At Nokia World 2009, the arrival of the Nokia’s newly inducted X series only saw consumers shifting loyalty soon enough. The Nokia X3 and the X6 were proud to have been among the very first devices to show up in this portfolio. As Nokia swayed onto the touchscreen floor once again, the X6 in a 16GB version convinced us enough to put it under the scanner. Xseries handsets take a lead due to its music features. Each and every model is coming out with independent media controls, FM radio, Stereo speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack. An attractive information is that Nokia X6 is amongst Nokia first handset to present a capacitive touchscreen, Nokia N8also being in the lead.
There’s a 3.2” 16 million colors touchscreen having a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels on the front face of the device. And it’s only a good thing Nokia moved over its fascination for resistive touch displays with this one. Above the screen to the top right is a forward firing camera while seated neatly below it are 3 buttons for call, menu and call end. Don’t be deceived by the touch sensitive appearance of these knobs as they are very much physical in their functionality. Moving over to the right of phone, the chassis embeds a shortcut to the camera function, a well-planted convenient lock/unlock switch and the volume adjustment button traversing from the bottom to the top. The upper panel includes the microUSB connection covered by a cap, the 3.5mm audio jack, the charging connection and finally the power button. The left edge bears the SIM card slot complete with a flap and two speaker grilles. A five megapixel Carl Ziess optics snapper is what’s fitted at the back.
The 16:9 aspect ratio screen does tend to lose color when you’re in bright light, it’s nevertheless superior with indoor viewing. The Nokia X6 phone borrows the 5th edition of the Symbian S60 platform best known for its antics on the Nokia 5330 XpressMusic handset. The homescreen comes complete with the option of adding a new contact or setting up a new email account. Squinting our eyes closer to the display’s top right area revealed Nokia’s latest magic trick. There’s an intriguing touchscreen area which when nudged just slightly pops open a dropdown list for attributes like music, images, sharing and others.
The Menu key was what we hit next to only be thrown into a rather simplistic interface. We liked how the functions were spread into a 3 x 4 matrix making for a very organized phone experience. The built-in accelerometer also deserves mention at quickly transforming the screen from portrait to landscape modes and vice versa when required. We tried our hands at sending a text message and touchscreen just decided to play naughty with its responsiveness. So while the phone may not be a real messaging blower of sorts, it does allow accurate typing. With its clear objective at appeasing music lovers, the phone is plenary on the audio front. On-the-go music enthusiasts will find a Music Player, Radio, Podcasting, Recorder and Playlists besides the earlier mentioned Music Store. The audio playback is without doubt top-notch and the in-built speakers say Nokia’s audio wizardry is good with sound being uncannily precise and melodious. Playing videos shows up volume shortcuts on the left and play, pause, forward and next functions on the right edge of the screen for more control. Interestingly internet access is seamless and the phone has nothing but good conduct to display on that front rounded off by 802.11 Wi-Fi support. The handset’s pretty normal touch however made navigation of websites a not so pleasant experience.
The expansive applications list included Games too and we couldn’t wait to get on the racing circuit in Asphalt 4. While the audio of the game plays up well, we couldn’t really say the same about the rendered graphics. The other titles featured in the game section were DJ Mix Tour and Spore. The included 5MP camera comes complete with autofocus and dual LED flash while also being capable of recording VGA videos at 30fps.
The Nokia X6 with an upscale from the resistive to capacitive type of touchscreen says the company has done a good job after all. Though the touchscreen had its moments at being a laggard, the phone offered us a nifty experience both with overall audio quality, connectivity and calls. The lack of better fabric with the phone’s build seems to take away from its multimedia prowess and massive storage capacity. We can’t really say if the attached price tag too does justice to the package and performance. At Rs.16,669 it seemed like a visible downer as there are lower priced alternatives in the market.
