Nokia 3600 Slide Review

The Nokia 3600 Slide is a stylish new offering by Nokia. It features a sleek slider design which is aerodynamically styled with smooth and rounded edges. It is powered by the tried and tested S40 user interface which has been Nokia’s favorite for mid range phones. THe 3600 Slide has a varied mix of features and doesn’t lack in any department. It has most of the features anyone would want in a phone and excels in the multimedia department. It is almost surely going to be a bestseller and is intended to replace the better S40 based phones. It does lack out on some features like 3G and Wi-Fi, GPS etc but the features seem to be fairly justified in this price range. In this review, we check out the 3600 Slide and adjudge whether it is really worth its price or not.

Nokia 3600 Slide Specifications:

• Dimensions : 97.8 x 47.2 x 14.5 mm
• Weight : 97.3 gms
• Display : 2.0″ TFT, 16M Colors, QVGA 240 x 320 px.
• Camera : 3.15 MP Cam (2048 x 1536 pixels) with LED flash, autofocus, Video VGA at 15 FPS
• Memory : 30 MB Internal memory (upto 8 GB external memory Micro SD)
• Connectivity : GPRS Class 32, HSCSD, EDGE Class 32, USB 2.0.
• Bluetooth : Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
• OS : S40 User Interface
• Battery: Li-Ion 860 mAh (BL-4S)

Other Key Features:
5 Way Navigation key, Stereo FM Radio with RDS, Java MIDP 2.0, TV out.

Design and Display:

The Nokia 3600 Slide is a sleek phone which sports a very stylish slider design. At dimensions of just 97.8 x 47.2 x 14.5 mm it is very compact. It weighs only about 97 gms which makes it easy to carry as well. On top of the slider, you get the 2″ TFT display and the earpiece. It also has a 5 way Navi key, two select keys and the standard Call and End keys. Below the slider you get the alphanumeric keypad. All of the keys have a very good feel about them. The keypad backlighting is nice and subtle. No complaints with the keypad. On the top of the phone, you find the charger socket, the Power key and the 2.5 mm audio jack. The left side sports the covered micro USB slot while the right side sports the volume rocker and camera key.

All the buttons and ports blend in superbly with the design and impart a great balanced feel to the phone. The back of the phone sports the 3.15 MP camera and the dual LED flash. The phone is mostly made of plastic. The build quality is superb and feels sturdy as with most Nokia phones. It can easily withstand light bumps and falls. The slider action is smooth and fluid, the whole body has a refined feel. It has one of the best combination durability in this range.

The 3600 Slide sports a nice little 2″ 16 M color display with a resolution of 240 x 320 px. It offers superb brightness and contrast. Sunlight legibility is awesome, way better than most phones in this range. A bigger display would have been most welcome as this is primarily a multimedia phone.

User Interface and Multimedia:

The Nokia 3600 Slide sports the latest iteration of the S40 user interface - Version 5 Feature Pack 1. It is fast, slick and has improved greatly over the older versions with better animations and performance boosts. The music player in the 3600 Slide is superb and natively supports many audio formats - AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, MP3, MP4, WMA, AMR, Mobile XMF, SP-MIDI, MIDI. It looks simple but is packed with lots of functionality. It has all the typical features you would expect in a music minded phone - Album art, 5 EQ presets (normal, pop, rock, jazz and classical) , Custom EQ, stereo widening etc. The audio quality is above average but relatively the among the best in its range. It has a good frequency response but average noise level and dynamic range. It is good enough for most casual users.

The video player is the new standard S40 V5 player. It natively supports the 3GP and MP4 formats. It also has the standard playback features - fullscreen viewing, fast forward, rewind etc. The video playback is nice and smooth with no lags. The interface is easy to use. No points lost on this one.

The 3600 Slide also has FM radio with RDS which allows you to view station and track information. The reception is decent. It also supports the Bluetooth A2DP profile which allows transmitting stereo music over bluetooth to your wireless headphones.

Camera and Connectivity:

The 3600 Slide sports a 3.15 MP camera with autofocus for stability and a dual LED flash for night shots. It captures images at a max resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The image quality is decent but nothing much to speak of. The noise levels are average, the colors vibrant but a bit unnatural and slight lack of detail. At this price point, it is a good feature though. It also records VGA video at 15 FPS which is a bit of a feat. The video quality is again average. All in all, a decent camera but certainly not the 3.2 MP camera around.

It has the standard S40 gallery, pretty simple and plain. It offers all the standard features like image zooming, fullscreen viewing, slide show and different viewing and listing modes. It is a bit slow especially when your phone is loaded with images and other content. That will hopefully be corrected in a future firmware update.

It features the standard connectivity features like GPRS, HSCSD and EDGE. It also offers Bluetooth v2.0 and USB v2.0 for faster connections. It doesn’t have 3G or Wi-Fi but that is understood as the phone aims at a different category.

Network, Battery and Accessories:

The 3600 Slide offers great signal reception and superb call quality, better than most other Nokia devices which is quite an achievement. There is also some background noise cancellation which works cool. The loudspeaker volume and vibration strength is also improved.

The Nokia 3600 Slide comes bundled with a standard charger, USB data cable and a set of stereo headphones. You also get a user manual and a quick start guide in the box. It also ships with a 512 MB micro SD card.

It is powered by a Li-Ion 860 mAh battery - BL-4S. It has a rated talktime of about 6 hours and can power the phone for about a day and half with moderate usage.

Pros:

• Relatively Inexpensive
• Nice design and good build quality
• Great features

Cons:

• No 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS
• Average Camera

Conclusion:

The 3600 Slide is good phone and packs in many standard features. It doesn’t excel in any single department is a great offering in general. It is a balanced phone at a good (nah, great) price and is ideal for anyone looking for a phone with a range of features at a decent price.

Our Rating: 3.5 / 5.