Exquisite, stylish classic candy-bar

Oct 27, 2009 14:32 GMT  ·  By

The new Nokia 6700 handset has been tagged as 'classic' only because of its bar form, but everything else points to an advanced mobile phone with a stylish look. Even though it's just a mid-budget phone and doesn't feature the well-known Symbian OS, Nokia 6700 can be one of the best choices for a businessperson, but only as a 'second phone.'

Sleek and shiny the phone will definitely appeal to all consumer targets that can pay its price. The rightful disciple of the now older Nokia 6300, the new 6700 classic handset strives for the same success on the market.

Announced in January 2009, Nokia 6700 classic was made available on the market in May 2009. The handset can be acquired for about US$300, without any plan, but prices may vary by location and carrier, so chances are that you'll even get it for up to US$350. The phone is available in three different colors: Silver metallic, Matte metallic and Black metallic.

style="color: rgb(170,51,51)">Design

Nokia 6700 classic strongly resembles its 6300 predecessor, but also looks like it might belong to Nokia's 8800 luxury series. The phone is well thought and designed, starting with ergonomics and the metallic case. The stainless-steel material that covers the phone makes it harder to break (if not impossible), but also gives it a stylish and pricey look. The candy-bar form, as well as its size (109.8 x 45 x 11.2 mm), fits the phone better in your pocket. Further, even though it's made from stainless steel it only weighs 116.5g (including battery), which makes it a well-balanced phone. Still, it has some disadvantages, as the handset will be full of grease and fingerprints most of the time. Also, users should be careful not to keep the phone together with other metallic objects like keys or chains, as the device is easy to scratch.

The bar handset only features a dual volume key and a dedicated camera button on the right side, as well as the charger port and the usual microUSB port, both placed on the bottom side. Above the 2.2-inch display there's a small ambient light sensor, right near the in-call speaker. Below the screen you can notice a medium-sized keypad, whith three rows of keys, which are separated by small, thin lines. These are a little bit hard to press and if you need to send multiple text messages your fingers might get tired after a while. Between the keypad and the screen there are two soft keys and the usual Accept and Reject calls keys. The big, four-way D-pad is easy to control and can also be used as an Enter key.
The back of the phone includes the 5-megapixel camera together with a very small LED flash and an external speaker. The back cover can be pulled out with ease only if you don't have your hands sweaty or wet. You will probably need to do this frequently if you intend to change your microSD card too many times. The latter can be found right under the back hood of the phone, near the SIM slot. Very easy to access and pull out, but only after removing the back case. Fortunately, you don't need to power off the phone to take out the memory card, which means it is hot-swappable.
Nokia 6700 classic is a good-looking candy-bar phone, with a stylish design that will stand out from the crowd wherever you show it off. The metallic case, as well as the slim form are some of the main traits of its design, which make 6700 an excellent choice for Nokia fans that are not bothered by the fact that it misses the Symbian OS.

style="color: rgb(255,102,0)">Display and Camera

Nokia 6700 classic features a medium-sized 2.2-inch TFT display, supporting 16M colors and a 240x320-pixel resolution. Taking into consideration its target, the size of the screen doesn't bother too much. The colors, contrast, as well as the quality of the image displayed are some of the best. Add to that the perfect sunlight eligibility and you get an excellent display that can meet any user’s expectations. The phone also benefits from the accelerometer feature, but only for the clock. This can be activated by tapping the back of the phone twice when it's in standby mode. The clock will be displayed on the screen for a few seconds. The accelerometer doesn't work for any other feature in the phone.

The 5-megapixel camera embedded in the Nokia 6700 classic device features auto-focus and an LED flash. The camera performs pretty well, even though you have a small screen and a standard interface. The only drawback I found was the rather long time it took for the phone to save the pictures. Users will have the option to turn the screen on portrait or landscape, before picturing, and mute the camera sound. Even tough the phone features a built-in GPS receiver, I was surprised to find that the camera lacked the geo-tagging function.
The user-interface settings are standard for a 5-megapixel camera and don't't include anything new. The maximum resolution supported is of 2,592x1,944 pixels. The autofocus works like a charm and the camera button can be pressed very easily.
There are no specially created functions for this camera, but, as you can see from the screenshots, all of them remain very easy to use. The same goes for the video camera, which can capture VGA (15fps) clips in the MP4 format or 3GPP, depending on the quality you choose.

style="color: rgb(153,204,0)">Menu and Software

Nokia 6700 classic runs on an S40 6th Edition interface, which is the latest user-interface coming from Nokia. If you owned a Nokia handset before and it didn't have a Symbian OS, then this candy-bar will probably feel the same. One of the most user-friendly interfaces on the market, the S40 seems unchanged on the surface, and offers the Nokia 6700 classic user an excellent experience. Still there are some tweaks and reshapes, which are taking this experience to a new level. The icons of the menus have been changed, but the 3D animation has been taken off.

