Nokia 3600 slide review: Smooth glider

Nice 2-inch display

The Nokia 3600 slide screen supports QVGA resolution and up to 16M colors on a 2" diagonal. A Nokia trademark, sunlight legibility is way beyond the reach of most other phones. The 2" diagonal might sound right for the price bracket, but we're talking a slider and a focus on imaging, so a 2.2" screen might not be too much to ask.

The otherwise great display could've been bigger

Telephony

Signal reception and in-call sound are no concerns with Nokia 3600 slide. The handset is pitched for the so-called Background Noise Cancellation. The one thing that Nokia are missing to say though is that almost all current S40 phones also feature this noise cancellation feature called Voice Clarity. We even found that it performed better in removing the background noise with the Nokia 6500 classic. Anyway, sound is loud and clear on both ends and you will have zero trouble with your calls. Vibration strength in the 3600 slide is very good too.

Nokia 3600 slide in a call

We carried out our traditional loudspeaker test to find out Nokia 3600 slide is a slightly-above-average performer. You are unlikely to miss a call but don't count on getting just everything in noisier environments. You can find more details about our test, as well as the results of all other tested handsets here.

User interface: quick and slick

Nokia 3600 employs the Series 40 5th edition user interface, FP 1. The number of configurable options has gone up but at the price of having somewhat complicated menu structure and navigation. The most serious advance with this version of the UI is the addition of the Nokia Maps applications, which works as good as the on on Nokia Symbian smartphones. It works flawlessly with an external Bluetooth GPS receiver so finding your way around is no problem now - even for a feature phone.

S40 user interface

There are no changes whatsoever to the stand-by screen of Nokia 3600 slide. The display features the pre-selected wallpaper with the usual status readings, such as signal strength, battery status, ringing profile icon and time in the top bar. The center of the navigation key opens the main menu, while the context keys can be assigned a function of your choice. The font on the main display can be of any color.

Active standby mode is available. It consists of four tabs that can be edited or relocated as users see fit. In the most common case, the top area is reserved for instant access to favorite functions denoted by their respective icons. The central area provides instant access to the music player, radio and calendar. At the very bottom the "Search Web" bar appears. Quite naturally, the two soft keys behavior can also be customized.

Active standby mode o Each tab can be modified to the user liking

The icons themselves haven't been changed a jot, keeping the well known design with animation of the selected icon. They can also be freely reordered within the grid, should the user find their original order inconvenient.

The four main menu views: Grid with labels, tab, grid and list views

Submenus appear as lists. As usual, alphanumeric keyboard shortcuts to menu items are enabled.

The interface is quick and responsive. There were freezes or unexpected restarts for the time of our review.

There are six predefined ringing profiles on Nokia 3600. These should be enough to cover virtually any scenario. Flight mode is at hand too, turning off all transceivers and rendering the phone usable without a SIM card inserted.