Nokia X6 Review

Nokia released the X6 in November last year. It comes equipped with quick access to social networking apps and unlimited downloads from the Nokia music store. To top this off, this X6 comes with a generous 32GB of storage built into the handset.

It looks quite similar to the 5800, but I hope that Nokia have made a few improvements.

The Nokia X6

What’s in the box?

• Nokia X6
• Nokia Battery (BL-5J) 1320mAh
• Mains Charger (AC-8)
• Nokia USB Cable (CA-101)
• Nokia Stereo Headset/handsfree (WH-701)
• Spare earphone pieces (various sizes)
• User Guide
• Mini DVD
• 12 month ‘Comes With Music. licence

For more information you can check out Matt’s Nokia X6 Unboxing Video

Nokia X6 Specification:

• Symbian OS v9.4, series 60
• Arm 11 434MHz CPU
• 128MB RAM
• 32GB storage
• 3.2" capacitive touch screen, 360×640 pixels
• GSM Quad-Band
• 3G/HSDPA Tri-Band
• FM radio with RDS
• Built in A-GPS and Nokia Maps
• WiFi 802.11b/g
• Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
• 5MP autofocus camera with dual LED flash/video light
• 3.5mm headphone/av connector
• Dimensions: 111 x 51 x 13.8mm
• Weight: 122 grams
• Stand-by: Up to 401 h (2G) / 420 h (3G)
• Talk time: Up to 8 h 30 min (2G) / 6 h (3G)
• Music play: Up to 35 h

General:

Front – Starting from the top, there is the normal phone speaker and front facing camera. The 3.2″ touch screen takes up the majority of the handset. There are three buttons below the screen. These are the call and end buttons on the left and right, and the menu button in the middle.

The Nokia X6 – front view

Left side – There are two loud speakers (you can see the lines on the left and right of this picture). In the middle is where the sim card is placed.

The Nokia X6 – left side view

Right side – From the left, there is the dedicated camera button, then the screen lock/unlock slider, and then the up/down rocker button (used for volume and the camera zoom)

The Nokia X6 – right side view

Top – The power button, mains charging socket, 3.5mm headphone socket and micro USB socket are shown here.

The Nokia X6 – top view

Back – The 5MP camera is shown here along with the dual LED flash.

The Nokia X6 – back view

Highlights:

• Capacitive touchscreen
• 32GB internal memory
• Good quality camera
• Excellent earphones

Lowlights:

• No memory expansion capability
• Hard to see the display in bright sunlight

Review:

The Nokia X6 is a decent size and has a fairly robust feel to it. Is looks at first like quite a long phone but it’s not – it’s just narrower than you would expect

The front of the phone has a nice glossy finish to it and the back has a matt finish. I’m not sure if the matt finish is a good or bad thing. On one hand, it stops any finger marks (because you’ll see enough of these on the screen!), but then on the other hand it sort of makes the phone look a bit cheaper.

The Nokia X6

The screen is a 3.2″ touch screen with a resolution of 360×640 pixels. Matt pointed out in his unboxing video that this resolution is out of the ordinary compared to other handsets as this is wide screen. I would agree – definitely out of the ordinary. In fact, I found this screen really strange! In portrait mode it seems very narrow and takes some getting used to. It also has a very glossy finish to it. Although this looks nice, the glossy surface reflects light quite badly so makes seeing the display in bright sunlight very difficult.

Compared to any previous touch screen phones from Nokia, they have finally produced a touch screen which is capacitive rather than resistive. Definitely a positive step for them as the the screen is so much more responsive compared to the likes of the 5800. (if you are unsure of what this means, the general idea is that resistive screens need a bit of pressure to work where as capacitive ones don’t.)

Upon opening the back of the phone you would normally expect to see where the sim card, memory card and battery go. Well, the battery is place in here as expected, but the sim card is actually placed into the side of the handset. There is a small window where you can see the sim card under the back cover, and there’s also a small slider which is used to push the sim card out. Can’t see anywhere to add a memory card. that would be because there’s not any capacity for expanding the X6’s memory. Not to worry – the X6 has 32GB of internal memory. This is plenty!

The OS is the touch screen version of S60 which is the same as the 5800. Most will find this very easy to use. The can customise the home screen to a certain point by selecting which application shortcuts you want displayed, what contacts you want to show, or if you like the de-cluttered look you can opt for the basic display.