The icons in the main menu can be rearranged to simulate the older 5th Edition interface if you feel you like it more. The firmware includes the Flash Lite player, which has been updated to version 3 and Flash Lite content can now be used as an 'organic' wallpaper. Also, MMS has been updated to version 1.3 and message support has been improved to accept 600KB attachments. Also, there is some better support for WMA and WMV codecs, the most important improvement embedded in the S40 6th Edition interface of the new web browser. It now includes the Web-kit based browser that was ported from the Symbian smartphones.
The handset also includes some useful applications, such as Search, Alarm clock, Calendar, To-do list, Notes, Calculator, Countdown timer, World Clock and Stopwatch. The menu is fully customizable and you can designate any MP3, MIDI or AAC file as a ringtone. The phonebook can store up to 2,000 contacts, and each can be filled with up to five different phone numbers. The fonts can be customized, but only those displayed when opening the Contacts, Web browser and messaging sections.
Also, some Java games come preinstalled – Bounce Tales, Brain Champ, Seasweeper and Snake III. The phone is compatible with Java MIDP 2.1 applications, but there is a limit to the size of any application that you might want to install on the phone, and that's the usual 1MB. This might be the case for most Java-compatible applications, but I noticed that I could run some files that were around 1.5MB in size. Nevertheless, not all Java applications will work on this mid-end device, so you might want to try that out for yourselves.

style="color: rgb(153,51,102)">Communication

Nokia 6700 classic is fully compatible with HSDPA 10 Mbps, as well as GPRS and EDGE Class 32, but as the benchmarks revealed, the device attained average scores in terms of the data-transfer speed (EDGE only 182 Kbit/s download and 83 Kbit/s upload; HSDPA only 453 Kbit/s download and 47 Kbit/s upload), but that may greatly vary depending on the location and carrier.

The phone also features HSUPA 2Mbps and Bluetooth 2.1. Synchronization with the PC is possible through the proprietary microUSB port, but charging is also possible through the USB cable. The built-in GPS receiver works together with the included Nokia Maps. I had no trouble with pinpointing or localization.
In terms of messaging, the phone accepts standard text messages, MMS 1.3 (600 KB attachments), as well as emails. The message client works with POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols, and supports more than one email account.
The quad-band (GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900) network-compatible candy-bar has a good GSM signal reception. The sound is above average in quality at both ends, and pretty loud. The vibration alert is very low, which means you will miss lots of phone calls if you keep it on the Silent profile.

style="color: rgb(170,51,51)">Processor and Memory

Nokia 6700 classic isn't compatible with JBenchmark Pro, so I was forced to use the obsolete JBenchmark 1.0, 2.0, 3D and HD. Even if current devices are over-optimized against many of these old tests, I say that the results are pretty relevant if compared with other devices in its range.

Nokia 6700 classic is powered by an ARM11 family processor running at speeds of up to 465 MHz. While not the fastest phone on the market, Nokia 6700 features the same CPU that is usually embedded in the lastest Nokia smartphones. The device will not lag even when running a music player or radio in the background.
The Nokia 6700 classic bar phone embeds 170MB of user free internal memory, which can be expanded up to 8GB, as the phone features a microSD slot card. The memory is hot-swappable, but you must pull out the back cover to notice the microSD slot card. The sales package also contains a 1GB microSD memory card.

style="color: rgb(255,102,0)">Multimedia

I was disappointed to find that Nokia 6700 classic lacked big time in this important area. The device is simply not meant for those that will probably want to listen some music on their phone. Nokia 6700 classic only features the soon-universal microUSB port together with some crappy wired stereo headset (WH-203). The wired headphones are black and so big that you cannot hide them under your clothes. Furthermore, as there's no 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter included in the sales package, you won't be able to change the headphones.

The bar features a cool, integrated MP3 player, compatible with MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA formats. The interface of the MP player looks extremely well and supports album animations, as well as some basic settings such as the Equalizer, Stereo widening, Shuffle and Repeat. The Equalizer can be customized, or you can use the predefined settings: Normal, Pop, Rock, Jazz and Classical.
The lack of music-dedicated external keys can be replaced by a Bluetooth headset, as the phone supports the A2DP profile. The loudspeaker sound is average in intensity, but clearly lacks any sort of bass. There's also an FM radio with the RDS function that can replace the music player.

style="color: rgb(153,204,0)">Battery

The 970 mAh Li-Ion (BL-6Q) battery has an officially stated life expectancy of 416 hours (414 on 3G) in standby and about five hours (four hours on 3G) in talk-time mode. If you're a heavy phone-talker, you will need to charge it once every two days. Otherwise, the phone's autonomy is much better than its 6300 predecessor.

style="color: rgb(153,51,102)">Impressions

Nokia 6700 is one of those classics that have been redesigned to be up to these days' standards. Better looking and more powerful than Nokia 6300, I hope people will not be reluctant to 6700 as it doesn't features its predecessor's weaknesses. The candy-bar can fulfill with great success the 'second phone' role for businesspersons, but could also be a very good choice for youngsters thanks to its medium price.


The Good

Besides the extremely well-designed shapes and the metallic material used for the manufacture, Nokia 6700 has many goodies to offer to its users. The 5-megapixel camera, the excellent display, built-in GPS receiver, 10Mbps HSDPA connectivity and a good price. Also, the new, improved UI S40 6th Edition makes a good addition to this device.

The Bad

The most important drawback of the device is probably the low talking time. Even though it's not the lowest you can get, a businessperson will probably not be satisfied with the numbers 6700 has to offer. Other minor downsides are the lack of the geo-tagging function for the camera and the presence of a 3.5mm audio jack port.

style="color: rgb(170,51,51)">Sales Package

Nokia 6700 classic handset; Nokia Battery BL-6Q (970 mAh); 1GB SD card; Nokia microUSB headset (WH-203); Nokia Connectivity Cable (CA-101); Nokia High Efficiency Charger (AC-8); Quick start guide.

Photo Gallery (85 Images)

+82more