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Description:

Key features:

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support, dual-band UMTS
• Accelerometer for tap-for-time and tap-to-mute
• 2.2″ 16M-color QVGA display
• 3 megapixel camera, autofocus and LED flash
• VGA video recording at 15fps
• S40 user interface, 5th edition, FP1
• Bluetooth (with A2DP) and USB-on-the-go
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• microSD card slot (up to 8 GB), 512MB included
• Rich preinstalled application package
• Nokia Maps
• Compact and extra smooth
• Sweet oval shapes and neat slider design
• Large capacity BL-4U battery (Li-Ion 1000 mAh)

Main disadvantages:

• Fingerprint magnet, hard to clean
• Rigid battery cover latch
• Memory card slot under the battery, no hot-swap
• No camera shutter key
• Below par camera quality
• Display easily gets scratched
• No smart dialing
• No multi-tasking
• No office document viewer

In a nutshell: The Nokia 6600 Slide is a slide design 3G phone with an excellent 3.2 megapixel camera and a large hi-res OLED display. It offers video calling, an MP3 player, an FM radio, expandable memory and Bluetooth. You can even silence the phone just by giving it a tap. Battery life could be better, but overall this is an excellent mid-range product if you’re looking for an easy-to-use phone without some of the more advanced features.

You might think that the Nokia 6600 Slide is an upgraded version of the 6500 Slide. But that would have been too obvious. In fact it has almost precisely the same list of features as the 6500 Slide, just a different design. Whereas the 6500 Slide was big, metallic and square, the 6600 Slide is compact, shiny and curvy. You could think of it as the feminine counterpart to the 6500 Slide. Although admittedly it doesn’t really look very feminine in the glossy black finish pictured here. In fact it looks like a miniature N96.

It’s quite a bit smaller and lighter than the 6500 Slide, but still quite heavy to hold. We’re aren’t sure why, as the casing is plastic and the battery isn’t that powerful. The keys are quite small too, so watch out if you have extra large fingers. However the screen is a good size (2.2 inches) and is a beautiful OLED display with 16 million colours and QVGA resolution – it’s a stunner in fact. You’ll need to watch out for fingerprints on the glossy finish, but apart from that we have no complaints about the way the 6600 Slide looks. Build quality could be a bit more solid, and we wouldn’t recommend dropping it from a great height onto a hard surface.

The camera is better than average, with 3.2 megapixels, autofocus and a double LED flash. It produces excellent quality results, very similar to the 6500 Slide in fact. It’s also got a competent video camera that can record in VGA resolution, and can make video calls. The media player is very good too, with support for all the main file formats, plus an FM radio too. The built-in memory is rather sad – just 20 MB – but Nokia have provided a 512 MB memory card in the sales package, which is enough for around 125 MP3 tracks, or a couple of hundred songs in AAC format. You can always replace this with your own card if you want more storage space, and in fact the 6600 Slide will accept microSD memory cards right up to a whopping 16 GB.

The phone is a competent internet device, with 3G for fast downloads (although no HSDPA), the excellent Opera Mini browser, plus Macromedia Flash Lite 3.0 installed. That beautiful big screen is a treat for viewing websites as well as photos or videos. Email is supported, with attachments, but no attachment editor – this is no BlackBerry after all. There’s no GPS, but Nokia Maps is installed, so you can find your way around, provided that you already know where you are!

One nice feature that’s new in the 6600 Slide is the ability to respond to touch. By tapping the phone, you can silence the ring or reject a call, and you can also tap the phone to silence the alarm. This is definitely a step up from the 6500 Slide – users were more likely to whack that phone in frustration rather than give it a gentle tap!

We hesitate to say that the 6600 Slide is an upgrade to the 6500 Slide. It’s really more like Nokia decided to have another go at exactly the same phone, but do it differently. It does look quite different, and we like it. We like it being smaller and lighter too. We love the tap feature. We’re less keen on the battery life, and we’re going to warn heavy users to avoid this phone. Most people shouldn’t have a problem though. Overall it’s a nice phone, but not an outstanding one. It’s clearly aimed at buyers who aren’t looking for every latest feature, but are willing to sacrifice some of the more high-tech functions in return for a phone that’s easier to use. The price reflects this too – it’s positioned as a mid-range phone, and you should be able to pick it up on some medium priced contracts.