Nokia 6290 Phone Review

Permalink: Nokia 6290 Phone Review by Franz Bicar

The Nokia 6290 is not as popularly promoted as that of Nokia’s other phones. It’s definitely not like the N-Series, the E-Series or even the XpressMusic phones also from Nokia. No, the 6290 is more of a simple, minimalistic phone from Nokia. It is a smartphone and is in the same technological league as higher profile and more expensive models such as the N75 or the N76.

The 6290 is quite normal when it comes to looks. It’s not heavy nor bulky as what most multimedia phones have become nowadays. It is a compact and curvy phone - you can say stylish if you want to.

It is a clamshell phone but feels solid when opened and closed. Its QVGA screen (240 x 320 pixel) is large and flat. It shows bright images and placed against a protective plastic layer. It is placed beautifully that you can view the screen at any angle without trouble.

As for its keypad, it has nice buttons, large enough to make typing easy. The direction pad is also part of this separate-but-smooth surface. There’s also a smaller external color screen and buttons mounted on the front of the phone, which allow functions such as reading text messages, rejecting calls, and operating the music player and radio.

The 6290 is relatively tricky to open with one hand as there’s no spring-loaded mechanism, but closing it is much easier.

The 6290’s sides are littered with its various external controls and features. This includes a hotswap microSD memory card slot, a Push To Talk button and the left speaker. The side has a mini-USB port, a volume/selection control, an infrared port and the right speaker.

As a phone, the 6290 is pretty normal. It makes and receives calls without any problems, and it also has no problems getting a signal. Calls can be answered and ended by opening and shutting it, or you can use the red and green buttons. The exterior screen displays the caller’s name or number, and you can reject a call using the external controls.

Texts and multimedia messages worked fine, both sending and receiving. The 6290 is a quad-band GSM and UMTS/WCDMA 2100 3G phone, which means you can use it as a GSM phone worldwide, and also as a 3G UMTS/WCDMA phone. It has Bluetooth and Infrared compatibility, a mini-USB port, but no Wi-fi.

As a multimedia device, the 6290 shines. The phone has a music player, FM radio and an internet radio. The 6290’s built-in S60 music player supports formats such as MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and MP4 audio tracks, which can also be used as ringtones and alarm tones. The external microSD memory card slot is compatible with capacities up to 2 Gigabytes, enough to store up most of your music files.

There are stereo speakers on the right and left sides of the phone. They have a good volume and various optional 3D effects that can make ringtones and music tracks float around you, but at the end of the day they’re still built-in phone speakers and nowhere near the quality of large separate speakers.

The FM tuner on the 6290 has pretty good reception, and its most impressive aspect is the ability to fill in the presets automatically. But the coolest feature for this phone is its internet radio. This let’s you listen to internet streams on the move. The sound quality from major internet broadcasters such as the BBC can be as good as FM radio, in high quality stereo, although this will vary a great deal depending on which station you listen to and how good your phone network’s connection is. You also need to have a very cheap or unlimited data plan from your phone network, otherwise it will cost far too much to use.

The 6290 also lets you watch videos. It comes in with RealPlayer, a Nokia standard, for its video playback application. Furthermore, the 6290 contains the latest version of Nokia’s S60 OSS web browser, which is based on the same open source core as Apple’s Safari. It can handle most web sites in the same way that a PC browser can, including technologies like Javascript and Flash.

The 6290 doesn’t have push email support, but does have the usual support for POP3 and IMAP email, handled by the Messaging application, and email is edited, received and sent almost exactly like a text message. Any kind of file can be sent or received as an email attachment, including multimedia files such as photos, videos, sounds and documents or anything else. Attached files can be many megabytes in size.

However, the 6290 has a disappointing 2 megapixel camera with built-in flash. You can take pictures and you can also record videos at 320×240 pixel resolution. The video function also records sound through the phone’s microphone. There’s a smaller VGA camera on the inside of the phone next to the main screen, which is intended for videophone calls but can also be used for still and video self-portraits.

All in all, the 6290 is a simple phone. Not as flashy as Nokia’s N-Series or E-Series phones. But it does come in packed with all the necessary stuff that makes a phone attractive to users. Combined with its mid-range price, the Nokia 6290 may be a safe alternative for people who are on a budget.

Sources:
http://www.mobile-review.com
http://mobile.softpedia.com
http://www.yourmobilephonereviews.co.uk