During Nokia World 2009, we had a chance to play with the new Nokia X6, the new addition to the XpressMusic line, and the first to hold the Xseries naming scheme. The X6 sports a 3.2″ capacitive touchscreen so it will react to the finger and not to the pressure making it much more responsive, the downside being that you can’t use it with gloves on. It is also the first device announced by Nokia as a Comes With Music exclusive, so it will only be available with a one-year free music offer from the Nokia Music Store.
The X6 feels cheap, in my opinion, and the build quality of the handset I got to handle wasn’t impressive at all. I hope this was a prototype unit, as I have trouble imagining such a premium handset with this poor plastic. The screen was responsive, but not anymore than the regular resistive touchscreens from Nokia, which I also hope is improved in the final hardware. As far as the music capabilities go, the speakers are loud and the music is clear coming out of them. Here is a picture Gallery of the X6, showing it from different angles, as well as a comparison shot with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (Click on the thumbnails for the full resolution image).
And below you can find a short video with me tapping around the X6’s menu. There was no internet connection, and I had little time, so the video is short and not detailed. You get to see though the kinetic scrolling in Contacts, Gallery and the Music Player, as well as the homescreen.
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Overall, I believe the X6 doesn’t bring any real novelty, in terms of software, and only a slight touchscreen improvement in terms of hardware. The Comes With Music offer is nice, but it’s limited to the countries where the Nokia Music Store is available, and Comes With Music is functional so the X6 ends up targeting a very narrow audience. It might not be an earth-shattering handset, but it has the potential to attract the die-hard Symbian and music fans, as well as the ones who wanted an N97 but don’t care for the QWERTY keyboard.
What do you reckon after watching these pictures and videos?
