Nokia X6 Review

First Impressions

Straight out of the box, the Nokia X6 is a good looking phone. Available in pink or black (although Black looks a bit sleeker) its a good choice for music lovers and people who phone more rather than texting.

Hardware

Why do I say this? Well, texting is just not that easy on this phone. Other smartphones like the iPhone or HTC HD2 have good responsive touchscreens which when you get used to it, is really fast and efficient. However, on the Nokia X6, this was a bit of a chore often ending in plenty of mis-spells and a few times just giving up and phoning instead!? Hoever, don’t let this minor setback put you off, there are still plenty of nice features in the X6 to keep you happy.

Such as the Carl Zeiss 5 MP camera with flash and a massive 16/32 GB of internal memory.

Unlimited Music

You may have seen in the advertising campaign for the X6, that Nokia are offering unlimited free music. Sounds too good to be true right? Well, this is one of the main selling points of this handset. You are eligible for unlimited free downloads from the Nokia Music Store over the full length of your contract. Either direct to your PC or to your phone. Now the Nokia Music Store is nowhere near as comprehensive as iTunes and the artists on offer are more of the pop genre than anything else. However, there is still plenty of music there and Nokia Music which runs on your PC is a fairly slick and easy to use substitute for iTunes.

Functionality

Day to day usage is good. If you set aside the trickiness of texting its a pretty feature packed phone. The speakers are great, and it has all the usual applications you would expect from a modern Nokia handset. The internet speed is good with a handy contacts bar on your homescreen for your friends social media updates.

Overall

Slick, nice looking mobile with plenty of functionality and the unlimited music is a nice touch. However, for those of us who spend a lot of time typing on the internet or texting then it may be better to invest your money in a more powerful smartphone.

HTC HD2 Review

First Impressions

At first glance, the HTC  HD2 looks like a cutting edge smartphone. The first thing that you will notice is its huge screen (4.3″) and that is the whole front of the phone! Thinner than the iPhone, and arguably nicer too look at, lets find out if its functionality lives up to the cutting edge design.

Hardware

Powered by a 1 GHz processor and the first touch screen technology to be used with a Windows phone. Exciting, right? Scrolling and navigation are lightning fast, with applications opening and closing rapidly. Furthermore, internet browsing is much faster than an iPhone, and looks great on the 4.3″ screen. 5MP camera with great flash is fast to load and takes great quality pictures and video.

Homescreen

Apple’s distinctive icon grid has been thrown out of the window for HTC‘s intuitive homescreen. Its all totally customisable and even has a changing weather graphic which you can set to your location. The homescreen is boosted by the processor which allows it to load very quickly no matter how many applications are open.

Functionality

So for the first hour with this phone, you will probably be loving all the small added touches, unique layout and processor speed. You may finally even pluck up the courage to start that eBay auction for your old iPhone. However, it is over the course of probably your first week that you will stumble across a few niggles and glitches in the system. Windows Mobile should be great. It should be seamlessly interactive with your music, video, apps and PC. However its never lived up to expectations.

Small things like not being able to customise you ‘Start’ menu when you can completely customise everything on your homescreen, become annoying. Also, when it comes to playing music or downloading apps, things get a little awkward. Firstly, adding tracks to the HTC’s media player is not as smooth and straight forward as putting music from your iTunes onto your iPhone. It will probably require a couple of updates and directory changes first. Secondly, the apps available at Windows Marketplace are just not in the same league as Apple’s app store. This was going to be expected and you probably didn’t buy the HTC for the available apps but it would be nice to see some greater variation in games, guides and travel apps.

Overall

The HTC HD2 is a very nice piece of hardware. It looks the part for a smartphone, has a beautiful glossy screen and turbo processor which makes web browsing a dream, but the remnants of the Windows Mobile interface let it down in terms of ease of use and customisation. Your friends will love it at first glance and be impressed with its speed and unique look but the software will soon become tiresome and a little buggy.

iPhone 4G: Coming in June 2010

Rumours are beginning to circulate that we will see a new and improved iPhone 4G in June 2010. Initial release will be in America on the Verizon Wireless network and releasing across the UK and Europe soon after.

So what are the benefits of the new iPhone 4G and why should you consider an upgrade from your existing iPhone 3G or 3GS?

First of we can expect much faster downloading speeds and multi tasking capabilities (Hence the 4G, rather than 3G title). Also a faster dual core processor and better graphical capabilities. This will allow for more advanced apps and internet usage.

Also an impressive OLED screen (or for the tech heads amongst us an Organic Light Emitting Diode). Coupled with the increased graphic performance will allow for some really slick looking new games.

The new iChat camera will allow for video chat from the front of the phone made easier with a standard headphone jack.

Another major feature will be the increased memory up to 32GB so no more shifting files back and forth to your PC to free up room for your downloads.

Its still unclear as to the overall look and feel of the phone. We anticipate it will be smaller and thinner (that is the Apple way after all, look at the evolution of the iPod) Personally, we think this is great news as the iPhone is undeniably a great gadget but remains slightly too big for its purposes as a mobile phone handset. We anticipate the new iPhone 4G will be their best mobile handset yet. More new to come as soon as we hear it.