Last Tuesday, I bought myself a new Nokia 6610. It’s a great cellphone. It’s features include a 128×128 4,096 colored screen, tri-band capability, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), downloadable Java™ applications, polyphonic ringing tones, integrated stereo FM radio, and WAP 1.2.1 over GPRS. Best of all, it has all these features, without an integrated camera!

Phones with cameras actually score negative points with me. That’s because cameras aren’t allowed in my office due to the company’s strict security policies (some colleagues hate it, but I got no problem with it). Besides, if I’d wanted a digital camera, I’d prefer a real one, like the Canon Powershot S1 IS that I’m planning to buy when I have the money.

The Nokia 6610 was the best non-camera phone among those I’ve seen, including Sony Ericsson models. The integrated radio was what bought me over. Finally, I can listen to the stations of my own choosing rather than torturing my ears with stations having slogans like “Forever!” “For life!” and “Kelangan pa bang i-memorize yan?”

I’ve bought the phone more for practical reasons than out of whim. My old cellphone, a Nokia 6150 , was acting funny a little too often for my taste. Among the problems it had was an LCD screen than faded (I’ve read that this is common problem with “legacy” Nokia models—it affected my Nokia 5110 too), and frequent software hangs, where I had to detach the battery just to reset the phone.

I would’ve wanted a cellphone that also had Bluetooth capability. But it seems that most colored-screen Bluetooth phones I’ve looked at have integrated cameras. Anyway, the phone’s good enough for me. The combination of an FM radio, WAP browsing, and Java games should keep me from getting bored. Now if I can only find a downloadable version of the Text Twist game…