Nokia 6500 Slide Cell Phone

Sorry folks but I am only a Mr Average user who this phone is not really designed for. However, only really had the Motorolla Flip type phones in the past like the Razr etc.
I thought, to hell with it, Im going to own the latest flashiest phone in the market place. Well how do I find it. Its a great little package, with just about all that most people will want from a phone, young or old alike. The keys are nicely placed, even for those ham fisted oldies like myself! Texting, once I found it! Was relitively easy, although initially locating Send a Message was a little awkward if hidden. Hey, remember that Ive been used to the Motorolla Set Up and not Mr Nokia's latest. From memory, its bassically the same as the dear old 2810 range of phones! Nothing changed other than you now get loads of extras and games.
Incidently, the camera on this is second to none. Im a bit of a camera Buff and this little package meets my needs superbly with quality and clarity that is not in some cameras costing the same as this phone/camera package. On a negative point, it would have been handy to have taken the memory card out and taken it to Mr Tesco or similar,who would kindly download it and produce and convert the memory into those lovely items known as photo's! This may still be possible, because you can download the memory to your PC. Just not sure if it can be done directly at Mr Tesco's place? The Flash is brilliant too and left on automatic, it decides if the Flash is needed or not, thus saving your dear old battery.
The music and sounds are amazing for such a small package, the clarity and bass are just fine for my rusty old ears. This is well capable of playing the local Hip-Hop bands stuff through to Pink Floyds latest remix. How they put such a superb package together is beyond me.
The Phone seems to run on fresh air! The Battery on the 6500 Slide seems to carry on for ever, without a charge. Never, have I known a phone work so hard in testing and getting used too without deminishing the battery. What are Nokia making them from? I expect this to easily last me a week between charges, whereas my dear old Motorola would be needing intensive care after only two or three days average use! Oh, it also can be fully charged after only one and a half hours pluged into our glorious 230v system.
There is so much on this phone, I have had it three days now, and I still have not found my way around it! There is so much on it that it will take me at least one or two months to get to grips with it all. If thats your 'Bag' then this is the phone for you. Quality abounds, from its stainless steel case, through to its positive feeling buttons. It is really the phone for the future thats ready today. Perhaps its a bit too over the top for the likes of me, Old Fart who has just passed the 50 mark! But for those gadget concious go getters out there who want to make a statement, then this phone not only has it all, it all works superbly too.
Please note, I dont work for Nokia and I have never completed one of these reviews before. Mind you, its been easy as it is similar to what I used to do for a living.
Hope that you find my review informative, honest and interesting. Best wishes to you all. Jon. PS> Sorry about my spelling, but my fingers work faster than my brain these days!

It's very expensive, however, I found www.freeiphoneforme.co.uk and got one for free!

As you probably know, it's an expensive item for what it is... But, I didn't exactly pay for mine because I found a totally legal way of getting gifts like this for free!

Visit: www.freeiphoneforme.co.uk

I'm still receiving gifts like this, simply by completing just one offer like the LOVEFILM free trial. There are many other offers that you can also complete. I personally think that the Coral Bookmakers offer is the best to choose as it is quick and fun!

There are many other gifts on this site aswell, not just this product, you can get any consoles, HDTVs, iPods, iPhones, you name it, you can probably get it. You can even get cheques or Bank Transfers!
Take a look as I found it very helpful:

www.freeiphoneforme.co.uk

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.

In a nutshell: The Nokia 6500 Slide is a slide design 3G phone with an excellent 3.2 megapixel camera and a large hi-res LCD display. It offers video calling, and MP3 player, an FM radio, expandable memory and Bluetooth. On the negative side it's heavier than average and its battery life could be better.

The Nokia 6500 Slide is ... wait for it ... a slide design version of the Nokia 6500 Classic. Or is it? You'd think that two phones that have the same model number and are so similar in appearance would have the same features, but no, the guys at Nokia clearly thought that would be too boring.

