Nokia 6555 review: 3G with a flip

Elite keypad

The upper end of both parts of the flip look sliced off, the only thing that sticks out is the round hinge. It is quite solid and secure, except for an insignificant sideways wobble in open position. Opening the phone with one hand is quite easy. The Nokia 6555 has a very comfortable wider opening angle, well above many other clamshells.

Opening angle is above standard • the hinge is quite sturdy

Flipping the phone open reveals two silver frames - one hosts the display, the other encloses the alphanumeric keypad and the control and navigation buttons. Nokia 6555 offers an ample and comfortable D-pad, surrounded by equally commendable pair of soft keys and Call and End buttons. The End key serves the double purpose of a Power button.

Texting is a pleasure with this keypad • D-pad of remarkable size

By the same token, the alphanumeric keypad offers comfortable size, and secure keypresses marked by pleasant clicks. All alphanumeric buttons are notched at the top for better touch orientation. Of course, fast typing without looking at the keys requires some practice but, overall, the keypad works out quite well. The quality white backlighting sure contributes to the above statement too. Below the keypad, a thin strip stick out, serving as the flip cushion.

The low-stroke alphanumeric keys are level with the surface • backlighting is great

Display: predictable quality

Nokia were kind enough to not be over economical with the displays. The screen properties are similar to the Nokia 6131. Very few clamshells can beat the Nokia 6555 in the display department. The external display is 256K-color TFT of a 128 x 160 pixel resolution and 22 x 27 mm size. Inside you get a primary 2" 16M-color QVGA display. When you flip the handset closed, the external display takes over to show all the essential information: signal strength, battery status, operator name and current date and time. You can set wallpaper and an animated screensaver.

The external screen provides all the needed status info • loudspeaker grill

After a certain time, the animated screensaver gets replaced by a digital clock and date, which are fairly well readable under all kinds of lighting. Quite handily, notifications of missed events also get displayed alongside, so you won't have to flip the phone open to check missed calls. Right under the external display is the loudspeaker.

External display in standby mode • analogue clock • incoming and missed call • music player

The primary display is a few millimeters short of that on Nokia 6131. The 31 x 41 mm QVGA screen offers very good picture quality with deep colors.

Quality picture on the 16M-color primary display

Series 40 5th again

Hardly anyone would expect user interface and functionality marvels in a midrange handset, and Nokia 6555 offers no surprises. The clamshell runs on the Series 40 5th edition UI. This version is seen in quite a number of recent releases by the Finnish company.

Active standby S40 style • grid view of the main menu

Note: some screenshots were borrowed from Nokia 6500 slide and 6500 classic. The UI of Nokia 6555 is identical.

The active standby mode is a standard S40 feature offering a wide range of customization options. The confirming center of the D-pad launches the main menu, the two soft keys can be assigned a variety of functions. If Go to is assigned to the left soft key, it will activate a list of user defined shortcuts to select items.

All four available main menu views

Each way on the D-pad can be assigned basically any function too. The selected shortcuts can then be set to appear on the display when active standby is off.

Navigation key shortcuts • Go to

The main menu can be viewed in four different ways: list, grid, grid with legends and horizontal tabs. All the icons within it can be rearranged to the user's liking. There are seven themes preloaded and additional ones are downloadable.

All preinstalled themes in Nokia 6555

"...Very few clamshells can beat the Nokia 6555 in the display department. The external display is 256K-color TFT of a 128 x 160 pixel resolution and 22 x 27 mm size. Inside you get a primary 2" 16M-color QVGA display..."

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Nokia 6555 offers a particularly practical voice control. It needs no voice tag pre-recording and works with many of the phone's features. The phone's firmware is updatable straight through the GSM network. New versions are downloaded and installed on-the-fly, without the need of a PC. Another very handy feature is the option to copy and paste text across applications. For example, you can easily copy part of an SMS into the calendar.

Upon a missed call you instantly see who called and when

In the events log, it is worth noting that the S40 5th doesn't just notify of a text received or missed call, but also displays the contact's name and the time of the event. With Nokia 6555, that only holds true for the primary screen. Don't be expecting this much detail on the external display. An interesting option allows the user to configure the behavior of the mini display upon flipping the phone closed. The options are switching to standby or keeping the actual screen.