Nokia 6500 Classic

I’ve been using a new mobile phone, the Nokia 6500 Classic, for a few days now. Overall, I can say it’s the best mobile phone I’ve ever used. Here’s why…

Pros:

• Supremely pocketable - a mobile phone should be easy to carry around. This phone is only 9.5mm thick and 45mm wide; and weighs 94g
• Fantastic user interface - SMS texting in particular has never been so easy; and the integration of SMS and MMS messaging into a single unified interface is really elegant
• Fantastic screen - QVGA resolution, and beautifully bright and sharp
• Great keypad - the keys are small, but the design means that you never hit the wrong key by mistake; and the 4-way navigation ring and large select button work a treat
• Amazing web browsing experience using Opera Mini versions 3 and 4 beta (I’ll be blogging about the state of mobile web browsing another time)
• 3G - fast data downloads
• Value for money - available free with contracts from providers offering good cost-effective tariffs
• The new OS (S40 5th Edition, Feature Pack 1) seems pretty robust - it hasn’t crashed on me once
• Great build quality - the metal case feels really solid and well-engineered
• A Java ME implementation that’s bang up-to-date. It includes support for JSR-248, an important standard that aims to address the issue of fragmentation of Java on mobile handsets. It is enabling developers to build applications that will work predictably across hundreds of millions of handsets in the next couple of years. With that kind of market size, expect some amazing applications to be built for phones that support JSR-248

Cons:

• The camera works well enough in good light, but photos become rather noisy in even modest light conditions. The flash helps, but colours are not completely natural in that case. The lack of autofocus and macro settings mean it’s rather a long way from the standard of the best mobile phone cameras. The camera falls into the category of “just about good enough” for quick snaps, but don’t expect good results in low light. Video capture is OK, but as with the still shots, you need good light conditions to get reasonable quality results.
• Battery. The phone is rather a victim of its own success as a multi-function device. With so many useful features, especially the great data-related features such as the superb web browsing (and apps like Google Maps, which works well on the phone), people will want to use this device a lot. If you use the phone a lot, you should expect to have to charge it every night

If you’re in the market for a new mobile phone, I recommend you audition the Nokia 6500 Classic.