We’ve had the Nokia C6 for about a month now here at ZCJ.
Is this Budget phone worth the loot? Better than the ol’Nseries Flagship the Nokia N97?
Well you’ll have to read on to know that.
Note: Since the UI on the Nokia C6-00 is so similar to the N97 Variants and the 5800, we have linked to certain posts where needed, instead of repeating ourselves here again.
The Nokia C6 is pretty feature-rich for a Budget phone. Infact, it’s entire feature set is quite similar to the ol’ Nseries Flagship that was the Nokia N97 Mini, lacking only a thing or two.
It’s spec sheet boasts features such as:
So as you can see, the C6 is pretty packed for it’s price range. You can read the full list of features on the Nokia C6-00 Specs Page.
The C6-00 measures 113 x 53 x 16.8 mm and weighs in at just 150 grams, which is pretty compact. We’ve sized it up against the Nokia N97, against the Nokia N97 Mini, against the Nokia E72, against the Nokia C5, and against the Nokia 5230.
Not petite, but not too large, atleast. The phone feels great in your hand.
Build Quality is pretty good. There’s a lot of hard matt plastic, but its solid. Like the classic Nokia build quality in my opinion. There’s no creaks or squeaks and the Slider is pretty snappy, and slides in/out with a very encouraging ‘snap‘.
Firmware:
It’s worth noting that the Nokia C6-00 in this review is on firmware version 11.0.029 which is the latest at the time of this posting. Some Features might be added or improved in later versions.
First Impressions:
We’d also like to recommend reading our First Impressions of the Nokia C6, so that you know how or if our opinions changed from then to now.
Colors:
The Nokia C6-00 ships in both Black and White colors as of right now. Some special edition colors might pop up later if the device turns out to be popular enough, assumingly.
You can check out our detailed comparison of both color versions here.
The Retail Package:
The Nokia C6 comes in the usual colorful blue Nokia box, that’s become so common nowadays.
Although the contents vary from region to region. You can check out our Nokia C6 EURO device unboxing post for more details.
On with the pictures!
Front View:
The front of the Nokia C6 has a 3.2? TFT Resistive touchscreen.
On top, the X6 has it’s earpiece and front facing QVGA camera for video calls. There’s also a proximity sensor which shuts off the screen as you place the screen near your ear when making a call.
At the bottom are the hardware Green and Red calling keys, with the Menu button in the middle. Unfortunately the Red Key also works as the power button, which can lead to some frustrating situations once in a while.
The keys light up when used. The Menu key acts as a notification light and ‘breathes’ or blinks every so often to remind you that the device is switched on. When you have a missed call or new text message or email, the light blinks more often to notify you. Strangely though, this feature is off by default, so you have to go into your settings to switch it on.
Once you slide out the Full Qwerty keyboard, the screen automatically goes to landscape (can also be set not to). The qwerty keyboard is a definite advantage with the C6-00.
You’ll also notice that the C6-00 is the first non-Nseries device to get the Widgetised Homescreen. For more on this, do check out our post on The Nokia N97 Mini and it’s Widgetised Homescreen.
The keyboard on the C6 is actually one of the better ones we’ve used. Each individual key is separated and has just the right amount of feedback when pressed.
The keys are also all uniformly lit when needed. No complaints there.
There’s also the D-pad on the right side, which we werent too fond of. I personally, prefer the Dpad to be on the left side (if at all), so having it on the right side did take a bit of getting used to.
Another thing to note is that the Space Bar on the C6 is center-oriented, compared to the Nseries variants before which had it more right-oriented.
As a result, you get used to the keyboard in no time. Like Nokia devices before, you can type the symbols in the orange color font, by tapping the function key, yada yada, no change there.
Back View:
The back of the Nokia C6-00 consists of mainly matt plastic, with a removable back panel.
The 1200 mAh BL-4J Battery seems to last a day-ish. The same as the Nokia X6 battery life. 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 C6 was only 3 bars down when I got back home. It looks like the C6 might get you back home, with it still switched on, but you will definitely have to charge that battery every night or so, depending on your usage.
Speaking of which, the back panel is pretty solid. No creaks on our unit atleast.
There’s also a mono loudspeaker on the back.
It’s pretty much your average loud-ness in volume. Not as loud as the Nokia X6 or Nseries devices, but louder than the Nokia E72 and most Eseries devices.
There’s also the standard Nokia 5 Megapixel Camera on the back, with a single LED Flash.
We got decent results from the Nokia C6-00′s camera. Nothing majorly great, and you probably wont take any award-winning pictures with this thing. However, it’s more than good enough for random pictures of random things. For more on this, check out our Nokia C6-00 Camera Samples Review Post.
