Review of the Nokia 6700 slide

Slider phones aren’t very popular these days for their small screens and people preferring to go for large, full touch screens; maybe some for an optional QWERTY keyboard. Nokia is not capable of producing the phones mentioned above for the likes of HTC or Samsung, although, it is committed to providing all kinds of phones targeted at various types of consumers. The Finnish company’s latest brassy addition to its slider range is the Nokia 6700 slider that walks the thin line of being a wobbly slider handset or a smooth slither, possessing an advantage of hiding the keypad making it compact to use. Whether this mid-range phone passes the test with flying colours or comes out as a dud is decided by the following review.

Look, Design, Feel (7/10)

Except for sliver, the other colours introduced by Nokia for the 6700 slide are glaring and shimmery which may be too bold for some. Dimensions wise, the chassis measures 95.2mm (122mm when slid open) x 46.1 x 15.9mm and weighs 110g. The measurements of the handset are perfectly pocketable putting together a perfect piece of portion. The 2.2 inch screen consumes most of the sizeable area leaving the remaining space for the D-pad and control keys. A resolution of 320x240 pixels for the screen might not please everybody, but for me it is perfect, as text and images are clearly visible. It even includes an ambient sensor that adjusts the screen brightness depending upon the surroundings, a feature useful when reading a text in sunlight.

The Home and Clear buttons seem small to look at, but due to the raised design they offer ease of navigation. Located in the middle, the D-pad is large enough to scroll the screen effortlessly. Sometimes you do feel it occupies so much space that Nokia could have exchanged it for a little larger screen. Glide the 6700 slide to discover the keypad, the slider mechanism works like a dream in the midst of a clicking sound in the background.

As you get to the keys, disappointment seeps in as they are small and the upper rows are difficult to access. It is not as if they are throwaway pieces, however you would take some time to adjust. Other hardware pieces include, a camera shutter on the right side, a 2.5 mm headset jack at the top, a Nokia charging port and a USB port.

Features (8/10)

The Nokia 6700 slide runs on the Symbian S60 3rd Edition OS, probably an outdated OS by now. Those who have used Nokia Symbian handsets before will become easily familiar with its interface. The home screen is the regular 3x4 framework with shortcuts to various submenus or applications. The phonebook in the 6700 slide is complex, yet easy to synchronize through various options offered. Select a contact, press the right key and a pop-up menu will give you options of dialling, sending a text or audio messages, along with integrating using Ovi contacts.

Nokia offers a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a dual-LED flash, a sufficiently high-resolution for still images and it does not disappoint either. It also includes a front camera for video calling and portrait photos. Outdoor photos taken with the camera grasp every detailing and the colours. Video recording isn’t impressive, as the capture presents us with middle-of-the-road performance.

The music player put forward an average performance and not many words can describe the experience. Ironically, the loudspeaker is exceptionally clear to the point of blasting your ears off.

Nokia’s web browser supports Flash lite, which means you will be able to view flash supported pages. The screen is small, but Nokia provides supportive features such as the MiniMap system to get a thumb view image of the site, full screen browsing, and an accelerometer to view web pages in landscape mode.

Other features include access to Ovi store with a list of apps available for downloading and common ones like calendar, alarm clock, voice recorder and calculator.

Connectivity (7/10)

The usual connectivity options for the Nokia 6700 slide is its HSDPA 10.2 Mbit/s and HSUPA 2.0 Mbit/s 3G support. Sadly it does not support Wi-Fi, although many could do without it. PC-2-Phone connectivity supports the Nokia Ovi Suite, which you need to download and install from the official site. Unfortunately, the PC cable provided in the box is excruciatingly small, which can be a pest at times whilst transferring the files.

Performance (8/10)

The call quality of the Nokia 6700 slide is what we would describe, ideal. If it is your mom calling, you can easily recognize her, that is how real the voice sounds on the phone. However, there is no such feature to disable background noise and sometimes it is necessary for your caller to repeat themselves, although, callers on the other side did not complain.

Nokia predicts 4 hours of talk time and 13 days of standby time for the 6700 slide, which is satisfactory considering not many phones last that long. Other than the superb camera, the phone’s features, like the design, web browsing and social networking prove to be OK for a thumbs-up. Of course, there are better phones in the market and those with touch screen too, but those who believe in the power of only a keypad, this could turn out to be a better deal.

Value for Money (7/10)

Nokia 6700 slide wins some and loses some. Whilst for a slider phone maybe it tries to give its all, but many would prefer a candy bar or a touchscreen with a QWERTY, if opting for a slider. The Nokia 6700 is neither. For its price there are similar, better performing phones in the market, some of them providing an option of a touch input. The Nokia 6700 slide is not bad, but its sales are doubtful for the reasons given above.