"Hey Aleksi! Why not release two phones with the same name but make them completely different inside?" ... "Cool idea Joonas! Let's put a nice 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and autofocus inside the 6500 Slide and a rubbish 2 megapixel one inside the 6500 Classic." ... "Niko thinks the Slide should have a bigger screen - that's what those Samsung boys do with their slide phones." ... "Roosa has a great idea - let's make them both 3G but only allow video calls using the Slide (hey, hey)"... "Arttu thinks that the Slide should have a memory card expandable to 4 Gbytes, but we won't put a memory card slot in the Classic at all!" ... "and why not put an FM radio into the Slide too, Kristiina? But not in the Classic!" ... "Oh and one more thing, Matias - because we left all the good bits out of the Classic we can make it ultrathin, but keep the Slide big and heavy!"

"So, run this past me one more time, Johanna. We make two phones with the same name. One is a Slide and one is a Classic. We put all the best features into the Slide, but we make the Classic really thin and better looking. And we sell them both for the same price! Our customers are gonna love this idea. How they will laugh at our wacky Finnish sense of humour! Those boring Swedish squares at Sony Ericsson will be so jealous!".

The Nokia 6500 Slide is one of two 6500 series devices Unlike the very thin and simple 6500 Classic, stainless steel body work, and an auto-focus digital camera that uses Carl Zeiss lenses.

Physical Aspects

The Nokia 6500 Slide is an attractive looking slider handset that is clad in brushed stainless steel with semi-gloss black plastic highlights. Due in part to its use of stainless steel, the 6500 Slide weighs a fairly hefty 127g (4.5oz) considering its otherwise reasonably compact 97mm x 46.5mm x 12mm (3.8" x 1.8" x .5") dimensions. Opening up the dual-sprung slider mechanism reveals the black plastic keypad and causes the 6500 Slide to grow an additional 30mm (1.2") in length.

Apart from being a bit stiff, the keypad is reasonably well designed. The stainless softkeys, call keys, and d-pad all work very well. The nicely raised edge of the d-pad is easy to find, and its center select button is so large that you would be hard pressed, no pun intended, to miss it. The volume control and the somewhat dodgy two-stage camera shutter key are located on the right side. The camera itself, along with its flash, are located out back. A simple release up top allows for the removal of the rear stainless panel that protects the battery. A mini Nokia charging port and normal 2.5mm headset port flank the new micro-USB data connector that is located on the top of the device. There is no dedicated power key - the red call key is used for powering up and down.

The 6500 Slide's display is capable of showing up to 16 million different color shades. I don't find it to be quite as bright as many other similar displays, though, and easily would have preferred a brighter 65k or 262k color display in its place. In its defense, the display is very easily viewed in direct sunlight since it is transflective. Above the display is a second camera that can be used for 3G video calls, something I was unable to test.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that the stainless steel finish gets very dirty looking, as any busy mom with a stainless fridge can attest to. Otherwise, the 6500's design is good, and the device itself is very solidly built.

The Nokia 6500 Slide is a slide design 3G phone with an excellent 3.2 megapixel camera and a large hi-res LCD display. It offers video calling, and MP3 player, an FM radio, expandable memory and Bluetooth. On the negative side it's heavier than average and its battery life could be better. Also, be aware that quite a few of our users are finding that their phones arrive with faults and have to be be replaced. Available in silver or black.
It's amazing how Nokia can create two handsets with the same name and yet how they can be so very different in their approach. So is the slide the better of the two 6500 models, or is the classic the one that you should be going for?

The Nokia 6500 slide is the other side to the Nokia 6500 Classic. Sporting, you guessed it, a slider design, the form factor difference is the only change you'll see.

The bulkier phone (96.5 x 46.5 x 16.4mm) takes in the larger size not only so it can offer a slider design, but so it can fit in a 3 megapixel camera complete with Carl Zeiss optics, an auto focus and 8x digital zoom.

But that's not all you'll get, for that extra bulk you also get a video camera for video calling via the 3G connectivity on the phone and a TV out socket you can you share you images, music and video via a nearby TV similar to some of the Samsung mobile phones.