One thing that I couldn’t get used to was the fact that some items within the menus needed to be double clicked to open and some needed just a single click. This meant that I accidentally selected options or applications that I didn’t want to. Probably just my own stupidity getting the better of me!

The call quality on the X6 is very good with the mic cancelling  out most of the background noise, and the sound from the earpiece is very clear as well. The stereo loud speakers are great for using the speaker phone feature which is easy to switch off and on during a call as the relevant buttons are displayed on screen during calls.

I found texting on this phone very easy to use. In portrait mode you are presented with a T9 phone keypad with huge buttons which leaves very little room for error. When you rotate the handset the accelerometer kicks in quickly and you are then presented with the landscape mode where the keypad is a full qwerty one. I was very surprised to find that texting with this was really easy to. I could type pretty quickly without the dreaded ‘fat thumb syndrome’  making an appearance. The text itself is quite big making it easy to read.

I don’t have a great deal to say on the matter of web browsing except that I didn’t like browsing the web of this handset. The strange screen dimensions make for hard reading as not a great deal of any web page shows up on the screen.

There are many applications to hand, especially with the Ovi store. I wouldn’t say that the selection of applications was any way near the amount on offer in Apple’s Apps Store, or Android’s Market but there’s still more than enough to keep you occupied. You may have also seen that Nokia’s Ovi Maps (navigation system) is now free to use. Definitely a good move on Nokia’s part to draw in more customers.

The X6 is a music phone so as you can expect a decent music player. It may not be the fanciest looking but it does the trick. It’s simple to navigate through and also has a nifty feature which is the playlist DJ where you can sort our music out by mood. The stereo loud speakers on the handset give of an impressive sound (but of course external speakers would be better) but what really blew me away were the earphones. They are noise cancelling ones so any environmental sound about you is blocked out, and the sound quality that comes out the earphone is absolutely fantastic. I found myself listening to just about all the sample tunes on the handset because I just couldn’t get over the fact that such great earphone were packaged with a phone.

The Nokia X6 is a ‘Comes With Music’ phone. There is a 12 month license provided with the handset so that you can download loads of music tracks for free within this time to fill up some of the 32GB of memory!

There is an FM radio with RDS (Radio Data System) in the music section of the menu. It also has automatic scanning. So, as well as the station details being presented thanks to RDS it should also adjust the frequency itself accordingly if you are on the move.

The camera is a 5MP auto-focus one with a Carl Zeiss Tessar F/2.8 – 5.2 lens. I have to say, I was quite impressed with this. You can take some good photos with this camera, and the detail can really been seen with the phone’s clear display. Of course, I’m talking about when you are in good lighting, but it does also comes with a dual LED flash. Not as effective as a Xenon flash but it is adequate enough to illuminate lower lit environments. The flash also doubles up as a video light.

This brings me onto the video quality. It was actually okay. I may sound surprised but I never really expect too much from cameras on phones. As long as you can keep your hand steady and are in good lighting you will end up with some good video clips. In low light you will need to use the LED lights which unfortunately give any video taken with this a pretty nasty colour. But, after saying that, the quality is actually ok. The movement is not jumpy in anyway and you can still see detail relatively clearly.

For connectivity the X6 has 3G/HSDPA, Bluetooth, WiFi, USB and GPS. Not sure if it was just me but I found that the handset didn’t charge when connected via the microUSB. If this is the case then I think Nokia should have enable the charging capability through the microUSB as it’s always a handy option. If it does actually charge through this, then apologies Nokia, and I need to wake up!

Conclusion:

The Nokia X6 is a definite improvement from the 5800 mainly due to the fact that the touch screen is capacitive. It’s not necessarily the most stylish of smartphones and the matt plastic back to it makes it look a bit cheaper. The look of the handset definitely doesn’t match the hefty price tag.

It’s a simple to use phone with a huge storage capacity so there’s plenty of space to store all of you pictures, music, video clips and apps. There’s no scope fore increasing the storage by using a memory card but 32GB should hopefully be more than enough.

With a years free music using the ‘Comes With Music’ 12 month license you will be able to grab a shed load of tunes.

The sound quality is good through the phone’s earpiece and very good through the stereo speakers, and absolutely excellent through the brilliant earphones provided.

This is an all round good phone so I would say that as long as you like the S60 operation system and that Nokia use aren’t fussed about browsing the web on your phone you should hopefully not be disappointed with the X6.

Reviewed by: Emma