Nokia 6210 Navigator

GPS is slowly becoming a very common feature in most of the higher end handsets. Nokia’s 6110 Navigator performed quite well and now its upgrade, the 6120 Navigator, is on ’trial’. Let’s see how it fares compared to its predecessor.

Form Factor
Fans of the Navigator will be happy to see the 6210 has the same slider form factor as the 6110. But it’s a whole lot sleeker. The 6210 has a 2.4 inch TFT display with a 240 x 320 pixel display, a five way nav-pad, and a dedicated key to access Nokia Maps. The secondary camera is located above the display, next to the light sensor. On one side are the volume/zoom keys and a dedicated camera key. The other side has the microUSB slot on the top and the microSD card slot below it. I liked the flaps that conceal these slots.

The 2.5mm earphone socket and charging port are located on the top of the device. One of the biggest peeves I had with the handset is removing the rear panel. Not that you’ll have to do this often, but it’s still very hard. You’ll need to grow a strong set of nails. The 6210 has a 3.2MP camera at the rear, with dual LED flashes.

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The phone feels a bit heavy but the slider is extremely smooth. The keypad unfortunately has the same problem that plagued the 6110: the top three keys are hard to access. On the plus side, the keypad is extremely large and the rest of the keys are well-spaced.

Features and PerformanceInterface

Running on Symbian OS 9.3 Series 60, the 6210 is a relatively fast handset, sometimes annoyingly so. Let me elaborate. It has an accelerometer that’s quite sensitive and there doesn’t seem to be any control for that. Not that it’s too much of a hindrance; in fact it’s handy when you want to switch to landscape mode. Just like in the N78, the main screen with Standby mode on can be customized to display the icons vertically or horizontally.

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Misc. and Office Features
There aren’t any snazzy features other than the GPS, which as I said earlier is not something that’s altogether a new concept today. Naturally, this handset can easily accomplish all the functions any other mobile in its class can do. From calculator to calendar and converter, it’s got the works.

The business suite includes Quick Office, and Adobe PDF (that for some reason doesn’t manage to open files and instead offers an ‘insufficient memory’ excuse. Active Notes is a handy application to have and so is the Zip application to save a bit of space. The 6210 even has a Dictionary application that sadly may not have all the words you may wish to find. Odd? Very!

The 6210 also has a few fun features like voice commands, text-to-speech, and Nokia’s Message reader app. The message reader allows you to read messages directly from the application. Another neat feature is the option to select the SIM memory as the primary storage for your contacts.

Media
I wasn’t very thrilled with the music player’s decibel levels, and once again the pain of creating playlists is very evident for those of us who categorize our music in folders. Even with an 8-band customizable EQ setting you’ll only end up enhancing the quality, not the volume. In crowded places, you really won’t get to hear too much. Oddly though, the 6210’s inbuilt speakers are superbly loud and clear. Go figure.

Other media features include Visual Radio, which simplifies storing radio channels with their individual channel names. The Visual Radio service is active only for Radio Mirchi (98.30 MHz) but I couldn’t get even that activated. The handset supports Podcasts, offers a voice recorder, and access to Nokia’s online Music Store (useless in India).

The 2.4 inch display is great for videos, if only something could be done about the volume. I used the handset with SanDisk’s new Mobile Ultra 8GB card and though it didn’t slow down too much, it did get a tad sluggish when the card was overloaded with data.

There are some fun games, such as Marble Cannon (a mobile version of Luxor), Brain Challenge**,** and Jelly Chase. The last of these uses the handset’s accelerometer to take gameplay to a different level. You’ll need to twist and tilt the handset in all directions to win the game!

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Connectivity
The 6210 Navigator is a 3G-enabled handset capable of HSDPA connectivity at speeds up to 3.6 Mbps. Since that’s absolutely useless to us at the moment, we’ll have to settle for EDGE/GPRS. Though I’ve never really liked Nokia’s native browser, you tend to get used to it. Opera Mini is an option that works fine too. Other connectivity options include Stereo Bluetooth and microUSB (v2.0).

The sub-features in the connectivity settings include Nokia’s Sync application for PC as well as their Ovi online backup solution and Switch for a quick transfer of data from one handset to another via Bluetooth. What’s the best part about the newer S60 OS is the simplicity of setting up accounts. There are wizards for everything, that download all the necessary settings whenever possible. All you’ll need to do is enter your username and password.

GPS
This is a very important feature. It’s so important that it’s what gives the Navigator its name. And Nokia Maps 2.0 with active digital compass makes navigation a lot easier. The loud speaker phone also helps tremendously, since you shouldn’t really be looking into your mobile screen while driving.

There were times when it took unduly long to get a signal, no matter where I was. But most often it needed no longer than a minute. What I’m disappointed with is the fact that the 6210 Navigator does NOT have Geotagging as a feature. Nokia’s Location Tagger is a quick fix for this, but this does not excuse the absence of the feature.

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Camera
The 3.2MP camera is one of the better ones I’ve seen. The built-in software makes taking Panorama images easy. It also ‘stitches’ the images right in the handset. The stitch lines are thankfully not too visible when viewing in the images in their native size. You just need to have a steady hand.

Normal images in daytime conditions look really good, with plenty of detail and colors remaining intact or as best as the lens can offer. Images tend to appear a bit pastel-ish in their native resolution, but this is forgivable, all things considered.

Night mode with the flash is not too bad either. On the whole the camera is quite good.

Battery
The battery life of the 6210 is not too bad, but it isn’t something to write home about either. Let’s just say it’s better than decent. An average user could get up to two days of usage, but with messaging, emailing, music, camera shots and regular calls I got just a little over a day and a half. Talktime ran to about 3 hours and 10 minutes.

The Bottomline
This upgrade is exactly what one would, should, and could expect from an advanced model of any device, with maybe a few small exceptions like the audio level (not quality). At Rs 14,300 it’s a great phone with plenty of features to thrill all users. I can’t say much for the girly red color, but if that puts you off there’s always black. This is a great phone for travelers, since there’s GPS and a good enough camera. I only wish the boffins at Nokia had had the wisdom to include Geotagging.

Specs

| **6210 Navigator
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