Exceptionally adequate

Our latest customer loyalty freebie phones from AT&T (Cathy's is pink, mine is black), the Nokia 6085 delivers the goods. It's also free to new customers who sign up at AT&T's website for two years of service.

The main screen is nearly as sharp as a flat panel PC display, the lighted keypad has honest-to-Jeebus keys with big numerals and letters, and the wireless performance exceeds AT&T's own signal strength maps. Sound quality, both speaking and listening, is on a par with a decent wired phone connection.

The mini display font could be a bit bigger. Perhaps a future software update will take care of this as there are plenty of unused pixels when the phone is idle. Alternatively, the phone can display an analog or a large digital clock between calls but no other information like signal strength, battery condition and the carrier's name.

At first glance it looks bigger than, say, a Motorola V220 phone, but the V220's nubby antenna makes it about an eighth of an inch longer overall. Opened, the 6085 is a nice fit for big shovel hands like mine but not too big for daintier extremities. The black model is trimmed with a soft-grip material that lessens the chance of the phone squirting out of your grasp.

2G EDGE wireless technology makes the occasional download much faster than on older phones. If you plan on doing a lot of wireless web surfing (we don't), either choose one of the current refurbished 3G handsets or wait for the next freebie offering, when new 3G phones should be a lot more common. AT&T ships the phone with a 3G SIM card, but that doesn't turn it into a 3G phone.

Bluetooth is built in, a good thing for Mac owners because AT&T doesn't include the USB cable. With a little free open-source software like GIMP and Audacity, you can create your own graphics and ringtones and pocket the savings. $2.49 for a ringtone? Fer pity's sake, I can buy the whole song from Amazon.com or iTunes for 99 cents or less!

The camera and music features might be important to some folks, but we already own a couple iPods. The camera's 640 by 480 image quality is reminiscent of the regrettable Kodak DISC camera, grain and all. Without adding memory via a MicroSD card, you can only record 6 seconds of video. Remember, this is essentially a free phone, whether you're a new or loyal customer, so you get what you didn't pay for.

Oh, and did I mention it can play Yahtzee (which you purchase from AT&T's MediaMall)? For a couple of Yahtzee fans, that was the clincher.