Nokia X6 16Gb Review: First Impressions

We’ve been very happily using the Nokia X6 16GB for a couple days now here at ZCJ.

And with that, here’s our First Impressions so far.

What we liked :

• The Capacitive 3.2″ Glass Screen is beautiful to use and makes S60v5 a heck of a lot easier to use too. The X6 responds to the slightest touch and you dont have to put as much pressure on the screen as, say, a resistive screen. I know 3.2″ is already considered ‘small’ by many today, but it’s large enough for most people, me included. It’s nice and bright and quite a pleasure to watch videos on, or surf the Internets!



• Has the “Media Key” that we saw on a couple XpressMusic devices before. Quick access to Music, Images, Sharing Media, Video and Web y’all.
• Has a great size and weight (122 g) to it. At 111 x 51 x 13.8 mm it feels pretty good in your hand.



• It has the same Homescreen as the 5530 and 5800 (on v40 firmware). Upto 20 Homescreen Contacts, 4 App shortcuts, etc. Software and UI-wise its basically identical to the 5800 and 5530. We miss the Widget-ised Nseries Homescreen though.
• Call Quality is great. No dropped calls yet.
• Absolutely love the All-Black variant we got.



• Our unit came with a VERY sweet pair of Black (to suit the Black X6 I assume) BH-214 Bluetooth Stereo Headset in-box. And as you might already know, we love the BH-214s.



• 3.5mm Standard Audio Jack present, with TV-Out. W00t!
• Has built-in Accelerometer (to automatically turn screen orientation) and Proximity Sensor (to automatically shut off screen when you’re making a call and placing near your ear).
• Has the sliding screen-lock switch from the 5800. It does rattle a slight bit though, which is quite annoying since our unit is just a couple days old now.



• Dedicated Camera key along with Volume Increase/Decrease keys.
• Wifi, 3G, Bluetooth and MicroUSB. Front Facing Camera for Video Calls. Check.
• A-GPS with Ovi Maps and Free Navigation onboard. No GPS-lock problems at all so far. Seems to get a lock in a minute (cold start, under a minute during warm start, both provided you have A-GPS on).
• Kinetic scrolling everywhere, so no real need to ever use those scrollbars.
• Nokia Messaging is present as a built-in Email client. But it seems to do a sort of weird check, before it installs it and allows you to use it.
• Stereo Loudspeakers are actually pretty good. Not as loud as the N95 and N82, but much louder than the 5800 and along the same lines as the N97 Variants.



• UI has some ‘pretty’ transitions here and there. Turned off by default though.

Battery life seems to be pretty okay, and almost identical to the N97 Mini.
With my screen on full brightness, after 2 hours of Music over Bluetooth, 30 mins of calling, 30 minutes of GPRS and another 30 minutes of Wifi usage, about 20 minutes of GPS, 5 minutes of Camera use, and another 10 minutes of installing applications and configuring the device, the X6 was only 3 bars down when I got back home. Of course i’ll have to test this out more intensively over the coming days. It looks like the X6 might get you back home, with it still switched on, but you will definitely have to charge it every night or so, depending on your usage.

What we werent too sure about :

• Even though there’s a microUSB port, the X6 only charges via the old standard Nokia thin pin charging port. We’d think this would have been standard by now.



• The Calling Keys and Menu key are all hardware button, and not touch sensitive as we expected them to be (like on the N97 variants). This does take away from the whole Touch experience.



• No MicroSD card support. But then again, you have 16GB of external memory, with about 270Mb of Phone memory to keep you happy.
• The X6 Menu button also functions as it’s breathing light and notification light. Strangely this is turned off by default though.
• No hardware keyboard means you’re depended on the On-screen Virtual Keyboard. Similar input methods to the 5800 with both an Alphanumeric, and Qwerty Virtual keyboard. No Handwriting recognition mode is present with the X6, since it doesnt come with a stylus.



• Just about 50Mb of Ram at startup means the X6 is just as good/bad as the N97 Mini, N97, 5800, 5230 and other S60v5 devices so far. Not exactly a multitasking machine, but that’s not the X6′s intended crowd anyway.
• 5 Megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Lens and Dual LED flash gets decent results, but not as good as the N97′s similarly spec’d Camera. Lots of noise in any indoor or low light images. No lens protector either.

  

  You can check out more images in our Nokia X6 Camera Sample Album on Flickr. Worth noting that it’s leagues ahead of the 5800′s Camera though.Very nice pictures in daytime.

• Build Quality is good but mostly hard plastic around.



• Screen performs more or less like the 5800′s resistive screen in the case of direct sunlight. Barely legible, but more so than many other touch devices we’ve reviewed.
• The microUSB to USB connector cable in the retail package is really really reaaaallly short. Just sayin’.