Top View :
The top of the device houses the standard 3.5mm Audio Jack, and a microUSB port with a hard-plastic cover.
Also a bit annoying, is that the C6 does not charge over the microUSB port. We’d imagine this would have been a standard feature by now.
Bottom View :
The Nokia C6-00 only has it’s standard Nokia charging port here. As we mentioned before, this is the only way to charge the device, since it does not charge over its microUSB slot at all.
Left View :
On it’s left side, the Nokia C6 only has it’s microSD port, with a hard plastic cover.
Right View :
From left to right, we have the dedicated Camera button, the sliding screen-lock key, and the Volume increase and decrease keys (which double as Zoom in and out keys in camera mode).
The Camera button has good feedback and we had no problems with it at all. Same for the volume keys.
The S60 V5 Touch UI, Menu and HomeScreen :
The Nokia C6-00 uses the same Symbian^1 (aka S60v5) Touch OS that’s on the Nokia N97 variants and XpressMusic devices before it. There’s nothing new here, except that the X6 (like the aforementioned Xpressmusic devices) do not have the Widgetised Homescreen that the Nseries devices do.
Other than that, everythings basically the same. There’s kinetic scrolling everywhere, a couple screen transitions here and there (turned off by default though), etc. The Symbian OS is pretty mature (but admittedly looks dated) and has a bunch of standard features like Multitasking, Copy-Paste, etc.
And just like all of Nokia’s newer devices, there’s a Firmware-over-the-air (FOTA) feature that allows you to update its firmware to a newer version, if present, wirelessly using WiFi. Unfortunately outside of a few Nokia apps, there’s no way to tell if any 3rd party apps on your device has updates available. Unless the app checks when you start it up.
Memory :
The C6 has about 240Mb of Internal memory to play around with. Lots of legroom, so you dont have to worry about running low on phone memory.
That being said, the C6 has about the same Ram as the N97 Mini (about 40mb at startup) which means you cant really have too many applications open at the same time. Not too much Multitasking on this one.
Ovi Store :
The C6 ships with an Ovi Store Client built in, so that you can start using it to download app right from the start.
The Ovi Store works like you’d expect it to. Nothing really new here.
There’s a ton of free and paid content for the C6, with new content being added almost every week or so. There’s useful apps like the Nokia Photo Browser and Shazaam, to completely useless “fun” random apps like the Spin-the-bottle app or the Duck-call app. There’s also a couple neat games lately, like “The Big Roll in Paradise“.
Internet Browsing :
The C6 uses the same browser as the N97 Mini. It’s pretty quick, and has an automatic Fullscreen mode that works well enough. It doesnt have the prettiest UI, but it loads full websites (just about) and has full flash support, so that’s nice. You can check out our Web Browsing on the Nokia N97 Mini post for a more detailed look. The slight improvement on the C6′s browser, is that you can now directly search from the “Go To” page, instead of having to go to Google.com before, etc.
Contacts :
Contacts on the C6 are pretty much your standard affair. Nothing new here really. There’s no real integration with any Social Media network, but you can mark favourite contacts, or set them into groups and having a different ringtone per contact, etc. You can also add more fields with custom labels. Similar (again) to contacts on the N97 Mini.
Calender :
The C6’s S60 v5 OS uses a version of the Eseries Calendar app thats been optimised for touch. All the usual bells and whistles that you’re used to in the Calendar app in S60v3 are in there.
And of course you can change the default Calendar month view to by week, etc :
Make new entries for Meetings, ToDo lists, etc.
And change the main Calendar options.
Like I said, all the usual Bells and Whistles.
Music :
The Music Player application on the C6 is your standard Nokia S60 affair. Nothing new in the software aspect. There’s even an FM radio, Podcasting Client and Sound Recorder if anyone was wondering. No FM Transmitter or Internet radio though, unfortunately.
Again, it’s similar to the N97 mini, so for more details about this check out our post on Music on the Nokia N97 Mini.
The Gallery :
The Image Gallery sorts your pictures by Captured (by the C6’s camera), by Months, Albums, Tags, Downloads and Share Online. Curiously absent is an “All” section. Any Images you transfer to the C6, or get from other friends via Bluetooth, etc are stored in the “Downloads” section.
The Image Gallery though is pretty much the same as the one on the Original N97 and 5800. Images are shown by their thumbnails, in a grid pattern.
This is okay if you have a few images. But anything over 30 Images can be a headache to scroll through. Also, for some weird reason, videos are also shown in the Photo Gallery, in different sections.
