Nokia has announced an update to the popular 6600 slider mobile phone, the 6600i.  Expected to be available towards the end of the summer and with little change to the cost of the original, this is one of Nokia’s more subtle makeovers.  But then, the 6600 is a great looking phone which needed a refresh rather than a redesign anyway.

Retaining the stylish slide, the 6600i has a 2.2″ screen hiding a normal alphanumeric keypad – which is very comfortable to use – and has an accelerometer for the same ‘tap’ features found on the higher priced Arte series phones.  The 6600i is a 3G phone with A2DP Bluetooth and a MicroSD card slot for expanding the memory to 16GB.

These features are unchanged from the 6600, with Nokia opting to overhaul the camera instead.  The 3.2 megapixel lens has been thrown out and replaced with a 5 megapixel, complimented by a dual-LED flash, autofocus and VGA video shooting.  With this in place, Nokia claim the new 6600i is the smallest 5 megapixel slider in the world.  The 14mm thickness and 110 gram weight remain the same as the 6600 too.

To prove Nokia still knows how to spec a mid-range phone, this metal-bodied beauty also has a 3.5mm jack plug plus Nokia’s music and video player, making the 6600i a very capable all-rounder indeed!