Review of the Nokia 3600 Slide
Introduction
The Nokia 3600 was released back in August 2008 as a budget smartphone from Nokia. The Nokia 3600 was designed to attract users with an eye for detail and surely this phone does not disappoint. The Nokia 3600 is an elegant looking phone with features that go beyond expectations, such as the TV connectivity feature.
The Nokia 3600 is a small and lightweight phone that fits snugly into any place you may find convenient. It has a bold design and a great feel and it is pleasant to handle. Using it is quick and easy and that makes the Nokia 3600 a phone worth paying attention to as you shall soon see from the design overview below.
Design (4 out of 5)
The Nokia 3600 is a slider design model phone. This sleek looking phone comes in a plastic casing available in reddish charcoal or white. The Nokia 3600 measures 97.8 x 47.2 x 14.5 mm and weighs in at 97.3 grams.
When the slider is closed the front face of the Nokia 3600 has the earphones placed right at the top of the phone with the 2 inch portrait TFT display right below it. Below the display there is a softkey panel that houses the two softkey buttons, the call begin button and the call end button. There is also a five-way scroll key button right in the middle.
Opening the slider on the Nokia 3600 reveals the numeric keypad. Below the numeric keypad there is the microphone. The right side of the Nokia 3600 houses the volume up and volume down buttons while below that there is a slot for the microUSB cable connector. Turning to the left side of the phone reveals just the slot for placing the microSD card. The back of the Nokia 3600 is left for the 3.2MP camera and the single external speaker, below that is the battery compartment.
The top of the Nokia 3600 has got the TV connector jack, the audio jack and the power button for the device. The bottom end of the phone has got the jack for connecting the power charger. That is as far it goes for the design.
User Interface (4 out of 5)
Being a Symbian OS smartphone, the Nokia 3600 retains all the common features and navigation procedures found in other Symbian phones. The Nokia 3600 has got a profile system that allows you to set up themes and to change the fonts, colors and sounds on the device. The home screen is the starting point for all operations on the Nokia 3600.
There is an option softkey which is used to access the menu system. The menu system can be navigated using four of the five-way scroll keys. The fifth center key can be used to select any application or settings item while within the menu. This key is also used to navigate and make selections on pages on the web browser. To input text there is a numeric keypad which can be used to enter both numeric digits and alphabetic characters in both normal text or in T9 form.
Features (3 out of 5)
Onboard the Nokia 3600 is a 240 x 320 pixel resolution display that supports 16 million colors. There is internal memory of 30MB complemented by 8GB of external memory delivered through a microSD card.
With lack of high speed Internet or data connectivity options such as 3G and Wi-Fi, the Nokia 3600 is restricted to GPRS and EDGE through a GSM cellular network. The Internet can be accessed using preinstalled browsers such as the popular Opera Mini 4.
The Nokia 3600 allows you to download games and applications from the Internet and these include Java applications and games. There is a stereo Radio FM receiver with RDS and a music and video player. The speaker phone and the headset are the audio options for Nokia 3600 users.
Using the TV connector you can access your pictures on a TV set. These pictures can be taken on the 3.15MP camera that has a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels with auto focus and an LED flash. The Nokia 3600 can record video at up to 15 FPS.
Performance (4 out of 5)
The Nokia 3600 is easy to use with a comfortable slider and easy to handle keys whether you are typing in a text or punching in a phone number. The voice call quality on the Nokia 3600 is great. There is little static and background noise canceling works well. This is true for both ends of the line. This Nokia phone has great sound quality out of the external speaker and offers even better stereo quality sound from headsets. The FM radio has great reception as well.
The battery is expected, in normal situations, to keep you going with its talk time of just over five hours.
Internet connectivity could do with a boost and that goes for the quality of the built-in camera too because it does not perform very well especially indoors or in areas with poor lighting. The camera simply works best in broad sunny daylight which is also bad for photographing faces.
(4 out of 5)
The Nokia 3600 is a phone that has a reserved set of features and a budget to match. It is a phone that is, not only very functional, but also good looking and great to carry along. It has entertainment features to keep you soothed on long commutes and enough room for installing your favorite applications and music files from the Internet.
With a price tag of about US$110 this is a phone I would not hesitate to recommend to anyone.