So much for that distinction eh ?
The Videos and Tv app contains exclusively your Videos.
You can see your last viewed Video, or play any videos right from where you left off. Pretty neat.
Text Input:
Since the C6 has a full QWERTY hardware keyboard, text input is never a problem. There’s also a visual onscreen T9 keyboard incase you want to use the device one-handed. Worth nothing is that there’s no stylus included with the package, and no handwriting recognition built into it.
Email :
The C6 comes with Nokia Messaging pre-installed which is a good thing. For more on this, do check out our Email on the Nokia N97 Mini post.
Office :
The C6 has a bunch of Office-related applications on board. These are pretty much good enough solutions for a person on the move.
The QuickOffice application onboard is only a Trial though, but lets you view various Office files like Word Documents, PPTS, Excel SpreadSheets, etc.
GPS & Compass :
Like most of Nokia’s latest Nseries, the C6 also has built in GPS, and ships with the Ovi Maps Application (with Free turn-by-turn Navigation) to use it. This is usual with all Nokia devices nowadays, and is still the best Mobile GPS Navigation that we’ve used.
Accelerometer and Sensors :
The C6 has a built in accelerometer, and hence has a couple apps that make use of this feature. One such app is built in, under the settings menu, under “Sensor settings”.
Here you can choose whether to auto-rotate the display from portrait to landscape and vice-versa depending on the phone’s orientation.
You can also choose to flip your phone over to silence an incoming call or alarm.
Profiles :
The C6 has the same basic Profiles app as S60 devices before it, like the N97 and 5800, with Timed Profiles too.
Personalizing your Profile and editing it, is basically the same as the 5800.
All sorts of settings and options for Tones and the Haptic feedback vibration levels, etc.
Apart from the Above:
It’s worth nothing that the Nokia C6 doesnt just run on the ‘N97′s Software‘. It’s a lot more stable, a lot more updated, and a lot more quicker all around. No pretty transition animations anywhere though. However it still remains S60V5 for better or for worse.
Conclusion :
Rating: 
Okay so here’s the thing. The C6 is just a nice phone.
I’d actually recommend it over the Nokia X6. Because it seems to do everything that the N97 Mini does, but at a much lesser price. Granted that Camera isnt carl zeiss, and hence wont have as great picture quality as the N97 variants. And the Audio quality is just a tiny bit lower in quality too.
But otherwise, the Build quality is great. Software wise everything’s about what you’d expect from a Symbian S60^5 device. There arnt any flashy transitions, but everything works well enough. With just 40Mb-ish at launch, you cant really keep too many apps open in the background, but it can still manage a handful of them just fine.
There’s no integration out of the box with any social network though. There is however a Facebook app pre-installed. Phone memory isnt a problem now, at about 240Mb. Battery life isnt too bad either. The 3.5mm Audio port is an advantage and there’s a 2GB microSD included in the retail package, which should keep most people happy.
And with all the extras, like Free GPS Navigation with Ovi Maps, the Nokia C6-00 is actually really worth the price. Great value for money there.
The only problem? The C6-01 that was announced at Nokia World. The C6-01 is just a month-ish away from releasing, and has way better specs. However, chances are it wont be anywhere as cheap, though still staying a budget phone.
If you’re on the lookout for a budget phone right now that can handle everything and has the advantage of a touchscreen and physical keyboard, then by all means the Nokia C6-00 is the device for you.
But if you can wait, we have a sneaky suspicion that the Nokia C6-01 will be a much better device.
Here’s a video of our Final Verdict on the Nokia C6 :
Remember if you’d like we also have a Full Nokia C6 Review Playlist on our YouTube Channel, and various pictures from our Review on our Flickr Album.
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
is the touch screen working well? do pages open quickly or take some time? which one is better.either C6 or X6?
hi,. jeff by default nokia C6-00 keypad light will be on., is there any alternative software,. to turn off in day time. Please help me out., b'coz,. it consumes more battery power., when we use keypad.
Please check if your proximity sensor is functional. I'm also using nokia c6-00 but i am not facing this issue.
Hi Jeff, Thanks for sharing this review. Has Nokia stopped this model? I was enquiring Nokia priority dealer in bangalore reg this model who said becoz of software problem Nokia has stopped this model, Is it so? Does this phone really hangs..many review/users opinions in internet said this phone sucks? Does this phone automatically restarts? what abt the battery life.. I am planning to this mobile. Pls suggest. Thanks.
Nice informative review of the C6, thanks for all the effort you've put into this and sharing.
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