If that wasn't enough the extra size also gives you a couple of extra buttons like a dedicated camera shutter button, a 3.5mm headphone jack, volume controls, a micro USB dongle so you can connect it easily to your PC for data transfer and a separate charging socket.

In fact the only real similarity with the Nokia 6500 classic is that the phone runs the same Symbian S40 3rd edition operating system on it.

Keys are comfortable to use and squarer than the 6500 Classic opting instead for a fuller flatter design.

The only other thing to note is that here you get a 256MB microSD card (not hot swappable) instead of the impressive 1GB of memory in the 6500 classic.

The device is also particularly effective in portrait mode. Although most reviews tend to place Xenon flash above LED in the pecking order, the dual LED flash on the Slide proves effective in all lighting conditions and there’s not a red eye in sight.

The Slide features built-in applications designed to help you to do something with your photos once you’ve taken them. PictBridge enables easy printing; Flickr lets you upload your photos online; and Adobe Photoshop lets you turn your portraits into blemish-free model shots.

You can easily move back and forth between the still and video camera with a single click left or right with the phone’s joypad, and you can choose whether to view the image or recording in portrait or landscape mode. Videos can be shot in one of four resolutions, with 640x480 pixels (VGA quality) the best.
The phone’s 3G capabilities enable you to upload and download content at decent speeds and the front camera, which sits unobtrusively above the main display, enables video calling. Video calling is one of the forgotten features made possible by 3G, chiefly because it looked like fun, but has never really caught on. Having tried the service on the Slide – calling a Sony Ericsson T650i – we’re no closer to being converted. Sure, there’s a novelty factor because the other caller’s face is perfectly recognisable when still. But pixellation occurs when you move and the whole experience just feels awkward.

While not as fast as

Excellent phone, however be wary of the provider. If you buy a phone on the Vodaphone network, it is easily (and cheaply) unlocked. However, I bought a Pay as you Go phone on the '3' Network (this is the same apparently for o2, Orange and t-Mobile)and it took a lot of time to find someone to unlock it, at a cost of £40, and 10 days wait for it's return. But all in all it does what it says on the tin, and accepts (despite what the Nokia website says) an 8Gb micro-SDHC memory card, which in simple terms makes it as useful as a Nokia N95 8GB phone, minus the useless apps and size. Buy a set of Sennheiser earbuds and a 2.5-3mm apaptor for near perfect sound. Highly recommended buy (the black is better than the silver case).

This phone has been a long time awaiting.
It is such a good practical phone offering the best you could want from any phone.I use mine for the wifi,surfing the net for free on the train or in macdonalds down town.
I also rin co-pilot 6 on mine as i don't rate nokia maps etc and i have my own version of tom tom all in hand.
Definitely one of the best phones on the market and rated by the gadget show to have the best camera on a phone with a 3.2 mega pixel schnieder lens.
Totally superb and recommended to all.

It's amazing how Nokia can create two handsets with the same name and yet how they can be so very different in their approach. So is the slide the better of the two 6500 models, or is the classic the one that you should be going for?

The Nokia 6500 slide is the other side to the Nokia 6500 Classic. Sporting, you guessed it, a slider design, the form factor difference is the only change you'll see.

The bulkier phone (96.5 x 46.5 x 16.4mm) takes in the larger size not only so it can offer a slider design, but so it can fit in a 3 megapixel camera complete with Carl Zeiss optics, an auto focus and 8x digital zoom.

But that's not all you'll get, for that extra bulk you also get a video camera for video calling via the 3G connectivity on the phone and a TV out socket you can you share you images, music and video via a nearby TV similar to some of the Samsung mobile phones.

If that wasn't enough the extra size also gives you a couple of extra buttons like a dedicated camera shutter button, a 3.5mm headphone jack, volume controls, a micro USB dongle so you can connect it easily to your PC for data transfer and a separate charging socket.

In fact the only real similarity with the Nokia 6500 classic is that the phone runs the same Symbian S40 3rd edition operating system on it.

Keys are comfortable to use and squarer than the 6500 Classic opting instead for a fuller flatter design.

