Camera Phones Plaza

Even if Nokia is developing specific series of phones, like the N series, E series, Xpress Music, or the new "X" series, half of the Nokia products sold are part of, well, non important operating system with nice design, good features and middle range price tag - series. Basically Nokia should just create a everyday series, in which it should include the new 6700 classic but also (still on the market) its predecessor, Nokia 6300.

The 6700 is not the direct descendent of 6300, it is more an upgraded version of the 6300. The successor of 6300 is the 6303 which has a smaller price tag with good features, but lacks the premium feel and high end features of the 6700 classic. The 6700 classic will probably be a market success, because of its candy form and excellent specs. Nokia leads the market in terms of non touch screen, but great candy form phones. Is not only the hardware part that impresses the potential customers, but also the solid S40 operating system which delivers a great performance (for its range).

The new 6700 classic could be considered Nokia's new S40 flagship. It was developed for the users that don't necessary need 8 or 12 megapixel cameras, touch screen, or QWERTY keyboard. Even without those features, the 6700 looks exquisite and it is inspired (in the silver finish) from 8800 look. Unfortunately, you still get disadvantages like the positioning of the memory card (under the back cover), no video calling, small display, not the latest version of S40, no multitasking (iPhone style all around us), no office document viewer, and most important for the music fans, no 3.5 mm audio jack. Nokia 6700 classic is available in four colors (brown, matt steel, chrome, and black).

This entire colors suite well the 6700, and if you are looking for a not so bold in design and appearance phone then you should take a closer look to 6700 classic. However, you should check with the service provider because some carriers might get just the brown colored 6700 classic. The Nokia 6700 is great in terms of dimensions and weight. It has a height of 109.8 mm, wide of 45 mm, deep of 11.2 mm with an approximate weight of 116.5 g. Therefore it is easy to carry in any pocket.

The design and finish are good. You don't get an all case plastic. The cover is made out of stainless steel, which not only offers a great look but also feels wonderful at touch. Even if it is the same phone, the covers may vary in material based on the color scheme chosen. The keypad is average both in terms of usability and construction. You get a four way directional key pad with a center "ok / enter" button. Two soft customizable buttons on every side of the D pad. Under this soft buttons you will find, on the right the end call button, and on the left the call button. All this mandatory directional keys offer good feedback and sufficient distance between them (you might find it difficult to use only if you have oversized hands). Below these operating keys you get the actual keypad.

Because the latest trend is to offer keypads with no actual keys to touch, you might find the 6700's keypad a little confusing when texting in a hurry. However, for an average user the keypad provides sufficient space between keys and good feedback when pressing them. Overall the 6700 provides a solid construction. On the front of the panel, above the display, you only get the light sensor and loud speaker grill (no second video camera, because Nokia tried to undersize this phone as much as they could). On the right side, the 6700 classic, sports a shutter key and the volume control keys. Both are comfortable to use, even if they are extremely thin. On the left side, the 6700 classic has no keys, none at all. On the bottom of this handset you can find the micro USB jack (unfortunately uncovered). Also, you can find here the jack for the charger. A nice feature (still not available for high end Nokia phones) is that you can use the USB cable to charge your 6700 battery when connected to your computer. On the back you will observe, that Nokia included in this phone beside the 5 megapixel camera lens, a LED flash unit (extremely small, to make any difference when shooting photos). Overall, this phone has an excellent design and you can actually feel how solid it is. A definitely plus is the 8800 Arts look - alike.

The phone comes with a small (but otherwise great) 2.2 inches TFT display with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels (it provides up to 16.7 million colors). The display features an accelerometer sensor for a more comfortable use. The 6700 is the first phone with control over adaptive brightness content. In day by day translation, this features enables the display to adjusts itself (with the help of the light sensor) not only based on the brightness in the current environment but also based on what it displays. This feature will provide not only a better rendering for the user but will also save battery life. The screen will accommodate up to nine text and three service lines (in other applications or sub menus, the 6700 display will accommodate up to 16 text lines).

The 6700 classic runs in both 2G network (GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) and 3G network (HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100). Nokia ships 6700 classic with a rather small battery, 960 mAh Lithium Ion BL 6Q, with an official standby time up to 300 hours. In 2G networks the 6700 sports a talk time up to 5 hours, while in the 3G network the talk time goes up to 4 hours. If you are interested in listening continuously to music on the 6700 classic, then you should now that the battery will only last for 20 hours under these conditions. For an average user, all these values mean around three days of battery life.

The Nokia 6700 classic has an onboard memory of only 170 MB. However, you can easily improve this value by using a micro SD memory card or a Trans Flash memory card, up to 16 GB (in the official statement). However this phone will read certain types of 32 GB memory cards. Nokia doesn't deliver any information regarding the processor used or for that matter of fact, not even the random access memory embedded in the 6700. The connectivity is ensured by Class 32 GPRS, Class 32 EDGE, HSCSD, Bluetooth 2.0, and HSDPA with a great value of 10 MB per second, HSUPA with 2 MB per second, and 2.0 micro USB port. However, it lacks an important feature, the Wi-Fi connectivity. Nokia has equipped its S40 flagship with an excellent 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and LED flash. The camera can take photos in six different resolutions, starting from the small 320 x 240 , 640 x 480, 1280 x 960, 1600 x 1200, 2048 x 1536, and the most impressive resolution of 2592 x 1944. You can't actually use the camera for snap shots, because it is rather slow. It needs about four seconds to save a photo.

The white balance feature brings only four different scenarios, incandescent, fluorescent, sunny and cloudy. The 6700 can also record videos with only one resolution: 640 x 480 pixels - VGA and a horrible 15 frames per second (the minimum accepted is 30 frames per second, in order to get an average movies clip). The Nokia 6700 comes with the sixth S40 software. It doesn't bring any new features and it doesn't have the wow factor (but then again, none of the phones in this range have a special software feature). However, with the S40 6th edition you get a great music player, excellent phone book with 100 entries, quality organizer that offers a solid look.

It may be not the prettiest operating system out there, but the S40 will provide everything you might need. Nokia provides the 6700 classic with a middle range retail package. Beside the actual phone, you will also get a 1GB memory card, a micro USB cable, mandatory charger, one piece micro USB hands free, user guide and a CD. The Nokia 6700 classic doesn't bring anything new to the game. However, it sports good features taken from other Nokia phones. At a price tag of $270 this phone is a great performer. It will not let you down, as long as you are not looking for a touch screen or a 8 megapixel or even 12 megapixel camera.