This is the review on the Nokia C6-01 which recently went on sale here in the UK and is a touch screen phone not to be confused with the Nokia C6 which was the original C6 we recently reviewed as that uses an older version of the OS and has a slide out QWERTY keyboard.
A massive thank you to Nokia for providing the loan device for 2 weeks so that is can be reviewed for all to see.
The main features of the Nokia C6 are:
Now onto the main part of the review starting with a look at the phone.
HARDWARE
Size. There is hardly anything hardware wise I can say a bad word about when it comes to the C6-01 and the size is included in that statement. Although not a large device it is also not the smallest, a nice mid range phone with a touch screen and a good set of specifications makes for a great purchase for a lot of people. Of course with a smaller phone comes a smaller screen which might not be big enough for people who like devices like the iPhone or a HTC Desire, however for someone wanting a touch screen without paying £30 a month on a contract or £400 sim free, the C6-01 sits nicely in this bracket.
Build Quality. Nokia have done an awesome job with the design and the build quality of the C6-01, that is something I have said many times about devices, mainly about ESeries but this really is very well designed and well made from size down to materials used. The glass screen makes browsing and navigating a pleasure and the metal finish on the back makes you appreciate the strength in the materials, It is almost like a N8. Nokia keep churning out great hardware and have for a while now, even more impressive with the new Symbian 3 range of devices.
Memory. The C6-01 comes with 340mb of internal memory and a 2gb Micro SD card in the box which will also support a 16gb memory card if you have one already. 340mb was more than enough for a lot of users even those who like to install a lot of applications from OVI store but the best way to manage the memory is to change the settings so all music, video and photos save to the memory card and free up that internal memory for applications, contacts and other content such as this.
Screen. The screen on the C6-01 is smaller than the original C6 at just 3.2 inches. This does help keep the overall size of the phone down and is perfectly good for some general use tasks such as making phone calls, sending texts and listening to music on the move. Where the smaller size lets you down is on watching videos where the extra space would have been a nice extra especially with the new CBD. Speaking about CBD (Clear Black Display) this is sort of like LED for TV's but on mobile phones with the blacks being blacker adding more depth to the colours. To be honest although a good selling point, on a screen only 3.2 inches this would have also been nice to see on the larger screen phones like the N8 and C7. At least the E7 due in January is getting CBD which will be nice to see.
Camera. The C6-01 has a 8 megapixel camera which overall is impressive, although does take some getting used too and will not be for everyone. The reason I say this is due to the fact there is no auto-focus, instead Nokia decided to use a new focus which is great for getting in a lot of detail if you are far away from what you want to take a picture of, great for things like landcapes but pretty much useless for macro style photos as you cannot focus that close.
It is nice to see another 8 megapixel shooter from Nokia especially as it took a while for them to upgrade to 8 from a 5 and at present there is only one 12 megapixel phone which is the very impressive N8 but that is very image focussed and comes with a premium price.
Video recording is 720p definition so still classed as HD. Nokia do a very good job on video recording in their phones now and these are perfect for uploading to YouTube or sharing with family and friends.
What is nice to see is although the C6-01 cannot compete with the imaging and video quality of the N8, it still offers a very impressive lens with a dual LED flash and is so portable you can snap your photos on the move without having to worry about poor quality or not having a standalone digital camera. If you are after the best camera possible on a mobile then go for the N8 without question, is blows everything else away. If you only snap a few images and want a more portable phone which looks great then consider the C6-01
<< Camera Samples Coming Soon >>
Sound. Music quality is impressive on the C6-01 down to the large speaker on the back of the phone. There is a 3.5mm headset jack included but is located on the bottom which as pointed out on some other reviews can become quite annoying but this is a personal preference. I also managed to hook up a set of BH-905i headphones with their impressive noise cancelation feature and this was great when listening to music. I use Spotify a lot (which I reviewed for the OVI Daily App Blog) and when paired with a good headset this phone is great for music on the move.
Connectivity. Nokia have always been good with connectivity options and the C6-01 is no disappointment with a wide range of options. First of all you get 10.2mb/s download speed which is faster than a lot of existing USB modems on sale today which seem to max out at 7.2mb/s. You also get a rather nice 2mb/s upload speed which when paired with the download speed and a healthy data plan means you should never again need a USB modem to get online.
