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 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.
   

Text-based messaging is important. But as good as touchscreen input methods are getting (especially with clever tricks such as Swype), there’s just no match for a good hardware QWERTY keyboard.

There isn’t as much pressure on the Nokia C6 as there was on the N97 duo. The C6 is not a top-tier device – it’s a high volume device instead. You know, the one most people end up buying after deciding that the dream device costs too much.