Nokia 6700 slide review: Braving the odds

Introduction

A stylish and durable steel body, compact size and smartphone skill, the Nokia 6700 slide looks strong enough to hold its own in a modern world. Touchscreen, Android and whatnot have forced a sea change and many fear Symbian to have lost some of its mojo. It still has its strongholds of course – it seems the Eseries and Nseries will never fall out of users’ favor. But where does that leave an affordable midrange smartphone like the 6700 slide?

Affordable may as well be the key word here. We’re looking at an easy-going, eye-catching phone that wants to have mass appeal. It’s got some big shoes to fill too – its bar-shaped sibling was one of the best appreciated Nokia handsets last year. Adding smart to what was a pretty cool phone already seems like the next logical move. But let’s see if the 6700 slide is the right package for the right market.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Tri-band 3G with 10Mbps HSDPA and 2Mbps HSUPA
• Solid metal casing
• 2.2" 16M-color QVGA display with excellent sunlight legibility
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with Carl-Zeiss lens, dual LED flash
• VGA video recording at 15fps
• Symbian OS, S60 3.2 user interface
• Built-in accelerometer sensor
• Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual radio
• Bluetooth (with A2DP)
• Standard microUSB port (charging)
• microSD card slot (16 GB supported, 2GB included)
• Rich preinstalled application package
• Smart dialing
• 2.5mm audio jack
• Great audio quality

Main disadvantages

• No WLAN
• No GPS receiver
• Small display
• No preinstalled document viewer
• 2.5mm audio jack limits third-party headphones choice
• Memory card slot under the back cover

The Nokia 6700 slide brings enough updates to justify its existence – smartphone skill, an audio jack and video-calling are there to address some of the main grudges we had with the 6700 classic. Gaps in the spec sheet are prominent enough though. GPS is perhaps irrelevant to the intended users but Wi-Fi will certainly be missed.

Nokia C6 review: A playful character

Introduction

Yesterday’s high-end is the new midrange we like to say. The Nokia C6 has almost exactly the same features as the Nokia N97 mini but hangs a big Sale sign. Time to shop for high-end features off high street.
The C-series are trying to distill the Nokia knowledge and experience into a lineup of simple and affordable phones. There’s a bit of everything there: from cheap entry-level handsets to smartphones that border on the Eseries and Nseries.

 And Nokia is in no mood to relax it seems. The C-series went from one to six in almost no time, and a C7 may as well be on the way. Now, technically there is no number four –but that’s one number Nokia isn’t really fond of. Anyway, if there ever was to be a C4 we just know it would’ve been dynamite.
Being a C-series phone, you can expect the C6 to be a decent all-rounder. And it is. There’re no mind-blowing features but there’s nothing major missing either. And what isn’t there (e.g. document editing) can be easily fixed with the right app.

Key features

• 3.2" 16M-color resistive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
• Symbian OS 9.4 with S60 5th edition UI
• Slide-out four-row full QWERTY keyboard
• ARM 11 434MHz CPU
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri-band 3G with 3.6Mbps HSDPA support
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and VGA@30fps video recording
• Wi-Fi and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
• GPS with A-GPS and free lifetime voice-guided navigation license
• microSD card (16 GB supported, 2GB included)
• Built-in accelerometer for display auto-rotation, turn-to-mute
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• Smart dialing
• Stereo FM Radio with RDS
• microUSB port
• Web browser has full Flash support
• Good audio quality
• Office document viewer

Main disadvantages

• Display performs poorly under direct sunlight
• The S60 touch UI is clunky
• Doesn’t charge off USB
• Average loudspeaker performance
• No DivX or XviD video support out-of-the-box
• No office document editing (without a paid upgrade)
• No camera lens protection

These days, communication over text-based channels is bigger than ever – SMS, email, Twitter, Facebook, IM to name but a few. And they have a certain advantage over voice calling. They’re cheap, or absolutely free, even when you’re reaching someone on another continent.

Q Mobile Q3i

• Dual SIM Card-Dual Standby
• 2.0" TFT Screen
• 1.3 Mega Pixel Camera / Voice Recorder
• MP3 Player / MP4 Player
• MSN / Facebook / Email / Yahoo
• FM Radio / FM Recording
• Bluetooth / GPRS / WAP / MMS
• External Memory (Support Upto 4GB)
• Downloading

HTC Magic

The HTC Magic is an Android powered mobile created to turn heads with its stylish design and advanced features. The touchscreen Magic offers familiar Google services such as G-Mail, Search and Google Maps. Find a restaurant with Google Search or check a specific location thanks to Google Maps Street View. Running the latest version of the Android OS known as Cupcake, the Magic offers an on screen QWERTY keyboard, faster applications and a more responsive all round experience. The Magic also features a 3.2 Megapixel camera, Bluetooth, HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity plus GPS.