The Nokia X6: Comes With Music & Some Aggravation.

This post is long overdue - Nokia actually gave us the Nokia X6 phone in January; and I actually had a few versions of this review already written, but somehow I never got around to finishing it until now.

Anyway, first things first, some context. I'm very much an iPod Touch kinda person when it comes to touch screens. I may not like iPhones much, but I have to admit its touch screen is unbeatable. I'm also pretty used to the Nokia E71; but I don't like the Blackberry. So never mind iPhones or Blackberries; I'm gonna compare the X6 to the phone and music player I like best.

Oh, and another thing - I've never been a fan of music + phone hybrids anyway, because I hate it when I'm in a middle of a song and the phone rings. A phone should stay a phone, a music player should stay a music player, IMHO.

Anyway, the best part about the X6 is the Comes With Music service. They gave us a free one year subscription, and on the first day itself I downloaded hell of a lotta music - Fever Ray, Atlas Sound, Kings of Leon, Eels, The Rifles... there's a hell of a lot of music available, and it's all for free with CWM. I even tried looking for Beyond songs on it, and came up with an excellent live version of Hoi Fut Tin Hong with Wong Ka Kui!

There's a catch though - the songs come with a DRM, so you can only register your CWM account to ONE PHONE and ONE LAPTOP and you can only play the songs on that one phone. Can't even transfer it to mp3 or to your iPod. Hmph.

From old songs to new songs, the Comes With Music service is probably one of the most awesome things about the X6. And because I listen to A LOT of music, the sheer range and diversity of the music available is pretty damn awesome. As long as I had a data connection I could download almost any song I wanted straight into the phone, and listen to it immediately.

And since it's meant to also be a music player, the phone also comes with a pair of foldable headphones, which are quite cool. (Unfortunately, mine doesn't really work very well with other devices like my iPod (heh) or the laptop. I also got annoyed with the headphone jack because it's on top of the phone, unlike the iPod's which is at the bottom right corner. I kept holding the phone upside-down because of that. Problem is, I found the music player a bit of a hassle to use, and not as user-friendly as the iPod's.

Oh, one more thing I really liked about the X6 - the CAMERA! Ok, it's not as awesome compared to a REAL camera of course, but it still beats the crap out of the E71's camera. For instance, all the pictures in the CraftBrews post was from the X6; and all of REta's rock star stalking pictures were by the X6 as well.

So, it's a good music player, it's a cool camera. How is it as a PHONE? Well, it comes with touch screen, which is cool and all; but not as responsive compared to the er.. iPod (iSay iPod because iHate iPhones). And the screen is way too small for somone who's too used to the iPod Touch's BIG screen.

As a phone, the X6 is normal. Nothing special. Can call, can SMS, can go online. It's a bit light for my liking though - I'm used to the hefty weight of the Nokia E71. Also, the touchscreen keypad is a pain to use; I keep pressing the wrong letters. It's not as easy to navigate... and why do I have to manually shut down the apps I open? Shouldn't it shut down automatically when I press the red button? Ish ish.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, here's my personal rundown of the Nokia X6:

EPIC WIN: Comes With Music
FAIL: Comes With DRM.
WIN: Comes With Awesome Camera
FAIL: Comes With Lag Time
WIN: Comes With Touch Screen
FAIL: Comes With Touch Screen Keypad.
WIN: Comes With headphones
FAIL: Comes with pretty hefty price tag: RM2099, to be exact.