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Nokia 6500 Slide Review - The Better 6500

Although the Nokia 6500 Slide comes from the same family as the 6500 Classic, these two handsets are related in name only, as the Classic revolves around looks predominantly yet the appeal of the slide will be based more upon the features it has to offer. One of the key points in favour of the 6500 Classic was the quality of the design & construction, which was exceptional. The anodized aluminium casing made it a very sturdy device and with the 6500 Slide, this has seemingly been taken to another level. The 6500 Slide's body is made of stainless-steel and unlike most handsets with this kind of design, fingerprint marks are almost nowhere to be seen, which considering the commonality of this problem of late does deserve mentioning.
An aspect that is disappointing relates to removing the back cover. This is a noticeable issue also seen in the 6500 Classic, where great patience (and a safe cracker) was often required to prise the back cover open. A small button on top of the phone supposedly allows you to lift the back-cover from the top and then pull it gently away. This may sound simple, yet in practise it's not as so easy. The position of the volume keys don't help matters either as they get in the way of getting a decent grip of the phone when trying to remove this back-cover, making it a very frustrating task.
Even though the layout of the keys isn't necessarily original, the arrangement makes it very easy to use without a moments fuss. The main focus is the centre console button, which has the right amount of elevation to ensure mistakes or slips are rare. It's thankfully the same with the alphanumeric pad, vastly improving upon the keypad design issues of the 6500 Classic.
A strange omission that will surely concern most Nokia-veterans is the lack of a dedicated power-key. As many of you will already know, most Nokia devices use this key to switch profiles over, but the 6500 Slide has this missing from its portfolio. The reason is that Nokia have chosen to put the hard connecters (headset, mini-USB etc) at the top of the handset instead of putting the USB port on the bottom. Though this isn't a major issue it's a little strange that Nokia have removed a feature that many (including myself) found useful.
The capabilities of the Classic are sure to be outshined by the 6500 Slide, as you get a video call camera and a 3.2MP main camera with Carl Zeiss Optics and autofocus along with the option for expandable memory, all of which improve on the abilities of the 6500 Classic.
A nice surprise is in the quality of the 3.2MP camera, as although the 6500 Slide isn't a dedicated cameraphone, the image quality is right-up there with the leaders in its class. The only minor drawbacks are that the camera lens isn't recessed enough, making finger marks and scratches almost inevitable, as well as the shot-to-shot time being a little on the slow-side. Overall though, the camera features are excellent and make it a serious player in its medium.
There have been some concerns mentioned on certain consumer forums relating to the handset freezing and while this didn't occur during my time spent with the phone, it has been known with Symbian handsets in the past, so may be worth considering if this looks like the ideal handset for you.
With the 6500 Slide, Nokia have a handset that is more than capable of holding its own against its competitors and easily trumps its sibling, the 6500 Classic. It's so different I honestly wondered why they were given the same model number. With an excellent camera, great build quality as well as a simplistic layout, the 6500 Slide is well worth consideration and the problems listed above aren't major enough to detract from what is an all-round excellent handset.