You also get Bluetooth and WiFi built in just like most smartphones these days and this lets you use headsets, send and receive files, use your phone as a modem all over Bluetooth or use WiFi for browsing the internet and it is also very handy with IM clients such as Skype and MSN for keeping in touch
GPS is included and works really well with OVI Maps which also includes free voice navigation. Maps has just been updated recentyly and now allows downloading of new maps on the device itself without needing a computer or USB cable, this was tested on the C6-01 over a HSDPA connection and worked very well.
Another great feature supported us USB On The Go which lets you plug the phone into USB devices such as removable storage sticks or a portable hard drive and manage the files on the phone. How handy would it be to have taken a whole range of photos at say a wedding, birthday, christmas or a party, plug your phone into a USB stick and transfer over all the photos to give to someone there and then to take away, no computers needed!.
SYMBIAN 3
The C6-01 is one of the new range of Symbian 3 devices which include the E7 and N8. Symbian 3 offers a more up to date UI over the older S60 OS, but also keeping the same homescreen widgets which was a success on the N97/Mini and continues to impress on the new Symbian 3 platform.
Email. Nokia Messaging comes pre-installed on the C6-01 and the setup process is very quick and painless, just enter your email address and password and you are set and ready to go. You can select from a wide range of online email providers such as Google, Hotmail, OVI Mail and Yahoo Mail. You can also setup your own account if you have the POP3/IMAP account information to hand and also a great feature is the built in Exchange support. My email account for World of Nokia is based on Google servers along with my Contacts and Calendar. So once i enter in my account information, Nokia Messaging downloads all the information I never need including avatar pictures of my contacts i have setup, birthdays, postal addresses and much more, but also if I make any changes they get backed up too
It was also great having a Widget on the home screen so that I can see at a quick glance which account has new messages, who they are from and the subject. One application downloading all 3 accounts and keeping my phone and Mac in sync was really handy. Great work on Nokia for this service
Browsing. Web browsing on the C6-01 was quite decent although the smaller screen and the older web browser does make it a tad annoying at times, especially when loading full sized websites. Accessing mobile operator portals such as Vodafone 360 and T-Zones was fine as these are made for mobile, also accessing the BBC Mobile site was also fine, the main issue was for those bigger websites where a 3.2 inch screen even though it is all touch is just not big enough these days. The C7 has a larger screen and also runs Symbian 3 but does come at an extra cost over the C6-01.
BATTERY LIFE
The C6-01 comes with a 1050mah battery in the box which will get it through a day of reasonable use. Something I did notice and again this might have been just an issue with my device was the battery showed full for a very long time then seemed to drop very quickly instead of gradually throughout the day. Considering the issues I had with switching the phone on at times I am going to count that as an issue just on my own device unless I see other people with the same experience.
When I get review phones in at the start I tend to put through a bit more than a normal day of use, of course as with any new phone you want to check out all the features, set it up with your content and get it just how you want it to be. Not including my use over these days, the C6-01 got me through a day with some odd phone calls, an average of 30 texts in a day, pulling in email from 3 accounts every 30 minutes and having the odd web browsing session so all in all impressed even if it was only a 1050mah battery included in the first place.
THE FINAL DECISION
It was not long ago I reviewed the original C6 which was a touch screen/QWERTY combi device which was a plastic build and did not live up to standards of phones costing the same these days. Nokia have decided to use the C6 model again but with an 01 on the end and made some pretty big changes all are welcomed by myself.
First of all the good points of the C6-01 and there are some. The camera has been bumped up from 5.0 to 8.0 megapixels which is good news especially for those of us who use their phone for a lot of photography. Nokia have also done away with Auto-Focus and instead used Full Focus which is seen on the Nokia C7 and this can be a bit hit and miss depending on the conditions. For example a macro photo is near on impossible I found, especially if there is a lot of detail like in text you just could not focus on it. Photos from further away did come out better and in more detail which was good, it does take some getting used to the camera change, I often tried tapping the screen to focus which is something seen on the iPhone but this is something not done by Nokia. Still nice to see an 8 megapixel camera on a Nokia device after waiting so long for the first one in the N86
The display is also new and improved using CBD, Clear Black Display which makes blacks look even blacker.... I will not be able to explain it well enough so here is a video for you to watch.
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