Weight: 115 g
Dimensions: 100 x 46 x 21 mm, 91 cc
Display: Active matrix 262,144 color display (320 x 240 pixels)
3D generation Series 40 user interface
Five-way scroll key, two soft keys, send and end keys
Dedicated key for camera application
Price range: $320.31 - $603.12
Nokia 6280 features a significant number of functions, but lacks an operation system. It belongs to the category of the so called manager phones, it’s a high-class phone. It was primary presented in June last year and it hit the stores in the end of January. As you can see, in this case the preparation of the entire launch campaign has taken Nokia a bit longer than usual.
Nokia has created the 6280 model as a substitute for the famous Nokia 6230 and Nokia 6230i. In terms of functional equipment it will probably be an easy task to complete. The question, however, is whether the end users will put up with Nokia 6280’s sliding construction. Given the fact that a major part of the mobile users are still getting used to to clamshell phones, it seems s to be somewhat early for a mass success of the “sliders”. This makes me think that a lot of customers will rather go for Nokia 6233, which is still in process of development and is expected to hit the market in August, 2006.
On video streaming, the 6280 fared better but occasionally struggled with fast moving footage. More relaxed videos like news reports, film trailers and soap opera round-ups were presented efficiently but when it came to sports footage like Premiership goals, the images became peppered with digital blocking. You could still easily make out proceedings but it wasn’t as coherent as top 3G artists like the Sharp 903, Motorola V3x and Sony Ericsson W900i.
The Nokia 6280 also features a 2 Megapixel camera, snapping stills of good quality in daylight and of adequate quality in darker environments. Aiming to assimilate the functions of a dedicated camera, the phone’s display, which acts as a viewfinder, automatically switches to landscape mode when the camera is activated. Its various options are then easily adjusted by means of the action buttons and volume buttons, with the handset also offering video recording at a VGA resolution of 0.3 Megapixel and lower. Both stills and videos can quickly be added to MMS messages from within the camera application
When testing its built-in music player we were limited to one method because of the phone being an early production model. Normally with this handset you can use the PC software to transfer your digital music files onto the phone but we relied solely on 3’s full-track download service. Even so, the 6280 played the MP4 format (which is even more compressed than MP3 files and near CD quality) songs skilfully. The music player also offers equaliser settings like Rock, Pop, Jazz and Classical while you can manually set your own sound equaliser. Lodged in the side of the phone is a small speaker that actually pumps out some fine, voluminous audio whether listening to music, video audio or conversation during a video call.
Using the built-in music player, we were able to listen to MP3s and unprotected AACs (sorry, no WMAs), either stored on the 6280’s meagre 10MB of internal memory or on the hot-swappable 64MB miniSD card Nokia provides in the box. Although we managed to squeeze about 16 songs on the memory card, 64MB is hardly enough to use the handset as a portable video player, even though it supports 3GP with H.263 or MPEG video files (QCIF resolution), has the same resolution and can display more colours than the video-capable iPod. There’s also an FM radio tuner onboard, but this requires the supplied headset to be connected to act as an antenna.
Other applications pre-loaded on the 6280 include a Web browser, voice recorder, organiser, world clock, unit converter and three games — Golf Tour, Rally 3D and Snake IIII. Fans of the classic time-passing game Snake will be delighted to see Nokia has developed it into a 3D cartoon-like animated game that remains true to the original.
Key features:
Great compact design in a user-friendly slide concept
Two integrated digital cameras: 2 megapixel and VGA
Experience two-way video calls and see face-to-face as you talk in real time
High-resolution, 262,144 color display
Capture quality images and videos in landscape mode
Fast WCDMA and EDGE connections for broadband-speed browsing plus tri-band GSM phone with global roaming capability
Convenient email access with automatic download to send images and view documents
MiniSD card support
Visual Radio
Music player with stereo audio
Push to talk
Multimedia:
Listen to music and interact with your favorite radio stations
Find out what song is playing, who sings it, and other artist information
Enter contests and answer surveys, vote for your favorite songs
Download the songs you buy direct to your phone
Browsing:
xHTML browsing over TCP/IP
3GPP video streaming
Imaging:
Two-way video call capability
Support for full-screen landscape mode
Back side camera: Integrated 2 megapixel camera with landscape camera mode and 8x digital zoom
Still image resolutions: 1600×1200 (2MP), 1024×768 (1MP), 640×480 (VGA)
Capture modes: Night mode, sequence mode, self-timer mode
Front side camera: Integrated VGA camera
Camera flash (operating range up to 1.5 m)
Dedicated camera and zoom buttons
Messaging:
Xpress audio messaging: New, easy-to-use interface for audio messages. Record your own voice message and send to compatible devices
OMA MMS 1.2: Combine image, video, text, and voice clips and send as an MMS to a compatible phone or PC; use MMS to tell your story with a multi-slide presentation. The OMA MMS 1.2 specification allows you to send/receive messages up to 300 KB in size
Text messaging: Supports concatenated SMS, picture messaging, SMS distribution list
Predictive text input: Support for all major languages in Europe and Asia-Pacific
Email: Access your work and private email accounts; supports SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4 protocols -Supported attachment types: .jpg, 3gpp, .mp3, .ppt, .doc, .xls, .pdf
Presence: Includes Wireless Village, Instant Messaging, and Dynamic phonebook; know someone’s status before you call
