Nokia 6260 review: Symbian in a flip

Four modes of the phone

Considering the possibility for opening and turning the display, Nokia 6260 features four mechanical modes:

• Closed: normal closed clamshell
• Work: normal open clamshell
• Looking through: the display is turned so that it can be seen in closed position
• Camcorder: the display is turned by 90 degrees

Four modes: closed, work, looking through and camcorder

A fifth mode appears, when the display is turned on the outside and a bit tilted from the middle perpendicular position. As you can see on the picture, this position is useful for typing on a bluetooth keypad, which you can get as accessory. Its own weight sometimes closes the phone because there is no locking.

Bluetooth keypad can be bought in addition • I won't tilt the phone further, it would get closed

It's possible to turn the display in both directions: to the left you can turn it by ninety degrees (this position is used for self-portraits); to the right the display lets you turn it by 180 degrees so that you can close it to the phone.

Display handling

Memory card hot swap

On the edge of the front part there are two apertures with a loudspeaker beneath. The phone uses it for ringing and for a loud handsfree as well. The right side is occupied by a double-button for volume control and the camera key. But if the phone is open in Work or Looking through mode, the same key is used for accessing the Push to talk function.

Speaker's apertures are on the front and on the side • buttons on the right side

The camera lens and the invisible infrared port are placed on the left side of the phone. Top part is the place for the Pop-Port connector and the charger slot. Placement of the system connector is quite untraditional; usually we can find it in the bottom part.

Camera lens on the left side • there is also an infrared port below that, in the black piece • Pop-Port connector on the top part

Nokia 6260 is using a standard Li-Ion battery BL-4C. Official duration values are up to 144 hours in standby or 240 minutes of talk time. Charging takes about hour and a half.

Battery cover is a thin plastic shell • a look at the battery under the cover and memory card slot

You can get the Reduced Size MMC memory card without switching the phone off. After N-Gage QD it's the first smart Nokia, which doesn't need to be turned off during card replacement. The handset is delivered with a 32 MB card. SIM card slot is solved quite untraditionally; you get the SIM card out by using an inconspicuous slider.

Two phases of SIM card holding: inserted • moving the slider slides out the card

Split keypad

After opening the clamshell the display appears approximately in thirty degrees angle under the pad. The phone is stable and not loosing balance. In the right upper corner there is a small switch button that certainly doesn't need to be embedded this way. The buttons of the flip phones are protected and there is no risk of pressing them unintentionally.

The switch button is embedded

The display has exactly the same parameters as e.g. Nokia 7610 or 6670. It's active, sized 35 x 41 mm and displays max. 65K colors in the standard 176 x 208 pixel resolution. No complaints about the quality of the display, it's even brighter than the older models.

But what is that below the display? A block of function keys. They don't share space with the numeric keypad in the bottom part - Nokia has moved them up. I thought that this might be a problem and I was sure about that after the first couple of hours of testing the product. Nevertheless, it didn't take me a long time to get used to it.

Function keys are separated from the "normal" keypad

The user should hold the phone a bit higher than usual but that's not a trouble. I would say that from the ergonomics point of view it's even useful. It's not necessary to hold a heavy phone in the bottom part so that its weight works as a lever towards palm. Just hold it in its gravity center, place your forefinger in the back on the hinge and your thumb can easily reach both top and bottom keys. On the preproduction unit the display moved a bit by pressing a key but the tested production piece is solid enough.

I won't praise the keys much. Except the oddly split left part of the functional block, they are big enough, but not really well settled in some cases. If I don't press some of these keys precisely, they got stuck to the others; and some are rustling a bit.

The key for accessing the main menu untraditionally splits left side of the functional block • keys are big enough • microphone is hidden in a hollow hinge

Numeric keys illumination is stronger

When the keys aren't needed

The way to control the phone is, except the unusually split keypad, the same as with other smart Nokia Series 60 phones. You can find the same keys and the same graphical interface there. Because Nokia 6260 is using Symbian version 7.0, you can adapt all graphics by Themes. Three of them are straight in the phone, next themes you can find on the Internet and install on the phone.

Four different graphical themes: three of them are standard and the last one is downloaded

Due to the fact that the phone has no front display, it's reasonable to set the phone not to accept incoming calls by opening the clamshell. The auto answer setting is useful only in case when you use the phone with the display on top; but then you have to turn it every time you need to use the keypad and I think it'll bother you soon. Moreover, in closed position it's not possible to lock the keypad.

It's possible to phone with the display atop, but it's kind of complicated because instead of pressing the red and green earphone button you need to find a row in the context menu. Searching in the address book is possible only with the arrow and of course you won't be able to write a message (there is no problem with reading messages). The same stands for other applications: if you don't need the numeric keypad, the phone with the display upside down suits the purpose.