Nokia 6210 Navigator

If you want satnav combined with real business features on your mobile should you be heading in the direction of the 6210 Navigator? We find out.



Anyone who's been in the game long enough will remember Nokia's very first smartphone - the Communicator 9000. Way back in the mid-1990s this phone offered modem connection, fax capabilities, PIM functions and phone. It was the first step along the road to the all-singing, all-dancing smartphones of today. But it was very big, very heavy and very ugly.

For years nothing much changed for Nokia's business handsets. But all of a sudden it seems, the Finnish firm has decided that business folk are also real people - they like a little bit of bling too. The arrival of the slim, smart and usable Nokia E71; the ultimate email phone for business proved that.

Not everyone wants a full Qwerty keyboard, though, or such a wide handset. Though the E71's is one of the slimmest around, it's still wide compared to most consumer handsets. Enter the new 6210 Navigator - a smartphone with a twist - or two.

At first glance this is a pretty bog standard Nokia fare. It's a little larger than most consumer phones - perhaps thanks to its generously-proportioned 2.4in 240 x 320 pixel screen. And its sliding keypad is nothing out of the ordinary either, though it does slide out beautifully smoothly. It doesn't even look as sexy as the more business-focused E71, though its grippy matte-grey rear, silver trim and sculpted glossy black front panel are fetching in a pin-striped suit kind of way.

New directions

Rather than focus on design, looks or pure physical practicality, though, the 6210's raison d'etre is its navigational capabilities. That's nothing new, you might think - after all, virtually every smartphone has GPS these days. But this phone has a few couple of important extras that make its navigational features more usable than most.

The first hint of a difference is a rather odd-looking blue star icon just below the five-way directional control. This is actually a shortcut button, which you click to launch the Nokia Maps application; but, more importantly, it also lights up whenever the GPS radio is in use. Sound trivial? It's more useful than you might think. One of the big problems with GPS is that it saps battery power, and with today's modern multi-tasking smartphones it's all too easy to leave your mapping application running without realising it.

Do this a couple of times and your battery will be dead before you know it. The 6210, however, makes it extremely easy to spot when the GPS is on and when you need to turn it off, and thus helps save on battery life.


Specification
Dimension: 103 x 49 x 15mm
Weight: 117 g
Battery type: Li-ion
Talk time (mfr): 180 min (WCDMA)
Standby time (mfr): 9.6 days (WCDMA)
GSM frequencies: Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900
GPRS: Yes
3G: 900/2100 HSDPA
Display: 2.4 inch
Resolution: 240x320 pixels
Colour depth: 16 million colours
On-board memory: 120 MB
Memory card type: microSD
Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB, GPS receiver (AGPS)
Operating system: S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2

Samsung Omnia (i900)

Samsung attempts to please both business users and consumers with the Windows Mobile powered Omnia. Has it succeeded? We find out.

One of the biggest bugbears of the original iPhone for corporate users was its lack of business-friendly features such as Exchange support. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and, while Apple has evolved its product, other mobile manufacturers have been eager to learn from its mistakes.

Many are keen to steal Apple’s touchscreen crown and cement a firm place in the hearts of businesses and consumers alike but few are failing to really offer people a device they can use both inside and outside the office without compromise. Until now, perhaps?

One such contender for the throne is Samsung with its i900 handset. The Omnia, as it is more commonly known, whose moniker translates as ‘everything’ in Latin and ‘wish’ in Arabic, claims to offer users everything they could want in a mobile device ‘in one touch’. But does it really live up to the hype?

Dubbed an ‘all-in-one maxi-phone fully loaded with top-of-the-line multimedia enhanced smartphone features’ and backed by a €5.8 million (£4.7 million) campaign in the UK alone, with ads seemingly everywhere from the tube to newspapers (we haven’t seen any in the toilets…yet), the marketing bumf is enough to give you indigestion.

But, taking a step back from what the marketeers would have you believe you will actually find something of a business gem.

The exterior of the device initially looks pretty classy, but closer inspection reveals it as having a plastic rather than metal finish, which is a little disappointing. However, it doesn’t look cheap, which is an important characteristic for anyone in a business environment, particularly so for those that attend frequent decision-making meetings.

The 3.2 inch WQVGA LCD touch screen with its 240 x 400 pixels is ample enough for most business users’ needs. It’s based on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, which may be enough to send some business users scurrying away. Samsung thankfully has given it a bit of a makeover, making it more pleasant to look at, though in use it’s still not completely problem free.

Business users will appreciate that the inclusion of Pocket Office. On-screen icons are well thought through design-wise and there’s can you drag your frequently icons onto the ‘desktop’, much like Apple’s OSX widgets enabling a pleasing degree of customisation. However, things can get crowded rather quickly.

The user interface was generally responsive – although applications didn’t load as speedily as we’d have liked. It provides impressive haptic feedback, so you know your request has been received.

There’s a range of input methods including keypads and handwriting recognition and a hard ‘mouse’ key at the bottom of the screen. Sadly, there’s no room at the inn for the stylus, which is forced to live forevermore outside of the handset’s casing on an entirely separate stick, so its eventual loss is near inevitable. However while you still have it in your possession you can admire its solid housing inside a retracting case.

An accelerometer cleverly flips what’s on the screen from portrait to landscape (or vice versa). Unlike with the iPhone or most Windows Mobile devices it does this with the entire OS, which is useful, doing so with a slick resizing effect. There’s a slight delay while the GUI re-adjusts but it’s not too terrible. It certainly makes for easier viewing for Word docs and emails.

Those keen to while away hours spent travelling (but not driving) by watching videos will be pleased by the support for DivX and XviD. Users needing access to the web at the touch of a finger will welcome HSDPA connectivity up to 7.2Mbps and Wi-Fi, while workaholics will smile at the support for push email.

There’s 8GB of internal ROM storage memory but a 16GB version is also available. This is boostable to a whopping 32GB with the addition of a 16GB microSD card, but you’ll need to remove the battery to slide it in.

Specification
Memory: 128MB RAM, 8GB/16GB ROM
Display: 3.5in 240 x 400 touchscreen,
Connectivity: Bluetooth, GSM/GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSDPA, 802.11bg WLAN,
Camera: 5 megapixel camera,
Extras: aGPS, FM radio,
Battery: 1,500mAh li-ion battery,
Dimensions (WxDxH): 56 x 12.5 x 112mm
Weight: 125g