Nokia 6700 classic Review

Introduction:

The Nokia 6700 classic is heir apparent to one of the most successful models of Nokia yet to date, the 6300. The manufacturer claims the youngster shares part of the DNA of its famous predecessor and you just need a brief look to find out why that is – the 6700 is a beauty, made in the same style but with a more attractive and much daintier face.

The device runs the latest, 6th edition version of the S40 interface. To keep abreast of times and 2009, the Nokia 6700 sports a tri-band 3G functionality, 5-megapixel autofocus camera, integrated A-GPS, accelerometer and based on its features, the Nokia 6700 can be classified as an upper midrange cell phone.

Aside from the handset itself, what you also get in the box is a charger, microUSB cable, 1GB microSD card, stereo headset with microUSB jack, user guide and 10 EUR voucher that you can use to purchase tracks from the online store of the manufacturer. The Nokia 6300 came packed with a leather case, but the accessory is missing here, which we find rather disappointing; even a velvet pouch would´ve been better than nothing.

Design:

The Nokia 6700 classic features a stylish, neat design and is made of quality materials (metal body) and you feel it the second you get the phone in your hand and you really get the feeling as if holding an Arte lineup model. Fine workmanship indeed! Our unit is pitch black and looks dainty and appealing, but the phone is also offered in gray-black and brown-black.

Like the 6300, the Nokia 6700 classic is really compact. It´s 1mm thinner than its predecessor, but seems to have put on weight – it´s 4.11 oz. (116 gr.) as compared to the 3.20 oz. (91 gr.) of its forerunner. You can distinctly feel it in your pocket all the time, but being really slim, it won´t make your pocket bulge out.



You can compare the Nokia 6700 classic with many other phones using ourSize Visualization Tool.

The handset features a 2.2-inch TFT display with resolution of 240x320 pixels and 16 mln color support. Images retain their vivid, nicely represented colors and proper contrast in artificial lighting conditions, although the overall quality cannot be compared to what AMOLED screens deliver. Reflections appear in direct sunlight, although they are unobtrusive and things remain easy to read.

The navigational (except for the D-Pad) and keypad buttons are flush with the surface and don´t feel clearly discernible to touch. We do not have any gripes regarding the former, but the keypad is not that good. We felt constant discomfort using the upper and lower most button rows, because our fingers would hit against the edges all the time. We would definitely stay away from the keypad when it comes to typing away messages.



Taking a look at either side clearly shows how neat the design is. There are buttons on the right hand side of the phone only – volume rocker and camera shutter. The latter is well made, but the former is really unhandy to use, it´s really hard to press against and its travel is not well pronounced. 

Interface and functionality:

As a feature phone, the Nokia 6700 classic utilizes the latest, 6th edition version of the S40 interface, and introduces certain improvements over its precursor. So, here is a list of the more prominent novelties it brings forth:

•    API that allows applications to make use of the integrated GPS
•    Light visual improvements
•    New look to the Active standby on the phone home screen
•    New, WebKit-based internet browser
•    Flash Lite, updated from version 2.1 to 3
•    MMS version 1.3 that support messages of up to 600 KB
•    Improved overall stability

Let´s first take a look at the home screen. It can appear really simple or show a wealth of information and allow access to various applications. Similarly to the Nokia N97 and its widgets, you can place up to four tabs here, with all of them showing varied information. A shortcut bar appears at the top of the screen by default and you have the option to remove or add more (over 30). There is an info field just below the bar that permits access to and provides control over both the audio player and phone radio. The next one shows calendar information – the current date and the next two events. The last one delivers Google search functionality and all four can be customized to your own taste. We quite like the new home screen, because it looks better than the previous version and moreover, allows people to personalize the phone more easily.



Aside from the visual improvements, there is a brand new and really interesting function in the phone contacts, called “Find on map”. It shows your contact´s address on a map and provides instructions on how to get there (if an address has been previously entered, of course). The whole thing is made possible thanks to the J2ME API that permits various applications to make use of the integrated GPS.



Come to new features in the phone messaging function, there are novelties with the multimedia messages only. MMS has now been updated to version 1.3 and the maximum size of a single message has been increased to 600 KB. There are no new things in the SMS and email functions. The tab at the lower left of the screen lets you turn an ordinary SMS into an MMS. Setting up the phone email client, if you use a popular provider, is fast and easy. You just need to enter your user name and password and the phone will automatically find all relevant settings for you. The email client is not bad, but we would´ve loved to see something like Nokia Messaging. Still, it´s functional and will do, unless you need to open HTML letters.



Browser and GPS:

The Nokia 6700 keeps in line with modern standards and delivers fast 3G connectivity with both HSDPA 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2.0 Mbps support. These values are impressive, at least in theory, but really hard to hit in reality, because there quite many factors that affect network throughput, such as whether or not your carrier supports the technology, network coverage, signal strength and a host of others. We need to point out that we wouldn´t have complained if the handset sported built-in Wi-Fi.

The evolution of the S40 6th Edition browser and the improvements it comes with are a smart move of the manufacturer indeed. We are really happy to see it is WebKit-based app now that supports full HTML. Pages load faster when 3G is available, but more importantly, they are rendered and visualized properly. The text is automatically reformatted to fit on the screen, which makes for a nice novelty feature as well. Unlike latest Symbian S60 devices, the small map that pops up after extended scrolling fails to provide a really clear idea of where exactly onto the page you are. You will have Show miniature instead of Page Overview, but it´s actually pretty much the same and doesn’t perform worst either. The fact that the Flash Lite player has been updated to version 3 doesn’t mean you will get full Flash support. Rather, you will be able to see elements that fail to visualize on Flash Lite 2.1. We are pretty disappointed that the keypad buttons don´t provide shortcuts to main functions, so we ended up rummaging through the options menu on regular.



