Nokia C6-01

A good mid-range smartphone with promising hardware features and rich set of connectivity options. The Nokia C6-01 with 8MP camera that also records HD video is one attractive multimedia phones and if Symbian^3 brings enough features to compete Android phones and iPhone, Nokia will have a winner.



Design

The Nokia C6 measures 103.8 x 52.5 x 13.9 mm which is quite pocketable and smaller than the Nokia C7 but slightly thicker. It has a stainless steel body and full touch glass display which would make the body more solid and sturdy. The bottom of the screen has three buttons ( two for call-handling and a menu center button). The design is rather plain and dull but the white silver color looks quite attractive.

Screen

The C6-01's screen has been trimmed down to 3.2-inch against the 3.5-inch on the C7. The screen packs the same nHD resolution 360 x 640 pixels which supposedly would look sharper and crispier than the C7's screen by a few margin. The screen uses the same ClearBlack technology as the other two higher models launched alongwith it. I like the fact that Nokia employed capacitive touchscreen than the resistive as our experienced with both the screen on Nokia devices like the X6 and 5800XM made a lot difference. How Nokia's ClearBlack display would look infront of Super AMOLED screens from Samsung Galaxy S and Wave is something we have to try out though. The phone also comes with accelerometer and proximity sensor. The former will help change the screen orientation while the latter will help switching the screen from on to off while taking calls.

Processor, RAM and Storage

The phone runs on ARM 11 680 MHz processor and it has 2D/3D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support. While GigaHertz race is already on among the higher smartphone models, the 680MHz processor does not seem too exciting anymore. For eg, the new Samsung Galaxy 3 which costs just around Rs 12k is powered by 667MHz processor.We will only though, when we got hands-on with the phone. We still can't confirm how the new OS powered by 667MHz will respond.

The memory department is in par with most mainstream touchscreen phones apart from the internal storage. The Nokia C6-01 has 256MB RAM and 340MB of internal memory. For further storage expansion, upto 32GB of microSD card is supported.

OS

The new OS Symbian^3 won't bring much change and it is more of a refinement rather than a new platform. More homescreens and widgets related to social networking and online services are on the offer. The annoying multiple taps required while operating the phones on the Symbian S60 5th edition will be gone for good which is one noteworthy update. Among other new features, Flash Lite support, over-the-air update and Java support are some features that we will see again. Though, comparing OS to OS is a different story altogether, we are not so excited about the Symbian^3 after having seen the Nokia N8 here in Bangalore. However, we still favor Symbian to other mobile OSes when it comes to functionality despite its not-so sleek and non-flashy design.

Multimedia

The most outstanding feature of the Nokia C6-01 is its 8MP camera with autofocus which packs the same feature as the bigger and more expensive Nokia C7. It comes with dual-LED flash, 720p HD video recording at 25fps, face detection and Geotagging. There is also a frong VGA camera for video-calling.

In terms of media playback, the Nokai C6-01 as in any other Nokia smartphones - be it an entry-level or the higher end, does not offer much improvement apart from playing standard formats like MP3, WMA, AAC, MP4, etc. We just wished Nokia included the XviD and DivX playback here as Samsung and LG phones which have been supporting these files since 3 years ago. Stereo FM radio is also present and there is Composite TV-out to let you view mobile contents to your standar definition TV.

Connectivity

Nokia has been taking good care of the connectivity for its range of smartphones. Even for the C6-01, you would not miss out any high-end connectivities that the premium line of Nokia smartphones offered. 3G with HSDPA and HSUPA, Wi-Fi b/g/n, and Bluetooth 3.0 are what even higher priced smartphones from other brands would still missed.

Apart from these, GPS with A-GPS support with Ovi maps are what made the device a viable option for those who want a full-fledged GPS phone or device.