Nokia 6500

First, I will comment on the overall build of the Slide:

It is, without a doubt, the most solid phone I have ever held in my hand. It has a certain weight to it that conveys it is a phone that was made for people who don't like, or care about carrying around light phones. It feels heavy & solid. The stainless steel is beautiful. It has a nice brushed look to it that makes it look quite expensive & classy.

The Slide mechanism is the absolute best I have ever felt. It has dual springs so it takes just a tiny bit of pressure to open & close the slide. It opens & closes with a satisfying "click" each time. The navigation keys are big & beautiful. You will never hit the wrong key & the D-pad is phenomenal.

Now on to the Display:

The display is nice, however, mobileburn was right in that the display could have been a bit brighter. It isn't hard to see or anything, but if it had the display of the N95, it would be a first class display. I wish there was user brightness control. There is this nice little feature that enables you to still see the icons on the screen even when the back-light is off.

The carrier logo and the time & date are done in a smallish, tasteful manner. There is a function that allows you to choose which color you want to use for the font of the date. You can choose from close to 30+ different colors for the time & date. There is a function to turn off the carrier logo, however, when I enable it, it still stays on?? I will have to figure this one out.

On to the Keypad:

The keypad is quite good with the perfect amount of tactile feedback. You know which key is pushed because it depresses nicely & springs back effortlessly.

Now the UI:

I LOVE S40. It is so easy to learn & navigate. I haven't owned an S40 Nokia in quite some time, so I am a bit in the dark as to what improvements were made to the 5th edition. It came with the usual ringtones, 25 I think, with 7 pre-loaded themes, I really like the Black Nth with the planet screensaver There are 13 alert tones. There are 7 profiles, each one customizable.

Now the Camera:

I only took a few shots, but to me the camera is more than adequate. The pics come out clear with little to no noise in them. I didn't mess with the camera settings, so maybe I can get even better shots.

Now the speakers:

The Slide has a very nice speaker on it. It is loud enough to hear in your pocket even on setting 2. The vibration is also quite strong and will still be felt through jeans or a hoodie. The earpiece was sufficient. I didn't have a problem hearing others, nor others hearing me. My girlfriend did say that she could sometimes hear background noise (the TV) even though it was turned down.