Stuff Magazine's Nokia X6 Review: For entertainment, music and social networking.

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I don’t know what on earth the reviewer speaks of when she says the 5800 was not the hit Nokia were expecting. I remember that around March/April, Nokia expected to sell 1 million 5800 but exceeded that and sold 3 million (actually already reached 1 million in January). Sales wise, the 5800 is one of Nokia’s most successful phones.

But perhaps the reviewer meant successful in terms of mind share; getting an iconic handset with an agreeable touch UI. This is where touch S60 initially had fallen short of the mark.

The X6 seeks to remedy this, along with a few hardware changes, including Nokia’s first capacitive screen, 32GB (or also 16GB) memory, and a slimmer shell.

Unfortunately, as the reviewer correctly puts, the X6 is still (unbearably) underwhelming. Pausing between loading of apps, freezing in heavy web pages, nonsensical double taps to open folders – overall very laggy for what’s supposedly a premium handset (premium priced anyways).

An important thing to consider maybe the recent firmware upgrade of the X6 to V12, which does sort out some speed and stability (or lack of) issues. It’s a touch annoying  though that despite the lengthy life span and history of Symbian, each new handset (not just S60 variant) still needs firmware upgrade after firmware upgrade to become finally usable. (V21 with N97 after 7 months is almost there). This is not good for users who don’t even know what a firmware is let alone how to upgrade it. (On the positive note, “frequent” firmware upgrades means problems gradually get fixed quicker….though on the flip side again, that problem should not be there in the first place. I mean come on…same phone just different shell…it’s like there’s some amnesia and they’ve forgotten they already sorted this problem out in another phone :S)

I reckon the 5800 is still a much better option as a music phone. The only thing it really lacks is the additional 2MP. But for such a value-packed price, the 5800 is unbeatable. And then there’s always the likes of the 5230, another phone of unquestionably great value for money. [That’s what I recommend to friends looking for a good value, ‘modern’ Nokia phone. Not so much 5530 as that lacks GPS and having free Sat Nav functionality always impresses, especially when they don’t realise their phone has it]

Tags: 5230, 5530, 5800, 5th Edition, Nokia, Nokia X6, Review, S60, Stuff Magazine, X6

Category: 5th Edition, Nokia, Nseries, Rant, S60, Symbian, Video