The only other thing to note is that here you get a 256MB microSD card (not hot swappable) instead of the impressive 1GB of memory in the 6500 classic.

This phone is simply one of the best on the market at the moment. Its has a slick design, and a swish keyboard flick feature which is simple and actually quite satisfying to operate.
Being a Nokia, you can be confident that it is very easy to navigate, with logical menus, and intuitive placements of keys and buttons.
The screen is large and really quiet bright, and the casing, being of brushed metal means that it doesn't show up all those sticky fingerprints and little marks that these gadgets tend to accumulate during their lifetime, meaning that it will still look brilliant and like new months after you bought it.
The Camera on it, while only being 3.2 megapixel has a Carl Zeiss lens on it, which means that it can take better quality pictures then its newer cousin, the Nokia N96. Dont take my word for it, the Gadget show on channel 5 did a comaprison, and this phone came out tops.
Music player isnt that bad. Not that I use it that much, or the radio, but they do seem to work rather well.
It also comes equipped with a number of good games and other applications.

This phone feels solid in your hands due to its metal case construction. It is slightly heavier than most other phones of its size range, however I find this adds to the impression solidity and robustness.

The camera has autofocus and good flash, so you can take decent pictures close-up even in complete darkness.

If you ugprade the firmware to at least version 8, then you will be able to play movie clips that are in MP4 H.264 format. The quality of these videos are amazing. I use Super Encoder software to convert movie clips from different formats (e.g. VOB, AVI, MPEG4, FLV) etc and then move them to my phone. They look fab.

The slide mechanism is very smooth, and sometimes you end up just sliding it open and then closing just for the satisfaction!

All the other usual Nokia strengths such as great menu and built-in applications.

I have decided to buy this phone after reading some reviews on the web and seeing some pictures of this phone. I fell in love instantly with the simple but very clean and powerful design all housed in quality materials.

This phone comes in choice of two colours - silver and black (I have the black one and love it). Nokia 6500 slide feels solid in your hand and the slide mechanism feels very precise and sharp - just the way it should be. You will love the phone if you text a lot as the keys are large enough and the phone sits nicely in the palm of your hand.

I have been using this phone for couple of days now and everything works 100%.
Playback quality is excellent (get a 3.5mm to 2.5mm jack adapter for couple of quid and can use virtually any high-end earphones with it), bluetooth connection fast and trouble-free, software provided by Nokia is also very good and connecting this phone with PC couldn't be easier. I have expanded the memory with an 8Gb sandisk SDHC micro-SD card so I have plenty room for pictures, music and videos. Only downfall is that this phone will only recognize 3.6Gb of memory (hope that Nokia will change this in one of the future firmware updates). The Nokia 6500 slide also features 3.2 Megapixel camera with built-in flash and the pictures look really great.

If you decide to buy this phone, bear in mind that this is not a smart phone based on S60 software. It is the S40 v5 software, wich in my opinion runs much smoother than the S60 anyway and I haven't experienced any crashes or freezes yet(this was quite common on previous nokia I had - based on S60 software)
I can only recommend this phone, it is really good. If you are looking for a stylish phone with decent features that is simple to use and won't cost you fortune, you should definitely consider Nokia 6500 slide.

I've had no problems with this phone as yet.It is a quality phone with enough features to satisfy most people whilst still being easy to use because of Nokia's straightforward menu system.Like a lot of prospective buyers for this phone,I was slightly hesitant to buy because of certain reports of problematic handsets,so I guess you will have to buy one and hope for the best.But in my opinion the phone is worth buying...

very good phone but very hard to get unlocked from the three network. beware if buying to get unlocked. there is an unlocking service on ebay, but the phone has to be sent away, it can not be unlocked via codes or cable that is supplied with the phone.

This attractive slide opening 3G phone will catch your eye on looks alone. Ity comes with a large 2.2 Inch high colour screen & with 20MB of memory which is expandable up to 4GB. The Nokia 6500 Slide has an integrated FM radio, 3.2 megapixel camera & a video record with zoom feature.

