Nokia X6 review: Going up the ladder

Pretty decent phonebook

The Nokia X6 phonebook has virtually unlimited capacity and its functionality is certainly among the best out there. Nokia X6 contacts list also has kinetic scrolling enabled that's a welcome enhancement but nowadays all Nokia touch phones have that already.

Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name and you can also set whether the contacts from the SIM card, the phone memory and the service numbers will get displayed.

The fully-functional phonebook

When searching for a contact you make use of a clever dynamic keypad, which shows you only the letters that correspond to actual contacts. Once you type in a first letter, their number decreases, leaving only the ones that actually make up real contacts names (in our case - "E" and "X"). A really convenient tool indeed.

Nokia have thought of a pretty convenient solution for searching the contact list

Editing a contact offers a variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like. You can also create new fields if you happen to be able to think of one.

You can also assign personal ringtones and videos. If you prefer, you may group your contacts and give each group a specific ringtone.

Editing a contact's details in the S60 phonebook Nokia X6

The Call log keeps track of your recent communications. The application itself comes in two flavors - accessed by pressing the Call key on the stand-by screen or from the main menu. The first one brings 20 call records in each of its tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls.

The call log keep a detailed record of your recent communications

If you access the Log application from the main menu, you'll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers.

Telephony: smart-dial nowhere to be seen

Voice quality is good on both ends of calls, the earpiece sound is crisp and there were no reception problems whatsoever.

The only real downside is the still missing smart dialing functionality. Some may argue it's not as essential on a touchscreen phone but most of the competition has it duly covered. Not to mention WinMo devices have a very elaborate smart dial system that even searches in your Calls log for numbers that are not in your contacts list.

The dialing pad

Voice dialing is an option with the Nokia X6 as with most other phones. The voice dialing mode is activated once you press and hold the Call key. It is fully speaker-independent and doesn't require pre-recording the names of your contacts. Bear in mind though, that if you have multiple numbers assigned to a contact, it will dial the default one.

Thanks to the built-in accelerometer, you can silence an incoming call (or snooze an alarm) by simply flipping the handset over. Also when in calls, the proximity sensor makes sure the screen turns automatically off when you pick the phone up to your ear.

The in-call screen and available options

Using the hardware screen-lock switch you can not only unlock the phone but also silence it.

The Nokia X6 scored a Good in our traditional loudspeaker test. This puts it on par with the majority of XpressMusic handsets, so while you might not hear it in the noisiest environments, you should be OK most of the time.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Apple iPhone 3G	66.1	62.1	71.7	Below Average
Apple iPhone 3GS	69.5	69.5	71.7	Good
Nokia X6	69.2	66.7	72.5	Good
Motorola MILESTONE	68.5	66.3	77.9	Good
Nokia N97 mini	68.8	66.7	83.6	Very Good
HTC HD2	75.5	73.2	75.7	Very Good
HTC Touch2	75.9	75.3	82.7	Excellent
LG GD510 Pop	76.6	76.2	85.0	Excellent

More info on our test can be found here.