Devices Reviews - Written by Ben on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 11:30 - 2 Comments

Nokia X6 Review (Build and design)
Rating: 4

The Nokia X6 may not rock an all new OS like the Maemo 5 fueled Nokia N900, but it’s just as much a landmark mobile for the company. That’s down to the radical new build and design, and we’ve got the full verdict on the hardware behind the first X Series phone right here. Find out how we’ve been getting on with the build quality and design of the Nokia X6…

From the moment you pull the Nokia X6 from its box, you’ll be impressed by the build. Despite the plastic case, it feels incredibly solid. It’s not the slimmest phone ever, but it’s nicely narrow, all the essential ports (3.5mm audio, microUSB) are wisely placed on top, and it looks the part too. The model we’ve got is blue, black and white, but you can get a red and black version, and it looks just as cool.

Check out our Nokia X6 Review

But the jewel in the crown on the Nokia X6 is its display. It’s just as bright and sharp as the touchscreen panel on the Nokia N97 Mini, but the twist is it uses capacitive tech to measure your prods. The upshot? For using your fingers, it’s much more responsive. Not only do buttons and apps launch with gentle taps, you can now comfortably and speedily type with your fingers on the landscape QWERTY keyboard, with no dropped letters.

Symbian S60’s also been tweaked to take advantage of this, with big action buttons wherever possible. Of course, capacitive isn’t for everyone: you can’t use a stylus, and it doesn’t react well to pushes with your nail, but for just whipping your phone out to ping off a quick text, it’s vastly more convenient.

There are a couple of glaring flaws with the design of the Nokia X6 however, and ones we’re baffled the company didn’t spot. Firstly, the SIM card slot is so strangely placed, we actually did a doubletake. Instead of being tucked away under the battery, as is the case on most Nokias, it’s on the side of the phone. The hinged flap that covers it doesn’t shut entirely smoothly, and as the only slot on one side of the phone, blemishes the look and feel of the Nokia X6 in a big way.

The lock button is another little glitch that seriously bugs. Instead of being a button you’d push down, it’s a sliding switch you really have to tug down on the Nokia X6. And when you think about how often you’ll wake your phone up pulling it out of your pocket in the course of an average day, it becomes a bit of a bug bear.

Still, that easy to use screen on the Nokia X6, as well as its otherwise firm build, put the phone up there with the very best N Series and 5000 series music phones.

Check out our Nokia X6 Review (Build and design) image gallery:

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2 Comments

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Tom
Dec 17, 2009 23:33

I just bought it, I have to say, I am impressed apart from the fact that it is a lot slower then my last phone (N95) and freezes a lot. The touch screen is good but is sometimes unresponsive. After purchasing I would not recommend switching it off as it takes a long time to switch on and sometimes will not do anything, the backlight will switch on, but the phone will not start. Good memory, but if you put a lot on at once it will drastically slow the phone down. The comes with music and free downloads feature is useless as all the music already on there is terrible. I dont do that much downloading and I think they should release a model that doesn’t come with music to be cheaper and save time deleting things you don’t want. Other then that, it is an exellent phone, great for texting, great internet experience and great downloadable applications. The camera is very good quality and is brilliant to use. This would be almost perfect were it not for the fact that the only contract availible is orange, one of britains worst networks in my opinion.

jenkofo
Dec 19, 2009 14:23

Actually, the music store is pretty decent. I downloaded about 800 songs in the first couple of days, everything from Beethoven sonatas through Miles Davis to Fever Ray. Phone is cool, software not without glitches but overall this is a lot of fun.