Nokia 8600 Luna

Available now
31st May 2007

One of Nokia's worst kept secrets, the Nokia 8600 Luna is a high-fashion slider phone made from stainless steel and glass. Confusingly, this is a better specified phone than the 8800 Sirocco, but it has a few shortcomings too.

One notable improvement on the 8600 Luna is the display - it has a 240x320 pixel panel in 16 million colours. On the back is a pretty standard 2 megapixel camera, and the 8600 Luna has an MP3 player. It's a quad-band GSM phone with GPRS and EDGE data, plus Bluetooth support. Most people will want this phone for its looks though, and the smoked glass sliding panel is particularly sexy.

Dig a little under the Nokia 8600's gorgeous exterior and the limitations start to become apparent. There's no expandable memory on the 8600, so users are limited to the 128MB supplied internally. The 8600 Luna also lacks stereo Bluetooth, and it isn't 3G capable.

It's a heavy phone, weighing in as 143 grams and measuring 107 x 45 x 15.9mm. In exchange for this bulk the 8600 Luna offers a disappointing battery life of 3 hours 40 minutes talk and 10 days standby time. It's just a little bit heaver than the old 8800 Sirocco.

So.. the Nokia 8600 Luna is somewhat flawed but it looks fantastic. The smooth sliding mechanism and attractive smoked glass features give the 8600 plenty of "wow factor". However, these looks come at a premium price - the 8600 Luna will retail at around €700 / £450 / $800 before tax and subsidy. In the UK it will be around £140 at launch when taken with a £35/month contract.

The Nokia 8600 Luna is available now, at launch exclusive to the Carphone Warehouse group in Europe (including the Phone House, e2save and OneStopPhoneShop.)