Nokia 6500 slide Review

Camera:

Nokia 6500 slide is equipped with 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, and 8x digital zoom, which is activated fast enough in order not to miss a worthwhile moment. The interface is in a landscape orientation and the display shows information for the number of pictures you can take before the memory is exhausted, the resolution and the quality of the pictures, as well as the regime – picture or video shooting.

You can choose from among a total of 6 different shooting resolutions varying from 2048 x1536 to 160 x 120, as well as from 3 image quality options: basic, normal and high. You can also make pictures with specific effects like false colors, grayscale, sepia, negative and solarise.

When taking pictures in the open, the images have very real colors, good detail, and almost no “noise”. Indoors, the camera also copes with its task well; in case it is quite dark, we recommend the use of the LED flash, which is effective at close range. The saving time of a photo depends on its size, which, on its part, varies with the kind of objects, being photographed. Perhaps this is the only occasion when 6500 slide will make you wait a little longer, with the average timing to save at maximum resolution being about 7 – 8 seconds. If you plan to photograph texts from a book or magazine, you will not encounter any problem reading them afterwards. The handset can boast a marvelous macro-mode and, as you can see for yourselves, will flawlessly reproduce even very small characters.



The maximal resolution for the video recording is 640 x 480 pixels (VGA), and there are additional three supported: 352 x 288 (CIF), 176 x 144 (QCIF) and 128 x 96 (SQCIF). The four modes differ not only in video resolution, but also in the number of frames per second, shot by the camera. For instance, at maximum clip resolution (VGA), there will be 15 frames per second (FPS), whereas you can make QCIF video at 30 FPS. As a rule, video results are good with high Nokia series: this unit gets close to N95 and N93(i); what is different, is the 30 FPS at VGA and the 15 FPS at slide for the latter two. This is a fairly good resolution that is close to the television one (not the HDTV, of course), yet, the clips you get would seem partitioned (“chopped”) due to the fact that the human eye is only able to perceive smooth motion at over 24 FPS. We presume you have noted the lack of QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) selection option, which is a much more widespread format n the Internet (YouTube for example) than the CIF. And it is rather peculiar that the display, being a QVGA one at that, does not dispose of the above resolution.

Nokia 6500 Slide sample video at 640x480 pixels resolution


Multimedia:

The video player supports H.263, H.264, MPEG-4, WMV codecs and formats. According to official Nokia specifications, the slider is capable of video displaying up to 30fps in VGA for H.263 with 2048 kbps bitrate and up to 15fps in QCIF for H.264 with 192 kbps. We were curious to know whether the handset would manage files with the above settings at the maximum, so we made a few tests. There was no problem for video, encoded with a H.264 baseline, but these settings can only provide quite a poor quality, which, in reality, will render watching pointless. In spite of the fact that the phone was able to cope with the H.263 file as well, it did not do so well: at times the sound stopped and image was dead, which lasted for about a second. It did much better at QVGA with 30 FPS, but also slightly “chopped” occasionally because of missed frames.

As a whole we would recommend encoding video files at lower settings in order not to take up the entire processing power of the phone while reproducing. This will ensure trouble-free watching.

The slide supports MP3/AAC/eAAC+/WMA formats for reproducing of audio and the strength of the sound through the loudspeaker is little above the average. While playing music the display shows the name of the song and album and album cover art if there is one. You can break the monotony of the player by choosing from one other theme apart from the standard one. Also, if you want you can play with the settings of the equalizer and the stereo widening, to look at the music files, arranged by artist, album or genre, as well as to add and manage playlists.


The phone does not pretend to have the options of the full functional music player, but nevertheless you can listen to stereo by the headphones in the set or by wireless, by the use of the Stereo Bluetooth A2DP profile.

Since the headphones were missing from the set that we got, we had no opportunity to test the performance of the radio. We tried to plug in a few standard 2.5 mm headphones, but to no avail – the device did not recognize them.

The slide has an FM radio, which gives the opportunity to memorize up to 20 pages with names. It is mandatory to connect the stereo headphones from the set, because they serve also as an antenna. Afterwards, you can transfer the sound to the loudspeaker, as the headphones stay switched on. You can listen to music or radio and at the same time to work with the phone menus, as the sound stays as a background.



Software:

As most of the phones of the series 40, Nokia 6500 comes with several preloaded applications: Converter, Download, Opera Mini, Presenter, Search, Sensor, World Clock and Yahoo! Go.


Nokia has taken care that you are not left without entertainment in your free time, therefore six games have been loaded to this end: Backgammon, Golf Tour, Highroller Casino, Rally 3D and Snake 3*. The names of the games are indicative as to their content; one is well aware that Nokia have installed various genres so that any taste and mood of the user can be met.

The phone supports Java MIDP 2.0, so that you can install all kinds of additional applications at your need and discretion.

*Games may vary according to region