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Video review: Rogers Nokia Surge

By on November 1, 2009 at 4:11pm in Mobile News, Nokia, Reviews - Carrier, Reviews - Manufacturer, Reviews - Videos, Rogers Wireless, Rogers Wireless News, Various News

Rogers recently launched the Nokia Surge 6790 last week, a unique messaging device that’s part of their Smartphone lineup.

We know that Nokia takes great pride in creating and testing their products. The Nokia Surge 6790 is so far stretched from all the other Nokia devices we’ve seen, it seems their engineers just threw everything together and just placed keys were they needed to, rather than caring about the design. It’s a bit confusing with the call/send keys, directional pad and shortcut keys to the web browser, S60 menu and messaging keys all clumped together in one general area… facing different directions.

The weight comes in at 124 grams and overall dimensions are 97.5 x 57.9 x 15.5mm. The Surge feels good in the hand and will not be bulky in your pocket, purse or suit jacket. With it’s 2.4 inch QVGA screen it has a resolution of 320 x 240. Depending which way you are using the device it’s accelerometer configures to portrait or landscape (horizontal to vertical) mode. I personally wished they would have stretched the screen out to at lease 3-inches as there was room to accommodate this.

What is desirable about the Surge, and probably it’s main purpose, is the messaging aspect. The side slide-out QWERTY keyboard is well designed, has big keys and the back lighting in dark areas is impressive. The slide mechanism is solid and I cannot see it having any issues of breaking or coming off its hinges in the future. With all the messaging clients one can dream of: corporate, Yahoo!, Gmail, Rogers, IM (MSN & Yahoo! Messenger) and Text and picture messaging (max. number of characters is 160), the Surge certainly delivers with ease. It’s easy to start messaging and the only downside is the directional pad as this is the only way to navigate around your messages… and depending how long they are it can be a bit frustrating using this all the time.

The 2.0 megapixel camera has 4x zoom, no flash and video capabilities. This was decent and the camera quality was a bit pixelated, but perfect for sending or posting to your favorite social networking site. The night time shots were a bit of a challenge and they didn’t show up nice. However, the camera sound quality was very good.

Some other key aspects to the Surge are the full-HTML Web browser, quick access to Facebook, 2.5mm jack (wish it was a standard 3.5), FM Stereo, Music Player and the ability to hold up to 8GB with a microSD card, Integrated GPS support for OviMaps and TeleNav GPS Navigator and Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities.

This is available at Rogers on the following price plans:
$29.99 on a 3-year contract
$99.99 on a 2-year contract
$199.99 on a 1-year contract
$279.99 with no contract

Related posts:

  1. Rogers starts shipping the Nokia Surge 6790
  2. Nokia Surge now available at Rogers for $29.99
  3. Rogers to release the Nokia 6790 “Surge”
  4. Rogers Nokia Surge 6790 launching in October

Discussion

7 comments for “Video review: Rogers Nokia Surge”

  1. Rogers classification on usage charges for GPS? Could you help me locate a Rogers Product manager that can tell me exactly how we use GPS on this phone? if we have unlimited wap? are we good to go or are we going to get nailed on “extra” costs…I am so frustrated with rogers front line support no one has a clue about how to use or what “plan” works with this great phone! HELP

    P.S. Your review is sooo much better than any Rogers Support Desk has offered by way of exapinging thi s phopne

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    Posted by Stephen | November 12, 2009, 12:59 am
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  2. Rogers classification on usage charges for GPS? Could you help me locate a Rogers Product manager that can tell me exactly how we use GPS on this phone? if we have unlimited wap? are we good to go or are we going to get nailed on “extra” costs…I am so frustrated with rogers front line support no one has a clue about how to use or what “plan” works with this great phone! HELP

    P.S. Your review is sooo much better than any Rogers Support Desk has offered by way of explaining this phone .

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    Posted by Stephen | November 12, 2009, 1:00 am
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  3. If you want to use TeleNav on this device then you would need to subscribe for that (i.e. extra cost).

    If you already have a data plan, then you can always download Google Maps as it will make use of the built-in GPS.

    Difference between the two is that TeleNav has voice navigation while Google Maps does not (at least not yet for Symbian).

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    Posted by Mobile User | November 15, 2009, 11:12 am
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    • MobileUser is both right and wrong.

      The phone does come with TeleNav, and there is a charge to use this service. I don’t use it, because I’m way too cheap to pay for something like that when Ovi Maps is included for free. I don’t know anything about using Google Maps for this phone – like Wade, I asked Rogers to disable all data services for this phone, so I use the built-in Ovi application. It’s not the best or fastest GPS application in the world, but it is functional if you have a little patience with it. Also, you can download the Ovi software (free) and upload voice navigation to the phone (also free) in many different languages, in addition to regular map updates (once again – you guessed it, free).

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      Posted by Steve | October 19, 2011, 2:25 pm

  4. I consider this a budget phone, and as such, it’s not surprising I don’t have a data plan. I actually told Rogers to disable all data.

    Regarding the GPS, mine seems quite crippled. If I turn on the maps, it has the last position I was at and wno’t update my current position. (even if I wait a really long time)

    So I found that if I try to calculate driving directions to any point and then subsequentally cancel the request……this wakes up my GPS and it will recalculate my current position.

    1) This above method doens’t work for me consistently. (very frustrating)

    2) I went into the GPS positioning options and turned off all other forms of positioning EXCEPT the GPS itself (i.e. – no assisted, no network, etc).

    If someone can tell me what I may be doing wrong to help make this work better…..please do !

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    Posted by Wade | January 7, 2010, 11:01 pm
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  5. I need to know how far from Sudbury,Ontario this phone works? I just got it and haven’t activated it yet. I will be travelling to Thunder Bay and obviously need a phone that works there. HELP, anyone????

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    Posted by terri king-aube | October 3, 2010, 8:03 pm
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  6. its not a smart phone

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    Posted by me | February 27, 2011, 2:35 pm
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