The Nokia 6510 is a flirtatious phone- the screen keeps winking at us.
Several times over the course of our testing the screen blanked itself for half a second, before returning to what we were doing. We suffered no lasting inconvenience, but it's still incredibly disconcerting. With Nokia's track record on screen faults, we weren't entirely surprised, though.
The phone is slightly smaller than a normal Nokia, weighs in at 84g, and has a sleek business look. The overall design of the phone is very good, although we did find that the buttons sometimes didn't register when we pressed them. We especially liked the volume buttons on the side of the phone, which makes a lot more sense than going in through a menu. Service-wise, the phone comes with GPRS and WAP, as well as infrared connectivity.
When you open the box you will notice a CD, containing the PC Suite for Nokia 6510. We weren't able to test the CD, but Nokia's supplied information tells us that this enables you to manage your phone settings and exchange calendar data and so on, all from your PC. All of that doesn't seem particularly useful, as you can do this from the phone. What can be done at the PC end is creation of new display icons and ringtones, which is almost impossible to do from the phone.
The Nokia 6510 comes with the usual features you'd expect on a phone of this type, plus some cool new ones. First, however, it has a notable omission. The SMS chat feature is gone, and we couldn't be happier with that; we've never seen a use for it.
The SMS feature allows for some excellent storage options, for example the 'Archive' folder, where you can store messages you want to keep. If that's not enough, you can create your own folders and store messages in there. This is quite useful; we've had to make some very tough decisions on other phones about which messages to delete.
Nokia are gearing up for m-commerce with a 'Wallet' feature, which allows you to store credit card and other payment details so you can send them securely when paying by m-commerce. So far m-commerce hasn't really taken off in Australia, but it is touted as the -next-big-thing" so the wallet feature may prove to be useful in the near future. The information is sent encrypted over WAP, and is protected by a pass-number.
You can also listen to the radio on the Nokia 6510. A pair of earphones comes with the phone, and you can choose the station through a menu function. The sound quality is good, as is station reception. The menu also contains a 'to-do list' and a calendar, with the ability to make calendar notes such as meeting, call, birthday and memo.
We found the battery life of the Nokia 6510 to be excellent. Advertised as 3.5 hours talk time or 12 days standby time, we found that it lasted from fully charged at 10.30am Saturday to 8.15 Thursday night, when it started making distress sounds before shutting off three hours later. That equates to roughly 130 hours of normal usage, which is more than we've come to expect from a phone.
The RRP for the Nokia 6510 is AU$699. The RRP doesn't make it the cheapest GPRS phone on the market, but it's not the most expensive either. The main differentiators are the wallet and the radio, and if you're going to use these features it may be worth buying. If you're not going to use them or GPRS you may as well head for the lower range of phones.
Nokia 6510
Company: Nokia
Price: AU$699
Phone: 1300 366 733
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