Nokia 6270 review: A bulky slider

It's a phone after all…

Incoming calls are accepted by sliding out the handset or by pressing the green receiver key. You can even talk on the slider without it being open. Calls are terminated either by pressing the red receiver or by closing the phone.

During our test the phone behaved very well. The sound during calls is remarkably good and deserves compliments.

The sound of the integrated stereo loudspeakers is brilliant and loud enough. Bass elements are clearly recognizable. We didn't hear virtually any distortion during our tests. The stereo effect adds a depth to the overall sound of the phone and it really sounds great.

The vibration strength is on an average level but does its job in alerting you of an event if the phone is in your pocket.

A good thing is that you can switch the Nokia 6270 on without having to insert a SIM card. If you do so, you will be able to use all functions that don't require the presence of a SIM card, like the MP3 player, for example. It works like an Airplane mode which is present in other phones, but the inconvenience here is that you have to remove the SIM card.

The latest S40 user interface is a great choice

The standard standby screen shows the signal strength, the battery capacity, the date and the clock (digital or analogue), the carrier name, and the active profile (if different from Normal). The two soft keys can be assigned a function according to the user preference. A wise choice would be to assign the Go To menu to one of the keys - this menu includes frequently used functions and is totally user configurable. The four ways of the navigation D-pad can also be assigned some functions. You may also want to place a cross with the icons of the assigned functions in the middle of the display - at least in the beginning while you remember them. The interface can be customized through graphic themes but they really don't change much - the only things that they change are the wallpaper, the menu background and the color scheme.

Standby screen • List of themes: Zen theme applied

A pleasant fact is that you can choose the colors of the text on the standby screen from a wide array of available colors. Unfortunately, changing the font color is not available throughout the whole menu and when using some graphic themes legibility is not perfect.

The most interesting option regarding the standby screen is the Active stand-by mode, where all favorite applications' icons, music functions, upcoming events from the calendar, and notes appear on the display - much like the one seen on Symbian phones with the third edition of the S60 Nokia user interface. When you have the Active stand-by mode switched on, pressing UP on the D-pad gives you access to the icon bar and your favorite functions such as the MP3 player, the FM radio or the calendar.

The active standby screen (inactive) • the active standby screen (active)

The main menu features a fixed set of items but they can be freely organized in four different ways: as a list, as a 3 x 4 grid matrix, as a 3 x 3 grid matrix with labels, and as horizontal tabs. The second option, a plain table without legends, permits the visualization of 12 icons en bloc and is probably the most space-saving one. Icons can be additionally reordered according to the user's preference. The icons themselves are well elaborated except that their graphics suffer a hard case of jagged outlines. It must be noted that they resemble a lot of the icons used in the third edition of the S60 Nokia user interface.

Main menu

Font size is again subject of configuration. Inside the phonebook there are two font options, while in the message application and the Internet browser you can choose out of three. The largest font is truly large; on the other hand the smallest one permits you to see an entire SMS en bloc.

As you can see, Nokia 6270 allows a great deal of user-configurable options and the interface may be greatly suited to the user's own taste.

The ringing profiles include settings such as type of incoming call alert, ringtone, ringing volume and vibration alert, sounds serving Push-to-talk, messages, notifications and warning tones and the keypad sounds. A great thing about the profiles is that they offer timed expiration so you won't forget to turn the sounds of your phone back on after that all-important meeting. You can even set a profile to be turned automatically on once plug in an accessory as the charger, for example.

The phonebook manages to impress

Nokia 6270 offers 1000 contact positions but if you store more than 1 number per contact the total capacity would decrease. As usual with any Nokia's phonebook, it can be organized in three different views: as a standard list, as a list of names with numbers, or as a list of names with pictures. Searching is performed by gradually typing the first letters of the respective name. The phonebook can be ordered and searched either by first or last name. You can choose a default contact list - the one on the SIM card, the one in the phone's memory or both simultaneously.

Phonebook: Name list & Name list with numbers • Searching the contacts list

Contact details can include five types of phone numbers, addresses, notes, a picture, a ringtone, etc. We miss the option for entering the contact's birthday, which could be transferred directly to the calendar.

Contact details fields

If you prefer not to customize each individual contact, you could organize some contacts into groups and assign ringtones and pictures to the individual groups. When setting the ringing profiles you can select which groups will be able to reach you on the phone - in this way the groups serve as call filters.

You can freely use the voice dial feature of Nokia 6270 for all the contacts since it needs no voice tag recording. If the required contact has more than one number, Nokia 6270 uses the default one (mobile number, ground line, office number...). It is quite a pity that the number type cannot be selected with an additional voice order.

An interesting option is that besides Voice dial, you can use the Voice commands option which is again speaker independent and can be used for voice control of a certain set of the phone's function.