Lately, we had Nokia C3, which could easily be taken as an Eseries device, and then we had Nokia C5, which is a powerful candy-bar smartphone that strongly resembles
the older Nokia 6300 phone. The last phone in the series, Nokia C6 can be considered a cheaper version of the N97.
The Symbian smartphone includes all the important
features that you would want from a mid-level device, without offering any high-end, innovative functions. On the other hand the slider is not lacking any important specs. And to make it even better, the Finnish handset manufacturer is offering all these at an affordable price.
Announced in April 2010, Nokia E5 was launched on the market in July 2010 and can be acquired for around $300 USD, depending on your location. There are only two simple color schemes available for users to choose from: Black and White.
Design
Nokia C6 bears the same mark as some of the XpressMusic smartphones, that feature a QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen display. If you take the 5800 XpressMusic phone, which was launched on the market two years ago, and put it side by side with the new C6, you'll notice that the resemblance is astonishing. And this is not the only handset that looks exactly like the first Nokia smartphone to feature a touchscreen display. This surely tells something about the manufacturer, who is focusing more on features and less on design.
But let's cut to the chase and see how's this smartphone on the outside. Nokia C6 features a 3.2-inch touchscreen display, that covers almost the entire front part of the smartphone. Above the display, next to the earphone speaker, there's a secondary camera and a small light ambient sensor. Below the large display, there are three physical keys, much like those of Nokia 5800.
Display and Camera
Nokia C6 features a TFT 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen that supports 16 Million colors and 360 x 640-pixels resolution, which can also be controlled with a stylus if you have one, as the sales package doesn’t include one. Well, it's a resistive touchscreen, so don't expect miracles, as it cannot be compared with devices sporting capacitive displays
The 5-megapixel camera of C6 features autofocus, LED flash, geotagging and a pretty standard interface. Further, the camera lacks new advanced functions such as smile detection, face recognition or blink prevention. The camera UI seems to be the same as the one embedded in Nokia 5800 and N97.
Menu and Software
Nokia C6 runs Symbian 9.4 operating system, with S60 5th Edition interface, the same as its N97 mini predecessor. Little to no improvements have been done to the graphical interface, instead the UI is now even poorer in options and menus. Well, at least now you will enjoy the kinetic scroll feature, that was so needed when Nokia 5800 hit the market.
The only changes I noticed is on the 'surface', as the homescreen has been improved a little. In fact the new C6 homescreen is a mix between a widget-style screen and the usual Active Standby. Still, do not expect to get more customizable homescreens, because you'll be disappointed.
Nokia C6 features only one homescreen that can be customized to display various widgets, in thumb-able blocks, which can be arranged or hidden. To hide the whole set of widgets that appear on the homescreen, simply swipe your finger to the left or right. Do the same thing to make them reappear. Clicking near the battery icon, on the upper right corner of the homescreen will give you quick access to the clock and Connectivity area, where you can enable/disable Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other stuff.
Communication
Nokia C6 is a quad-band GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) handset, HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100 (3.6 Mbps) compatible, which features GPRS class 32 (100 kbps), EDGE 32 class (296 kbps), and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g. This makes it an all-rounder when it comes to data transfer or connectivity in general.
Processor and Memory
Nokia C6 is powered by the same ARM11 family processor running at speeds of up to 434 Mhz that has been embedded in N97 model. The device works pretty smooth, but I have noticed some lags when using other applications while the browser is open. I think this is becoming the main issue with Symbian devices, as others are fixed.
The smartphone also features 240 internal memory, but only 200 MB are user free. The memory can be expanded up to 16GB, thanks to the hot-swappable card slot. The sales package also includes a 2GB microSD card.
