Introduction
We have already written numerous times that something has changed in the segment of the cheapest phones. The manufacturers have finally recognized that they don’t have to build these phones of old junk, they don’t have to apply to moulded Chinese slippers designers or they don’t have to omit some services on purpose. Nowadays Bluetooth is appearing more and more often even in the cheapest phones, which is used for many things by many people, but it can be most practical for connecting headsets.
Sony Ericsson came up with T303, which is not a big thing in features, but for this amount of money it’s hard to obtain a nice little phone made of metal. Now Nokia launched the subject of this review, which has recently appeared at us under the name 2680 slide. We have obtained one from XXL GSM, but I had to ask them to order one separately as it was so hidden amongst the other older and cheap handsets that at first I didn’t even observe that there’s a new Nokia on the market.
Of course this will change but all network operators must sell such a model: it’s small, it’s nice, it has camera, it’s a slider and it’s a Nokia too. It could be a phone with high sales. At first sight it has everything to become successful: a cheap Nokia with a pleasant design, which would be enough by itself but we should take a closer look at what we’re buying.
Exterior
My mother’s good old Panasonic VS3 phone got broken (we cried over it a little bit and it got to the house museum) and I have immediately felt that a good, cheap Nokia might fill in the space. It came in handy that 2680 came for testing, I took it home and I was expecting opinions.
Sweet. Nice. Simple. Severe. It fits the handbag. And these are all really true. On the front the gradient cover gives some plus, but otherwise it’s the simplest slider in the world with charmingly clumsy rounded corners and unambiguous use. The center of the navigation button is quite large and the functions of the four keys are also unambiguous. First flaw: there are no volume control keys on the side, so we really have to be tricky sliding our fingers between our face and the handset during calls to use the navigation button in order to set the volume of communication. On the side there are only the charger and the headset connector (no, it’s not 3.5 mm) surrounding the connector for the service cable.
After sliding it open we get to see a keypad that’s similar to the one on 3600, it’s a bit arched, looks cool but it’s also a bit smaller than it should be. This doesn’t necessarily affect usability, but the labels on the keys are not very large and my mummy didn’t really like this. The pressure point, however, is great, entering text is fast and easy.
The back cover is a loyal piece of hardware, it sticks really hard to the case, we have to use some force to get it off. It’s a simple, low-keyed thing, there is only a small speaker (or let’s be more precise: a small grating where sound comes out) and a camera surrounded by a silver frame to break monotony. The materials used are cheap, but not junk, it might not get scratched, it avoids fingerprints too, but the front is a bit slippery. Sliding is helped by a spring, but after this the front cover has some play.
Menu, basic functions
The 128 x 160 pixels large display is of course no world champion. It’s highly important for my mother to see the letters clearly, so I have shown her that you can set font size in the phonebook, at messaging and in the browser (good question: what is a browser?). No font resizing available in the menus though and since the labels above the two function keys are written with slimmer letters I have immediately received the second complaint.
The menu with nine icons is transparent and easy to use. There is no active standby here, but instead we can see the icons of the functions assigned to the navigation keys, if we want to. The colors can be changed with themes, but we shouldn’t expect wonders on such a screen.
The phonebook is simple and the large font is really large. We can attach some basic info to all names (more phone numbers, e-mail address, image, ringtone), searching is easy. Handling messages is no big deal either, only the uniform message editor of the Series40 platform might be a bit annoying at such a resolution, as half of the screen is taken up by the addressees’ name and below that we can only see the line of text we’re currently typing, as the designers have crammed some quick-access icons for the multimedia contents below this, so the screen is really overcrowded. There is an email client too (we shouldn’t want to use attachments), the size limit for MMS is 300 KB. If we attach some multimedia content then poor 2680 starts sweating really hard and text entry slows down as well. Let’s see a short video of the features, by the end I got a bit allergic to the phone, you can see (hear) this in the mini-movie…
So until now everything’s fine basically, the small Nokia does its job, but here comes the moment when we want to make calls and this is where all of our thoughts get swept away. 2680 is on one hand a bit deformed and it has an incredibly annoying bug: for reasons unknown, after a call is established we can’t hear anything for 2-3 seconds, but the other party hears everything we say. This makes such greetings happen that I, the caller, hear that the connection is established and start saying what I want, but I can’t hear anything. I say something fancy when I recognize that I have managed to include this in the conversation, which is not really good when for example we’re arranging some official business via phone.
