Nokia X6 Preview
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone and its variants managed to gain popularity despite the slightly flaky touch screen interface. The latest successor to the 5800 is the X6, which with its shorter, catchier name and various improved features should recapture a music market dominated by the iPhone and Sony Ericsson’s Walkman range of music phones.
The Nokia X6 borrows the screen from the N97 Mini, which means that you get a 3.2 inch touch sensitive display. It is large enough to make watching videos and longer clips easy and although it is not multi-touch sensitive like the iPhone’s screen it is at least an improvement over the standard 5800 screen.
Where the X6 really improves on older Nokia handsets is with a massive 32GB of internal memory. That is plenty of room for thousands of songs, as well as enough to take significant numbers of photos and videos. Sadly you cannot add in a memory card to further augment the storage or transfer files between your phone and a computer. This is not a huge problem as the on board storage is more than ample, but it does slightly dampen the impact of the X6.
The Nokia X6 is slimmer than the 5800 and also features a touch of either red or blue at the top and bottom of its body in order to make it stand out from the crowd. The X6 is aimed mainly at those looking to play music and video and as such it is compatible with all of the file formats that you would expect. There is support for album artwork for your music tracks and there will also be an X6 ‘comes with music’ edition released to give you access to unlimited downloads.
The Nokia X6 is more than just a music phone. The first thing users of the 5800 will notice is the significant expansion of the social networking capabilities on the X6. You can now pack up to 20 friends onto the X6’s home screen for instant access to their information, pictures and other useful items. Additionally it is designed for use with Facebook, Flikr and others to make it a versatile social networking device. You can upload photos via Ovi or browse the app store for further useful applications. However, the Ovi Store still lags some way behind the iPhone’s App Store in terms of variety and polish.
Another significant technical improvement offered by the X6 is the 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash. This is essentially the same item as you would find on Nokia’s more expensive smartphones and is therefore a welcome addition. You can shoot video in VGA resolution and the quality is good enough for uploading to YouTube. The Nokia X6 also has a TV-out socket, similar to that found on the N97, so you can view your pictures and videos on a much larger screen if you wish. There is even some built-in video editing software which is simple enough for anyone to use but offers more creative users something to really get their teeth into.
Most standalone music players and modern phones include free headphones as part of the package. For the most part these are cheap items that rarely do the device justice. The Nokia X6 seems to be bucking the trend by including a good quality stereo headset that covers the ears rather than relying on in-ear buds. That means you will not be forced to spend more of your hard earned money for a better set of headphones.
The Nokia X6 will be available free on a monthly contract plan from October 2009.
