Most of the old forums are dead, but archives exist where you can still download the original .sis files for games like Snake EX2 or SkyForce.
The Nokia 6600 wasn't just a phone; it was a transition point. It moved us from the era of "calling people" to the era of "living on our devices." It was ugly, it was beautiful, and it was undeniably important.
To get the most out of a vintage 6600 today, your best bet is to treat it as a dedicated "distraction-free" device. Load it with some local MP3s, a few basic games, and use it as a backup phone. You'll be surprised at how refreshing it is to use a device that doesn't have an algorithm trying to sell you something every five seconds. Just be prepared for people to ask you why you're carrying a piece of tech that looks like it fell out of a 1990s sci-fi movie. Embrace the egg. It’s a piece of history.
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Practical Next Steps for Collectors
- Verify the Model: Ensure you are getting the 6600 and not the 6600s (slide) or 6600f (fold), which were much later, less iconic releases.
- Source an MMC Card: Order a 512MB MMC card early, as these are becoming harder to find than the phones themselves.
- Learn the Reset Codes: Memorize
*#7370#for a soft factory reset—it's the first thing you should do with a used unit to clear out twenty-year-old contact lists and messages.