May 20, 2006

Nokia 6270 Review by stupot42



I just bought a new phone. The old one was driving me crazy cos the battery was on it's last legs. I had to charge it every day, which was a real pain in the rear!

I changed from a Nokia to a Samsung about 2 years ago, and could never get myself round to the Samsung way of thinking, so changed it back to a Nokia, the 7250i I've just replaced. The 7250 was a good little phone that did everything I wanted it to, but my only real niggle with it was the slightly tinny and poor sound quality from it. Now I know the president of Nokia has said they're not to be called "phones" any more (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht...95_nokia14.html ), but primarily that's what it is, and that's what I use it for. So, I set out to find a new phone that I liked to use (Nokia seemed the front runner) and that had good quality sound.

I eventually found what I was looking for in the Nokia 6270. The 6270 is the poor sibling of the 3G enabled 6280. However, not having a 3G contract or the desire to get one it seemed silly to pay the extra for the 6280, which is essentially the same phone, but with another camera on the front for video calls. I've been quite impressed, with the phone over all.

My favourite feature is the recharge time. It charges the battery from empty to full in under and hour. My 7250 took 4 hours, and that was daily at the end of it's life. The phone is quite juicy running the battery down easily in the space of a day if you're playing games on it, or taking loads of pics or vids, which is unsurprising when you consider the massive and very impressive 2.25", 262k colours, 320x240 pixel wide/tall-screen. But if not using these power hungry apps, the batter will last well. 4 days on standby, and 4 hours of talk time seem to be average.

I like the new "Series 40" UI, which is very intuitive and easy to use. It follows Nokias sensible way of setting out the features that has been Nokia's best feature IMHO for years, but combines it with a Sony Ericsson style. The UI exudes quality. I particularly like the new SMS style. Picking the phone number to send to before writing your message makes sense, and should stop the sending a message to the wrong person. I also like the ability to pick a number of recipients, displayed in an Email-esque fashion.

I had considered the Nokia 6111, which is very similar, but chose the 6270 as I liked the larger screen (and personally I like a slightly bigger phone as I know it's in my pocket and it feels like you're using a phone, not a thimble!), and the 2 mega pixel camera. The camera takes some excellent quality photos, and has some nice features. It's not fantastic in the dark, and I'm not sure the night shot feature works particularly well (giving grainy pictures) and the flash is very gimmicky, but works ok in very dark conditions as long as your subject isn't too far away. Overall the camera is good for daylight shots, and not too bad at night, but in no way a replacement for a good digital camera. Ideal for capturing those spur of the moment shots tho.

The MP3 player is ok, but nothing special. It's not going to replace your Ipod, but the sound is ok. I hate the bundled headphones that, which come in a lanyard style that's just horrible. Worst of all because there's no headphone jack, you're probably stuck with them.

Calendar and other usual features are much the same as ever. All work well, and quickly. I've also been quite impressed with the bundled software, which allows you to send text messages from your computer using the keyboard, as well as sync the calendar, phonebook etc with your PC, and upload files. You can also use the phone as a removable hard drive with the mini SD card (128mb supplied) and supplied USB cable. No software is required either, with the phone prompting you to pick a mode when the USB is detected. The SD can also be hot swapped during operation without shutting down the phone... an annoyance of past Nokia phones.

Overall, I'm very pleased. I'd give it 8/10 [ Discuss ]