Nokia 6280

Available now
13th June 2005
Amended 14th June 2005

The Nokia 6280 is a somewhat unexpected 3G sliding phone from Nokia, which breaks with the traditions of recent Nokia handsets. Most obviously, it's a slider handset - a format that seems to have fallen slightly out of favour with Nokia until the recent release of the Nokia 8800. But this is also a fundamentally different 3G handset from Nokia's latest releases too.

As the model designation indicates, the 6280 is actually pretty low in the range of 6000 series handsets. And unlike the Nokia 6680 and N-series range, the 6280 isn't a smartphone. In fact, so many of Nokia's recent releases have been Symbian Series 60 smartphones, that it's a surprise to see a 3G phone that runs the less powerful Series 40 operating system. Another feature missing is expandable memory - the 6280 has a total of 74Mb of internal memory that must be shared between the phone and the user, and Nokia state that there is "up to 10 MB internal dynamic memory for contacts, text messages, multimedia messages, ringing tones, images, video clips, calendar notes, to-do list, and applications" which seems a little unclear, but it does indicate that only 10Mb is available (especially when read in conjunction with the specification of the 6270). However, it turns out that the Nokia 6280 actually comes with a 64Mb miniSD card (which wasn't specified on the press release, but is on the data sheet).

The phone is very well specified in other respects - the Nokia 6280 features a 2 megapixel primary camera, 0.3 megapixel secondary camera for video calling, stereo audio playback, a very promising high resolution 240x320 pixel display in 262,000 colours, and Bluetooth. The 6280 also supports EDGE data in addition to 3G and GPRS.

With the 6280, Nokia are proving that it's quite possible for them to use Series 40 to drive a pretty powerful handset, and in our view most users of Series 60 phones only use the built-in applications in any case.

At 115 grams, the 6280 is pretty light for a 3G phone. Physical size is 100x46x21mm, and talktime is up to 2.5 hours (3G), 3 hours (2G) and 8-10 days standby which isn't particularly impressive - we assume that the relative light weight of the handset is partly as a result of a smaller battery.

Initially we thought that the 6280 didn't have any removable memory as Nokia neglected to mention this important fact.. this is an important addition and it means that the Nokia 6280 is in most respects as good as or better that many of Nokia's Series 60 smartphones.

Nokia say that the 6280 should be available in Q4 2005 at an estimated unsubsidised cost of €375.

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