I bought this mobile phone because i have always been a Nokia fan, simlpy because these make of mobiles are pretty simple to use and very user friendly. I chose this modle because i wanted an upgrade from my previouse mobile - Nokia 6234, i found that this phone was in a good price range compared with the N95, the 6500 slide, i found was much more compact and not as bulky as the N95. Althought the 6500 slide might be down on software items compared to more pricey mobiles on the market it is still a very good all-round phone to have. Sound quality and the 3.5 megapixel camera (with flash) are also good. Nokia have always produce a good camera with there phones, but just lacked having a flash with it, which always helps if you are wanting a good picture at night or in a club with low lighting, you only every got this feature with higher spec phone from Nokia, but with the 6500 slide, i think they have made a good all-round phone

The Nokia 6500 Slide is a slide design 3G phone with an excellent 3.2 megapixel camera and a large hi-res LCD display. It offers video calling, and MP3 player, an FM radio, expandable memory and Bluetooth. On the negative side it's heavier than average (which gives it a substantial and robust feel) and its battery life could be better. However personally I think that taking everything into account it is one of the best phones that Nokia have released.

The phone has just about every item a phone could have, its like the swiss army knife of phones. That said though it could be over loaded with features for most people.
Battery life good, nice clear screen and the features can be customised to your preferences.
The metal case does dent easier than a plastic case phone which is a pity and the chrome will chip on navigation button if thrown around.
Because the keypad is on the bottom of the phone it feels top heavy when dialing, a small point maybe.

Looks very chique. Feels very high quality. Very easy to use and so far very reliable.

After using Windows mobile based phones recently I was completely fed up with how slow they were to switch on/off, overly complex to use, sometimes freezing / unreliable etc. This phone is like a breath of fresh air. It still has all the features you need but is accessed in an intuitive and easy to use manner. I linked it with my Outlook very easily to synchronise calendar entries using Nokia's excellent PC suite. The phone also has a high quality camera. I haven't used to radio feature yet so I cannot comment.

I'm not a mobile guru and generally they don't really excite me, but I think overall this phone is the best phone I have every owned.

the nokia 6500 mobile phone is a great phone and i managed to get it at a good price. didnt need to bid on it jst make an offer which was much easier.

Great camera, stylish design, high quality metal case, enormeus display, great and loud sound > N6500 slide has it all.
Only thing missing is Symbian, but overall it's a great phone.

Camera on phone is the best feature and why I bought it. I had the exact same phone and lost it so this purchase is an exact replacement - must be good if I didn't want to change!

I've had this phone for a couple of months now so I think that I have had time to form a balanced opinion about the phone. when I got it out of the box I did like the nice solid feeling it had as I held it in the palm of my hand and I found it asthetically pleasing. I bluetoothed a nice mp3 over from my old samsung D600 and listened to it a few times at which point my phone crashed! so much for the increased stability of a non-smart phone I thought but since that first day I have had few problems. The phone takes good pics but you will not get the best from it unless you spin the phone around and start to use it in landscape mode using the side mounted camera button which then activates the Auto focus function on the camera, which works quite well (took me a while to work that out, duh.) I am not a big texter but when I do send a texts I am impressed by how quick they seem to be transmitted. I have a nokia bluetooth handsfree car kit which was inherited with the car I bought and as I hoped the 6500 works seamlessly with this kit having enabled auto answer. One thing I have noticed is that the keyboard seems much less tactile than my old samsungs, I was hoping it would soften up but it hasn't happened yet. One thing that is bugging me about the phone and I cant be the only person that has had this problem, is that it often traps strands of hair between the black piece of plastic that runs along the top of the front of the phone and the steel casing!! in fact today I found a strand of my daughters hair lodged in the front of the phone! Nokia take note, the fit really should be more flush, this should not be happening fullstop. Overall this is a very good phone but I fell that the build quality could be better, why are the charging points so small? this seems to ensure that the charging pin is needlessly fragile, nokia must be doing a roaring trade in new chargers due to these pins snapping. At the end of the day it does what it says on the box and it does it quite well with what I would call decent battery life as well, lasting a couple of days on a full battery before needing to be topped up.