nokia x6 review

Nokia has finally made a touchscreen music phone worth craving with the X6, which is everything the 5800 XpressMusic should have been. Plenty of water has flowed under the bridge since the 5800 was released, and the X6 doesn't break any new ground, but there's still much to like about this music maestro.

Capacitive capability
Nokia struggled to make us crave the 5800, due to its chunky design and unresponsive resistive touchscreen. The X6 feels like the 5800 reborn, with a capacitive touchscreen and sleek, angular body.

The X6 uses a touchscreen-orientated version of Nokia's Symbian operating system, which isn't the smoothest or most user-friendly system out there. For example, you have to tap an option once to open it in some places, and you have to double tap in other places. It's not a huge problem, but it can get annoying.

The X6's capacitive touchscreen makes it feel more responsive than other touchscreen Nokia phones, because you don't have to apply pressure with a fingernail or stylus to get it to respond. Even with its capacitive advantage, the screen could be more responsive, though. At times, we felt the phone took too long to respond, although it isn't the slowest phone we've used by any means.

Music magic
The X6 sports an epic 32GB of memory and Nokia's Comes With Music service, so you can fill it up with a year's worth of free downloads, choosing from zillions of music tracks. The tracks are chained-down with DRM, so you can't listen to them on your other music players, but you can keep them on the phone even if you choose not to renew your subscription to Comes With Music after your free year is up.

Nokia has released yet another version of its desktop syncing software to help you get music on and off the phone, and it's an improvement on previous versions. Now called Nokia Ovi Suite, the software is a good attempt at creating an iTunes-style music store. We found downloading tracks easy, and syncing the phone was surprisingly simple. We particularly like the ability to sync the phone over Bluetooth, so, if your laptop has built-in Bluetooth, you may never have to break out the USB cable once the phone is set up. You can also download tunes directly onto the phone when you're on the move.

Once you've helped yourself to some free music, you can listen to it on your own headphones, thanks to the standard 3.5mm headphone jack. We weren't blown away by the audio quality, though, especially at low volumes, and even when we were using high-end cans. The volume settings also leap too quickly from tinny and quiet to deafeningly loud.

Calls don't benefit from this music phone's pedigree. In our tests, they sounded tinny both to us and the recipients of our calls. Nevertheless, with its huge storage and access to endless free tracks, the X6 makes for a top-notch music phone.

Ovi blown
Music isn't the only thing you can download onto the X6. Slowly but surely, the Ovi Store is developing into a handy place to get apps for Nokia phones. The X6 makes it easy to get started, providing links on the home screen to the Ovi Store and other Ovi features, such as email and an online calendar.

Ovi is still hit and miss. You can't sync your Ovi calendars with other online calendars, like Google's, for example. But it's a good service to have if you want to back up your photos online or manage your contacts on the Web instead of on the phone.

Shutterbug
The X6's 5-megapixel camera is a pleasure to use, thanks to its fast shutter speed. You can capture snapshots without having to wait around, even when shooting at the highest quality settings. For a phone, its photos are excellent too, with bright colors and sharp edges, although they can't compare to photos taken with a proper camera. The two LED photo lights are harsh, but do a good job of illuminating dark situations in which you'd otherwise get no shot at all.

Conclusion
If music is your passion, the Nokia X6 offers an inexhaustible supply of tunes, thanks to its Comes With Music service and huge 32GB of memory. The capacitive touchscreen isn't as zippy as we'd like, but the X6 is a huge improvement on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in terms of functionality and looks. An excellent camera and standard 3.5mm headphone jack are the gravy on top of this tasty package. Overall, the X6 is proof that Nokia is sorting out its touchscreen troubles, although it still feels rather late on a scene now crowded with less-expensive touchscreen competitors.