All told, we are pleased with the new WebKit-based browser of the S40 6th Edition interface. Even if not as good as the one on the latest smartphones of the manufacturer or the iPhone Safari, it will certainly do for watching YouTube videos, browsing news or opening the normal, computer versions of most websites. It´s good that similarly to all other S40 models, the 6700 classic comes with Opera Mini preinstalled. The app works faster than the built-in browser, but doesn’t visualize web-pages as good as the latter. Still, it makes for a viable alternative and is, by no means, a redundant app.

GPS:

We encountered certain issues with the built-in GPS when we started it for the first time. Without internet connection to download the latest satellite positions and therefore locate our position fast, it failed to come up with any result even after waiting for over 10 minutes. Once we switched on the A-GPS however, everything worked like a charm and the device pinpointed our current location in under 20 seconds after hardware restart. Quite an accomplishment indeed.

The phone comes with Ovi Maps pre-installed, which is the new name of Nokia Maps. Unlike the version on Symbian S60 smartphones, it doesn’t provide information about traffic or different map view modes. Out unit came with a voice navigation license that is free for 3 months, but this depends on the locale you purchase the phone in, so you better enquire about the bonus feature at your local dealer.

Camera and multimedia:

The Nokia 6700 classic sports a 5-megapixel, autofocus camera with LED flash that is a snappy performer indeed. The interface takes about a second to start and focusing in proper lighting conditions less than 1 second (about 2 in the dark), while saving the snapshot about 3 seconds. This means that you will be ready to take pictures at a speed of a snapshot every 4 seconds in less than a second, which is really impressive.



Interface itself looks definitely better than the one on S40 5th edition handsets. It offers several color effects, white balance and brightness control, but not all the rage options like face and smile detection. Certainly, this is not as important as image quality. In normal lighting conditions quality is, well, acceptable – there are more details that on average and pictures are properly exposed, although colors tend to be a bit thin and not saturated enough, plus images lack proper contrast. In artificial lighting conditions however, things are really far from coming up roses. The level of details plummets and the flash itself creates an odd effect – take a look at the blue line in the test shots. As a whole, the camera will do in daylight, but things get really bad in the dark.




Video capture is not impressive either. Despite the great quality at the maximum resolution of 640x480 pixels, the allowed frames per second are only 15, which ultimately leads to videos that stutter. They are fine to share over the Internet, but not good enough to watch in full screen.

Nokia 6700 classic video sample at 640x480 pixels resolution

Music, radio and video:

The new thing here is that phone themes also change the way both the Media Player and the FM radio look. We quite like that, because themes lend some color to the otherwise dull interface. Media player delivers content filtering by several different criteria, can reshuffle tracks, supports playlists, shows a list of all videos and comes with several equalizer presets, plus you can create two more to your own liking. The app is easy to use and there is nothing out of the ordinary here.



The audio quality through the built-in loudspeaker is average and a bit better through the earphones, but either way, unimpressive. It is odd that the phone loudspeaker provides louder sound than the stereo headset, which is not good, because getting another pair of headphones means you would have to shell out for a microUSB to 3.5mm jack convertor as well. On the overall, we are completely dissatisfied with the audio listening experience that the Nokia 6700 classic delivers.

The same Media player is used for watching videos too. We didn´t encounter any issues with the playback of MPEG-4 content with resolution of 640x480 pixels (VGA) at 30 frames per second and bitrates like 1050 kbps. We witnessed slight stuttering with H.264 content in MP4 and resolution of 640x480 pixels, but everything was fine, with videos coded at the native screen resolution, i.e. 320x240 pixels. Actually, there´s no point in trying to watch videos coded at VGA, because display itself has a lower native resolution and on the other hand, the handset doesn´t sport TV-out either.

Performance and conclusion:

Alongside of the Nokia 6300, the Nokia 6700 classic features an overall design that´s been streamlined and made even neater. It feels somewhat bulky, but we can live with that, because it´s not every day that you can see such a high quality of workmanship. The Nokia 6700 classic performs really well as being a phone as well – in-call quality is really good, voices sound loud, clear and realistic on either end of the line.

Aside from its appealing overall look, the 6700 classic comes with new and improved WebKit-based browser that left us with good impressions. Pages are visualized without any problems and the fast 3G support guarantees this happens fast. Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi functionality is conspicuous in its absence and you won´t fail to notice that. Snapshots didn´t exactly wowed us, but camera quality will do when it comes to occasional pictures in proper lighting conditions. Things get really bad when there´s not enough light and the camera flash produces weird blue line across images. The multimedia capability of the phone is nothing to brag about either.

Despite the above mentioned shortcomings, we can honestly say the Nokia 6700 classic makes for a worthy successor to the Nokia 6300. It´s a decent, modern device and buying it is money well spent. In case you feel like hunting for other stylish handsets in the same price range, you might want to look at the Samsung Ultra B S7220 that also comes in a dainty, candybar form factor, has a better 5-megapixel camera, but delivers worse in-call quality. The Samsung Soulb and both sliders, the Samsung Ultra S S7350 and LG KF510 are viable options as well.

Nokia 6700 classic Video Review: