Nokia X6 Review (One Year On)

The Nokia X6 followed on from the Nokia 5800 by being a touchscreen smartphone but opened the gates for future devices, such as the Nokia N8 and Nokia C6-01, by virtue of being the first Nokia smartphone to use a capacitive touchscreen. So, one year on how does it stand up? Read our Nokia X6 review (one year on) and find out for yourself.

The Nokia X6 now comes in three flavours – 8GB, 16GB and 32GB – but when first launched, it was only the high-capacity Nokia X6 32GB that was available. The top end model came with a 12 month license to access Comes With Music, which is now known as Ovi Music Unlimited. However, we’ve noticed on the Nokia Online site that the Nokia X6 32GB version is no longer on-sale, which is a shame as it means you can no longer fill the phone with all your favourite music for free.


The Nokia X6 has a quite boxy shape to it with sharp corners and was certainly a stark contrast to the Nokia 5800. The build quality has stood up remarkably well over the last year, striving more than a few drops onto a variety of surfaces. The cream white of the backplate is starting to look a little worn but with no real signs of wear and tear, we’ve been impressed with the build quality.

There is one area we were less than impressed with the Nokia X6 a year ago and it has proven to be the Achilles Heel of this device – the backplate. The plastic cover is rather thin and the slips rather slim. This means that if you do drop the X6, you’re more than likely to be looking for the backplate has it has the tendency to fly off. This also means the battery drops out, so you’ll need to restart the device.

The Nokia X6 in all its flavours comes with a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen that for most people added a new dimension to the Symbian S60 5th Edition OS, as it makes tapping out short text messages and longer emails a great deal easier than on the resistive screen of the Nokia 5800, for example. We still find the Nokia X6 remarkable easy to use and the latest Nokia X6 firmware update version 30.0.003, which appeared last week, has made the device more stable than ever.

The 5-Megapixel camera on the Nokia X6 may appear in today’s market to be quite average, especially compared to the monster 12-Megapixel that is the Nokia N8, but we’ve found it practical and highly usable for most occasions.

However, it’s as a music player where the Nokia X6 has really excelled. We’ve always been impressed with the rather Bassy sound quality of the built-in speakers and once you’ve stuffed the smartphone with all your favourite Ovi Music tunes, this device really comes into its own. What really helps is that we’ve found the battery life of the Nokia X6 to be more than acceptable. Nokia quotes up to 35 hours of music playback, so if you’re out and about for the weekend you can use it as your music player and still get good call usage from it.

Nokia has released a number of new devices in recent months that highlight that the tech-spec of the Nokia X6 is exactly what it is, a year old, but it still has plenty to appeal. Nokia currently doesn’t offer a Symbian^3 smartphone with Ovi Music Unlimited, so choosing a direct upgrade path isn’t easy. The most obvious choice would be the Nokia C6-01 as it offers the same screen size but ramps up the tech considerably.

So, has the Nokia X6 been a pleasure to use? Well, it’s a great handset with a solid feel and a good battery life. The music player can be slow to load and use but the quality it delivers has been great. While the OS may not be as cutting-edge as some people would like, it works well and getting access to your favourite apps, while not all one-click away, is reasonably fast.
source