What we didnt like :

• The back panel feels quite tedious when you have to take it off or put it back on. I always feel like I might break it, since you literally have to peel it off the device. Plus when closed, there’s still a slight amount of give towards the middle which constantly irritates me since it feels like I might have not closed it properly when I have infact done so.



• The X6 has the same insane Sim-lock mechanism that the 5800 had. Y’know where you open the side plastic port cover, stick in your sim card, and then later if/when you need to remove it, need a Stylus or something to “push” it out with ? Not a big deal if you dont trade Sim Cards too often though.



• Just like with the Original N97 and N97 Mini, there is no TV-out cable provided in box. I’m assume Nokia either thought that people dont use this feature that much, and tried to cut down on costs, or thought people who had previous Nseries devices would buy the X6. I dunno. In any case, there’s still “TV-Out” as a supported feature of the X6, but you’ll need to get that cable from somewhere else.
• No FM Transmitter. Thought this would be a standard Feature by now. Especially for a Music Oriented device. There’s still an FM Radio present though.

==============

Here’s a brief video of our First Impressions :

So that’s about it. Remember you can keep a watch on our Nokia X6 16Gb Review Album on Flickr, or our Nokia X6 Review Playlist on Youtube.

Were you considering a Nokia X6 16Gb? Have any questions about a feature ? Something we missed ? Do let us know in the comments y’all !

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Author Description

Clinton Jeff

Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile and mobile-related accessories. Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, on Google Plus or on Facebook or Twitter: Follow @clintonjeff

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Audich

All said and done, X6 is OK. Except one distinctive defect that the sound output is abysmally low compared to other economy variety of mobile sets available in market. Even it is very much of poor quality compared to Nokia N73. Audich: 13-May-2011

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Bindu1931

I had bought this mobile in India (Andhra pradesh ,Anantapur). I think Compare to Other versions like 5233& 52_ _ .Version mobiles it is waste because it has same features as that of 6000 Rupees Mobile. 1. When we talk about the performance Of Nokia X6 it quite slow when we perform 2 or 3 Tasks .We can t browse internet and and music at a time because the the mobile will stuck down and will restart Suddenly. 2. When we talk about the battery back up .One complete charged battery will survive for only 2days. (Think How it is .But in the Nokia view it is shown that it will survive for 406hrs (stand by). how trash is this) 3. When we try to install some software's which suits to Nokia X6 it will install and later the real problems will start like suddenly restarting the phone.Poor performance of opening the pages . 4. BROTHERS don't buy this phone Buy another phone which belongs to Nokia .Why because Nokia Mobiles are Good but Touch Screen Versions are not Soo Good. 5.At Last think And Buy. For any Oter information call to Me: MOBILE NUMBER:+918099620001(INDIA). 6. bye brothers Email me at :lalu419@gmail.com

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umang

[URL=http://img153.imageshack.us/i/dscn2376a.jpg/][IMG]http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/799/dscn2376a.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL][URL=http://img708.imageshack.us/i/dscn2375l.jpg/][IMG]http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/6303/dscn2375l.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL][URL=http://img10.imageshack.us/i/dscn2374g.jpg/][IMG]http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/1800/dscn2374g.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL][URL=http://img3.imageshack.us/i/dscn2373r.jpg/][IMG]http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5647/dscn2373r.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]tel me if i hv to take the pics frm a diff angle?n is this normal or mine is a broken piece?cuz the middle clippings dsnt even make any sound of "click" when pressed on both sides. I cannot go to nokia care even tho its very near to house , cuz i hv a broken leg =

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Clinton Jeff

Terribly Sorry Umang. Bit caught up in the last few days :)

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Clinton Jeff

Sorry Ka, the fm transmitter's depend on hardware, which the X6 doesnt have :-

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Clinton Jeff

If qwerty is important to you, then the N97 mini all the way. Otherwise the X6 and it's capacitive screen is a definite winner :)

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Clinton Jeff

If qwerty is important to you, then the N97 mini all the way. Otherwise the X6 and it's capacitive screen is a definite winner :)

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Clinton Jeff

Hey there Umang. Got a picture of that? Cause ours sort of has that problem too.

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umang

does anyone ever even reply here?

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Ka

can i get a fm transmitter software for x6 32gb

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umang

the nokia x6 is better than i thought but the worst thing is the battery cover which is completely bulged n lifted frm the speakers side, and i really dont know if they gave me a broken phone and it dsnt makes the clicking sound like the other side when pressed =/

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Guest

Trying to decide between this and the n97 mini - any advice???

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Nokia X6

???????? ?????? ?????! ??? ????? ??????????. ?????? ? ????? ?????. ???? ??????. ??? ?????? Nokia X6 32Gb. http://mini-portal.ru/news/smartfon_Nokia_X6.html ? ?????? ????? ????. :)

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Faisal

Nice review. That was invaluable. But what about GPS and office applications? Does X6 16gb comes with life-time free voice guided navigation just like 5800? And what about document and pdf viewer? Please confirm. I am from New Delhi.

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