Nokia 6126

Call Quality

Calls and speakerphone: The Nokia 6126 is an extremely loud cell phone; even when the volume is on the lowest setting we could hear callers well. We rarely used the side volume buttons to adjust the sound. If you tend to make many calls while walking on busy streets, you won’t have an issue with hearing callers. We should note, however, that we did occasionally encounter a bit of static – though it’s often fleeting it did appear enough to mention. The speakerphone (Nokia calls it a Loudspeaker) on this cell phone is loud as well. However, you can’t turn it on until you place a call.

Ease of Use

Menu/Phonebook: This cell phone’s menu isn’t in typical Nokia fashion. However, there are some features found on Nokia models that are still evident here. You can still personalize and create shortcuts so the features/apps you use most appear where you want. Regardless if you decide to personalize the cell phone using Shortcuts, navigating through the menu is relatively easy once you get accustomed to the organization. For example, the camera app is found under the My Stuff folder instead of the Media Net folder, which is where you might expect it to be located. Entering/storing contacts is equally as easy once you get accustomed to some of the cell phone’s idiosyncrasies. While you can store three phone numbers, an e-mail address and URL for each contact half way through entering the information you’ll be asked to Move the Contact to the SIM card. It’s not bad as a practice to have names and numbers stored on the SIM card, it’s just odd that the cell phone forces you to do so.

There are a plethora of options for staying connected to people text-style using this cell phone. You can check AOL, Yahoo, MSN and even SBC Yahoo e-mail accounts from the E-mail menu. That’s where you’ll also be able to send AOL instant messages (AIM) if you have an account. Be aware, the e-mail application doesn’t have an option to configure checking your work e-mail; it’s designed for accessing web-based e-mail accounts. If you want to send text messages, you’ll find that option under messaging. You can even insert a smiley into messages.

Camera/Video: The easiest way to access the cell phone’s camera feature is to press the camera button on the side of the Nokia 6126. You can also access it from the menu. However, we should note unless you manually turn off the camera when you are finished using it, the application will stay in standby mode until it is turned off. You can use the camera to snap random pics or even use the external screen and self-timer to take self portraits. About those photos, they came out quite crisp despite the fact that images look blurry when you snap a pic. This was a thrill because it meant we were much better photographers than originally expected.

You can also take short videos (about 10 seconds), though the end-product isn’t nearly as good as the photos. Images came out extremely pixilated and we could barely make out what was being shot. On the plus side, there is a mute option so you can record movies ala Charlie Chaplin style before there were “talkies.”

Bluetooth: We were able to easily pair this Nokia cell phone with the Motorola Bluetooth H500 headset. Call quality using the headset did not diminish nor did the cell phone’s battery deplete faster when Bluetooth was on. If you tend to use a Bluetooth headset to make/receive calls more, this cell phone won’t disappoint.

Design

Look and Feel: This is one of the slicker Nokia flip phones to hit the market. For starters, there’s a tiny button on the hinge of the cell phone that you press to flip it open – ala old school Star Trek’s “Beam me up Scotty.” The good news is if the button ever fails, you can still flip open the cell phone manually. Overall, this Nokia is slim and that’s not an optical illusion due to the cell phone’s black finish – a decidedly slimming shade. About that black casing, it’s got a similar rubberized material that’s found on the Motorola Pebl on the front of the cell phone and the back has a textured feel (similar to beaten-up leather) that keeps the Nokia 6126 from sliding across a table and gives you something to grip when holding it in hand. All of these design features means this cell phone can take a bit of a beating and never appear worse for wear.

The internal and external displays are bright and large so viewing the screens in most lighting conditions is easy. Since the internal display is slightly indented it isn’t prone to attracting the oil on your face during calls – a nice plus. There are other nice design touches as well, for example the headset port (unfortunately, there’s no standard headset jack and you’ll need to get a proprietary Nokia headset for this cell phone) is located at the top of the cell phone but hidden under a rubberized black cover, which seems fairly secure.

Keypad: The Nokia 6126 maintains the black and silver color scheme internally as well. Surrounding the keys is a mirror-like silver border that does an amazing job keeping fingerprints at bay. The black numeric keys are large and well spaced, making misdials an infrequent event. While the keypad is definitely what we’d call slick, it’s far from slippery. There is one odd quirk: even when the flip is open the keypad automatically locks if it’s open for more than 10 seconds and you haven’t done anything. Luckily, this is easy enough to change.

Battery Life

The Nokia 6126 is definitely not a slacker when it comes to battery life. Heavy cellular phone users who make a ton of calls and send/receive loads of text messages daily will need to recharge weekly. More moderate users will be able to last a little longer than a week before needing to charge the cell phone. If you are a light user, making just two to three 10 minute calls a day and light texting, the Nokia 6126 cell phone will easily last 10 days. The cell phone, however, does not use the typical Nokia charger so if you have a plethora of chargers, there’s no guarantee they’ll work with the Nokia 6126.