Nokia 6120 Classic

Call volume and clarity with the included stereo headset is very good (and can get quite loud). Likewise we got the usual strong Nokia compatibility and range with a variety of Bluetooth headsets including the Jawbone, Plantronics Discovery 655 and BlueAnt Z9. We also tested the 6120 with the Motorola S9 Stereo Bluetooth headset and heard less white noise than usual (the S9 has distinct, low-level white hiss when used with many non-Moto phones).

The 6120 has 3G HSDPA on the rather oddly combined 850 and 2100MHz bands. 850 is used in the US along with 1900, and 2100MHz is used in Europe. The Nokia 6121 has the more commonly bundled 900 and 2100MHz bands for Europe and Asia. We believe that the 6120 targets Australia which uses the 850 and 2100 bands, but not 1900. AT&T in the US currently uses the 850MHz band primarily on GSM/EDGE with most 3G HSDPA service on the 1900MHz band, so most of us won't be able to use the 6120's 3G in the US. But there are a few 850MHz 3G areas in the US, so we won't rule it out completely.

So since most of us won't be using 3G on the Nokia in the US, let's look at EDGE. The 6120 Classic has quad band EDGE (with fallback to GPRS) and speeds are what you'd expect: about 125k on T-Mobile and 150k on AT&T. Given the web browser's fast rendering, the connection feels faster (something like WCDMA, first gen 3G which is slower than HSDPA 3.5G but 2x faster than EDGE). It's the best browser we've ever seen on a mobile device, and it uses Safari technology (as does the iPhone). The web browser provides a desktop-like experience with support for Javascript, frames, dHTML and CSS. Even dynamic menus on web sites such as ours work correctly, and in fact most sites render as they do on a PC. The browser uses the joystick as a virtual mouse and you'll see an arrow cursor, which is so much nicer than moving tediously from link to link through a page. It has a full page overview mode that you can use to select the part of a page to which you'd like to scroll, and the back button doesn't simply move you back one page at a time: it gives you a visual overview of the last pages you've visited which you can scroll through similar to photos in Gallery. The web browser also supports multiple windows and SSL. Not bad for an affordable, highly pocketable phone.

Messaging handles SMS, MMS, POP3 and IMAP email. Download speeds are very tolerable over EDGE, even with small attachments. Nokia includes their basic IM application but nothing that handles AIM, Yahoo or other popular IM services out of the box.

Performance and Smartphone Features

The Classic has a 369MHz ARM11 single core CPU, compared to the lower clock speed dual core CPUs used in Nokia NSeries smartphones. The phone is responsive and quick by S60 standards when opening folders and launching applications, similar to the Nokia N95. While it's not the video playback and 3D gaming powerhouse that the N95 and other dual core CPU S60 phones are, it's fine for Real Player playback, opening images in Gallery, 2D gaming and the like. In our SPMark Java06 tests, the 6120 actually did a tad better at 2D gaming than the N5-3, but the N95 trounced it in 3D gaming (the N95 has a 3D accelerator on board). The 6120 did well on the SPMark Java06 test with an overall score of 1656. The full test results are below.

2D game: 34.5 fps
3D game: 16.7 fps
fillrate: 4847 kTexels/s
Polygon: 78.1 kVertices/s

PNG score: 1 (encode: 53kPixels/s, decode: 0) Editor's note: we're not sure what went wrong with the PNG test but something isn't right.
JVM score: 3922

Like most Nokia S60 smartphones except the Nokia E90, Nokia N95-3 and the Nokia N95 8 gig all of which have received a memory injection, the 6120 has 64 megs of RAM with approximately 20 megs free at boot to run programs. That's not a great deal of memory, and that means if you run Gallery, the web browser and a game running at once, you'll probably see a low memory error and the phone will start closing down applications to free up memory. By no means in the 6120 or other Nokia S60 phones unusable, but we're happy to see the trend toward increased memory in their flagship devices.

The phone has 128 megs of NAND flash memory, approximately 35 of which is available for storage. In addition, there's a microSD card slot that accepts cards up to 2 gigs in capacity.

The bottom of the Nokia 6120 classic showing the USB, headset and charging ports.

Despite its small size and un-geeky looks, the Nokia 6120 Classic is a full-fledged smartphone. The 6120 runs Symbian OS 9.2 with S60 3rd Edition, feature pack 1. It has capable PIM applications for contacts, calendar, notes and tasks and can sync these to Outlook. Nokia hasn't yet released an iSync plugin for Mac OS X, but I edited their plugin for the phone's cousin, the Nokia 6110 to create a plugin for the Classic. The contacts application supports most every field in Outlook and our only complaints are that: 1) Nokia still hasn't added a sort by company feature to S60, 2) there's no smart search inside contacts (i.e.: search for "store" to find the Apple Store Cupertino entry). The calendar is the usual good S60 stuff with support for alarms, repeating appointments and more.

There's a file manager, memory card manager, calculator, unit converter, Adobe PDF viewer and QuickOffice for viewing MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. For multimedia, there's Nokia's Gallery application, RealPlayer, Flash Lite 2.0, Voice Recorder and an FM radio. The FM radio application can download stations as presets to your phone based on your city (medium to large sized cities are available in the US). The FM radio uses the headset as its antenna and has average reception by phone standards, and weak reception by boombox standards. And of course, you can install 3rd party S60 3rd edition applications to the phone, though Nokia's broad software bundle doesn't leave gaping holes.

Camera While the 2 megapixel 6120c can't compete with the Nokia N73 or N95, it does a better-than-average job among 2MP import camera phones and stands ahead of most US camera phones. The camera has a fixed-focus lens and LED flash, and is capable of taking photos at a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200. Colors are generally accurate, though sometimes washed out in bright light and by Nokia standards, low light shots are acceptable (Nokia's weak point is indoor low light shots). The camera application has night mode, sequence mode, a self-timer, flash control, panorama mode and settings for white balance and color effects.   The Nokia can shoot video up to QVGA (320 x 240) resolution at 15 fps. There's also a front-facing video conferencing camera that can shoot QVGA resolution video at 15fps, but you won't be able to use it as a conferencing camera in the US since no carrier supports 2-way video calling. Video quality is decent by camera phone standards, with little blockiness and good audio-video sync.

Battery Life

The Nokia 6120 has a 820 mAh Lithium Ion battery that lives under the back door. This is the Nokia BL-5B, and Nokia claims up to 3.1 hours talk time on GSM. We actually managed closer to 3.5 hours in our best test runs on GSM (no 3G on 850MHz in our area). With average use, the phone should last 3 days on a charge. With a very capable phone, it's becoming harder to describe an average usage scenario-- for example if you like to watch an hour of video on the commute home from work, battery life will be shorter. Likewise if you use the Nokia as your MP3 player and play music 8 hours each day, you'll need to charge more frequently. But for talking 30 minutes/day, browsing the web for 45 minutes/day, checking email hourly and playing music for 2 hours/day the phone lasted us 3 days.

Conclusion

The Nokia 6120 Classic is a fantastic entry level S60 3rd Edition smartphone. In fact, it need not be considered entry level, but rather a phone for those who value portability and don't need WiFi, GPS or a high end camera which drive up both price and size. The phone is responsive, has an excellent display, manageable keypad and good battery life. And it's relatively inexpensive, attractive and durable (we haven't managed put even a scratch on it in two months of heavy use).

web site: www.nokia.com

Price: Less than $300 unlocked from online retailers

Specs: