The small Nokia box arrived at the office and from the outside looked like bog standard Nokia fare, but inside sat a rather attractive 6280 in black (also available in a silver graphite). It measures 100 x 46 x 21mm and weighs 115 grams, its build is just right to sit in the palm of the hand without being too small and feeling lightweight.

The slider design means that Nokia can pack in a largish 320 x 240 pixel screen with just the 4 main control buttons and a 5 way pad underneath it. Slide the front of the phone open and a full keypad is revealed, the slide mechanism has a certain amount of friction that tries to keep the slider closed, this is most noticeable when you hang up a call using the active slider.

Perhaps the only negative at this stage is that the slider feels a little loose, there is just an amount of rotational play when you either shake or manipulate the phone, while this does not seem to cause any problems it just knocked our confidence in the overall build quality.

The Nokia 6280 is a Dual mode WCDMA/GSM phone making it suitable for UK 3G networks with their fast data rate of up to 384kbps, there is also EDGE, HSCSD and good old GPRS so you have all bases covered depending on what you network can offer. There is also full tri band GSM which is still the most common system in use and the one we tested most of the phones features on.

Power up the phone and the Series 40 interface appears, its changed a fair bit on this 3rd generation implementation but its still very familiar to anyone who's used a Nokia, with a combination of easy menus and the use of the two soft keys to speed navigation. The phone can be activated by either opening the slider or by pressing the multifunction button, this initially leaves a fairly large blank screen with the usual signal strength and power bars/ time etc at the top and the menu access at the bottom. It's up to the user to configure the screen layout with quick access icons and what is called active standby. This lets you show things like the status of the inbuilt media player or an FM radio and upcoming appointments within the calendar.

The whole package is so intuitive that you'll be driving through menus in seconds, want to configure something well that'll be in the config menu, want to play media head for the media player, at last Nokia are back on form with a phone that we defy anyone to be unable to use. So given an empty mobile phone we always start by getting our contacts over onto it from outlook.

Nokia ship the 6280 with the latest version of PC suite which enables you to hook up your phone via the provided USB 2.0 pop port cable, The cable works fine but we decided to go the Bluetooth route as one to the office laptops has built in BT. The software (PC suite) took ages to install but once loaded offers an easier way to manage ringtones/ images / themes and most of all synchronising your outlook contacts and calendar. The connection wizard steps through getting Bluetooth working having paired the phone and it has proven robust and reliable, you do need to set the phone to always allow the connection or it will ask you every time the phone gets within range of the PC.

Once you've got all the contacts on the phone its easy to browse them with all the relevant details nested under one name, in there can be all phones numbers, email, address, IM and even presence, this offers a way of suitably equipped networks showing you when your contacts are available a bit like MSN messenger.

Making calls on the 6280 is a breeze, is just a single button press to get to the address book which can be quickly scanned before placing the call, the earpiece is god and loud and there is a speakerphone included. RF performance seemed strong with the phone hanging onto calls in marginal reception. Daily use of the Nokia has proven that it is a very useable daily phone with good loud ringtones (although you may want to choose your own) a vibrate option and a round a 3 day standby in GSM use.

Data is very well catered for and our tests on a 3G network showed it is more than capable with both inbuilt email and a WAP 2.0, XHTML compliant web browser to ensure that you can keep in touch on the move, although the screen isn't quite big enough for web browsing even when switched to landscape mode.

Battery life is a claimed 4 days on standby and 4 hours talk time, we didn't quite manage this but 3 days standby with moderate calls seemed ok to us, 3G use will eat the battery faster and even Nokias own stats show this. Perhaps a longer lithium Ion battery would have been good as its not uncommon to find mobiles with a standby in excess of 7 days.

However having a phone that's good at being a phone just isn't enough, it has to do more. Luckily the 6280 does do more, a fair bit more. Perhaps its main selling point is the 2 mega pixel digital camera producing images up to 1600x1200 resolution and there are a number of pre programmed modes, including a low light night mode and a small flash. The gallery application lets you view images that can then be sent as a message or even printed via Nokia's XpressPrint technology which acts as a pict bridge to compatible printers and photo kiosks.

Then on the audio side there is a fairly rounded media player which will handle 3GPP, H.263 video, MPEG-4, and AMR video either streamed in a video call or via the web or just stored and played. There is a dedicated audio player which while not an MP3 player is very useable and handles MP3/AAC/eAAC+/M4A audio tracks which can also be assigned as ringtones. The supplied earphones are quite good and come on a necklace type strap which is very comfortable and easy to use in car as a hands free kit.

Media can be stored on the phone itself which has 70mb of storage 6mb of which is available to user (around enough for 2 MP3 tracks) so just as well that the phone whips with a 64mb Mini SD card which slides into the side of the phone. If 64mb isn't enough then you can pick up cheap mini SD cards that go up to a whopping 1gb (as big as an iPod shuffle). We transferred files over Bluetooth and the USB 2.0 connection onto the card without any problems. The FM radio is also simple to use but requires the headset to be connected as it uses it as the cables as an aerial, the reception isn't great and we could only get main stations like radio one. We do like the way that all media playback is interrupted by incoming calls and then resumed again afterwards.

There are a few other features of note which may not be applicable to us in the UK just yet. Nokia have equipped the 6280 for Visual Radio which is a kind of semi interactive slideshow transmitted alongside radio transmissions, presently Virgin radio are the only station to use it in London. Then there is the next "big" thing PTT or push to talk, this is supposed to take over from text messaging as the next craze, its a bit like turning your phone into a walkie talkie using a data connection to send your voice to a chosen buddy. Again the phone is equipped but there isn't much to do with it just yet until a network picks it up.

So in summary a few pros and cons.

Pros, good size an weight, nice slider, easy to operate, great menu system, excellent music player, good camera, good RF performance.

Cons, possibly iffy build quality, short battery life, lacks WiFi, Pop port connecter can be a sod to fit.

If you have been searching for a new mobile for a while and just sitting tight because nothing takes you fancy we'd suggest that the Nokia 6280 may fit the bill, its already under £300 Sim free and is sure to be a cheap or even free upgrade for contract customers.

Perhaps the most telling statement was made by Lordpercy who when using this model as his daily phone actually started to take calls. He's been lugging around a "smartphone" for months and even though it has all those snazzy features it just sits on his desk. Truth is it was just too big, now the 6280 is with him all the time and has most of the smart features apart from WiFi he wanted. The Nokia 6280 a smart enough phone that fits in your pocket nicely!

Published - 24/04/2006

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