Organizer and multimedia
There is a very basic calendar, it has only month view. It does what it has to, it’s good for what it has been designed for. The alarm clock can store only one time point, snooze time is 10 minutes by default and of course I took advantage of it, I have overslept, this happens all the time. The calculator – wow – has scientific functions too, the stopwatch, the countdown timer and the to-do list have no surprises.
This is true for the VGA camera too. It’s funny and humorous that when taking pictures we have to keep the phone horizontally, as if this would make it look more serious, but the performance of such a lens is good for attaching images to contacts at most. According to this there aren’t many settings, but we won’t miss them either. We can record videos at 176 x 144 pixels, this is completely meaningless. Test pictures below, we shouldn’t expect much…
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There is a music player, haha. Since the memory is non-expandable this doesn’t have much use, although the Finnish designers might have felt this as it doesn’t have many functions. There is no equalizer, but it can run in the background. Anyway, if they had such software on stock they’ve put it in, but no one will use it. It’s a good thing that there is an FM radio, although it’s quite basic as it has no RDS support. Evidently it works with the supplied headset, this works as an antenna.
Other
We have GPRS and EDGE, but we shouldn’t expect 3G. The browser might be factory default, but Opera Mini is also pre-installed, although this won’t be a redeemer either at such a resolution. The list of applications also includes a world clock and a unit converter. We have three games: Sudoku, Snake EX and Mickey’s World. We have Bluetooth for local data transfer, it works and it’s great to have it.
We can be satisfied with the battery. The small battery had no problems with keeping the phone online for three days at me, although the software alarmed me a bit earlier than it should about the end being near, after the first warning 2680 Slide took it for another night without problems.
Summary? Really good-looking, inexpensive, really pleasant. It could have been. But it’s not. We might bypass some small issues, but a phone is still used for making calls by default and from this point of view 2680 is a no-go. Pity for it.
Bog
Translated by Szaszati
Nokia 2680 Slide has been provided by XXL GSM. The handset can be purchased at:
Budapest VI. Jókai tér 6.
Budapest VI. Teréz körút 18.
On-line at www.xxlgsm.hu.
Specifications
| Nokia 2680 Slide | ||
 | General | |
| Technology | GSM | |
| Size | 99 x 47.1 x 14.8 mm | |
| Weight | 97 grams | |
| Available colors | Black-grey | |
| Display | ||
| Display diagonal | 2” | |
| Display resolution | 128 x 160 pixels | |
| Display type | TFT | |
| Number of colors | 65 thousan | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | 1000 entries | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | na / 300 KB | |
| Internal memory | 32 MB | |
| Memory expandability | none | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | 900/1800/1900 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | present / none | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | none / none | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | none / present | |
| WiFi | none | |
| USB | none | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | none / none | |
| GPS receiver | none | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | present | |
| Vibra function | present | |
| Built-in handsfree | present | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | none / none | |
| Sound recorder | present | |
| Alarm clock | present, also when turned off | |
| Predictive text entry | T9 | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | Series40 | |
| WAP / HTML browser | 2.0 / present | |
| E-mail client | present (POP3, IMAP4, authenticated) | |
| Java | present, MIDP 2.0 | |
| Games | 3 (Mickey's World, Sudoku, Snake EX) | |
| Currency converter | present | |
| Extra software | Opera Mini | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | VGA, fix focus | |
| Secondary camera | none | |
| Video recording | present, QCIF | |
| Music player | present, can run in background | |
| Equalizer | none | |
| FM radio | present | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | 860 mAh Li-Ion | |
| Standby time | 400 hours | |
| Talk time | 210 minutes | |
| Other | ||
| - | ||
