Product Review Nokia 6260
Nokia 6260
The Nokia 6260 smartphone comes with plenty of features for messaging, imaging and document viewing, but we are attracted to this bulky device primarily because of its music features. This flip phone is an MP3 player, FM radio and a digital camera. By rotating the unit's display to different positions, you get a feeling that you have a camcorder, or a color-screen MP3 player in your hand.
Key features: The Nokia 6260 is a tri-band world phone for GSM networks. It is powered by the Series 60 / Symbian OS software, which means that it is a full featured smartphone with software applications that make your old PDA redundant (if you happen to have one - new PDAs are a different story). Calendar, contact database, email, multimedia messaging (MMS), Internet browser and games are all included in the product, not forgetting the possibility to download more software products from the Internet.
First and foremost, we view this product as a music phone. You can take a day's worth of MP3 songs with you on a memory card, plug in the stereo headset and listen to music without carrying a dedicated music player with you. If you want some variation to the music you can tune into FM radio stations and listen to the radio for the rest of the day. Sing along as loud as you want, you won't miss any phone calls, they'll come through even when the music is playing.
The Nokia 6260 runs a Symbian OS version of RealPlayer software that recognizes MP3 and AAC, but not the copy-protected songs from iTunes.
The nice thing is that you can turn the screen so that it becomes the front panel of the unit. You can view your songs on the large color screen and manage the player with the navigation key and soft keys. You must connect the headset in order to listen to the radio - the phone kindly reminds you to do so – and then you tune into your favorite radio stations using a software on the phone. Don't expect to hear high-quality audio, dedicated MP3 players are better in this regard.
The Nokia 6260 comes with Bluetooth wireless connectivity and an infrared port. USB interface is also available through special cable from Nokia. For copying music to the phone, you can also use memory cards.
The phone has only 6MB of built-in memory, which you should leave as a work space for the operating system and software applications. Store all your pictures, music, documents and other data on a memory card. Thankfully, the product comes with an 32MB RS-MMC memory card. Depending on where you get your product, software applications may have been installed on the memory card for you to try out. You can remove those trial products from the card you and make space for music if you are not going to use them. The applications will run for limited time only, unless you purchase unlock codes for them.
Many of us are working with Word and Excel documents at our office computers, and like or not, now it is possible to view documents created with those software products on the phone as well. The phone also comes with an HTML Internet browser that can access most web pages, and the built-in email software can read POP3 and IMAP4 email accounts.
The phone lets you dial by voice, and you can use it as a voice recorder, or as a Walkie-Talkie. Walkie-Talkie is called Push-to-talk on the phone and it requires service activation from your network service provider, as well as buddies who have a compatible phone and are subscribing to the same provider. We are not sure how useful this feature really is: why don't you simply call your buddies and setup a conference call with them. It's possible with this phone.
Many flip phones feature a small screen on the outside for displaying clock and information about incoming phone call, and a larger screen inside for normal phone operations. The Nokia 6260 has one screen only and its resolution is 176x208 pixels. The screen can be rotated in so many positions that the lack of the small screen wasn't a problem for us.
The camera is mounted on the side and the shutter button on the opposite side of the phone. This arrangement gives a nice, solid feel in your hands when you are snapping photos and want to keep the camera steady. When you turn the display sideways, the unit feels a bit like a camcorder. The camera can snap VGA (640x480) resolution images and you can shoot video clips as well.
Listening to music eats battery power from the phone – from any phone, and depending on your listening habits you may have to recharge every night.
Who likes this product: This phone will please music fans who want to have a phone that looks like an MP3 player when the screen is rotated to the music position and that can be used like a color-screen MP3 player.
Style: The Nokia 6260 is available in black and silver. Its design is elegant, but not colorful. The unit is bulky for a phone, but on the other hand, it is not larger than an iPod, only somewhat thicker.
Value for money: The Nokia 6260 is excellent value: it's a full-featured Symbian OS / Series 60 smartphone that fits nicely in the pocket and provides you with an MP3 music player and an FM radio. The built-in digital camera, email, calendar, Internet browsing and other applications are useful features as well.
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