I might be able to help as I write for All About Symbian, a site which reviews Symbian phones including S60. I've had a go on quite a number of S60 devices over the summer, including the 6110, 5700, 6120, N95 etc and heard the thoughts of AAS staff members about their phones, so we've covered pretty much every S60 model there is.

My personal pick by a long way would be the Nokia 6120 Classic, if you can get it. It's definitely the best S60 phone I've ever used, possibly the best phone in general. It's very compact, as far as I know it's the smallest and lightest smartphone in the world right now (66cc, 89g). It's very very stable (it didn't crash at all in the weeks I had it), and the processor is 369 mhz so the menus are very fast. The camera is 2mp with a flash, which is good although not quite the headline-grabbing 5mp of the N95. The video camera is a QVGA one (320x240) at 15fps, but it's surprisingly good quality, easily good enough for YouTube, and there's a built-in video editor. It supports GSM (quad band), 3G (dual band) and 3.5G HSDPA so if your network supports it you can get phone network internet speeds up to several megabits, which is rather useful for internet tablet or laptop modem use.

On top of all that, the 6120 has the lowest ever launch price of any S60 device, it costs less than half the price of the N95.

If you can't get the 6120 though, I'd still go for a numbered S60 model if possible.

The recent numbered S60 models I've reviewed seem to be more stable than the Nseries models, possibly because the recent numbered S60 phones are all made by Nokia Mobile Phones (who make most of Nokia's phones in huge volumes) while the Nseries are all made by Nokia Multimedia (who only make Nokia's more expensive phones in smaller volumes). The numbered S60s are also significantly cheaper because they're being sold as phones rather than "multimedia computers". For example, the N76 and 6290 have virtually identical technical specifications and very similar form factors, yet the 6290 costs about 40% less than the N76.

Krisse

Two questions...Is the Nokia 6120 available in the United States? Is the 3g radio compatible with the US 3g signals? How does it compare to the E50? Sorry if that's too many questions (I guess that was three of them), but I'm looking for an S60 phone to replace my N80. So far, the leader in the clubhouse is the E61i, but I'm not really sure how much I will use the wifi. On the N80, it killed the battery. On the other hand, it uses the same battery that my N800 and 770 use...

Thanks in advance for your input.

I don't know what the availability is, you'd have to check with retailers and/or operators there.

The 6120 has dualband 3G frequencies, 850 and 2100, one of which (850) is used for 3G in at least some parts of the US. I don't know any more than this though, you'd have to ask your local network operators what frequencies are required.

The GSM/EDGE frequencies should be no problem at all as it's a quadband phone, it will work on any GSM network.

Sorry I can't help more but I'm based in Europe.

If you're in the US and want a 3G S60 phone, the new US-only version of the N95 might be a better bet as it uses entirely American 3G frequencies. It also has 3.5G (HSDPA) compatibility with US networks, which is good from an internet tablet point of view.


A lot of people asked this! The E50 is a bit bigger and heavier, and doesn't have 3G. It uses a slightly older version of the S60 platform, S60 3rd instead of S60 3rd FP1. It has a slightly worse camera and it uses pop-port instead of USB. Otherwise they're pretty similar

The 6120 costs about 20% more as it's a newer model, but I'd say the extra is well worth it considering everything you get for your money.


I've got an E61 (which also uses the same battery as the N800) and the wifi does quite well. I've had it about a year, it's a pretty good phone with a nice big screen. The one thing that annoyed me about it was the joystick, it cut into my thumbs, but the E61i has replaced the joystick with a direction pad so that isn't a problem any more.

Well, in another month or two I'm dropping some dough on the new N95 US-model, mostly for the larger RAM. That's really my ONLY complaint about the original N95, not being able to multitask very well. Oh I can download podcasts/vidcasts while also updating RSS feeds via Headline easily enough, but the second I crank up GPS-anything or web browse, apps get closed without notice in the background. Not that I do that very often, but it would be nice to be able to use TomTom/Route66 in mute mode while also listening to podcasts.
Sometimes that works, but after a while the podcast client just closes.

Really it depends on how much "oomph" you want from your S60 phone.
If you're not into wi-fi data or GPS then the 6120 would be the best best.
Also, the 6120 is rated at the following HSDPA/GSM freqs so it should be possible to get your HSDPA on here in the states: HSDPA / GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900.
The 6120 also has full A2DP stereo bluetooth support, mini-USB connectivity, micro-SD slot.
It's a good little phone if a little "weak" for my needs (only 64MB RAM but still more than the 1G N95, no wi-fi or GPS).
If you ant something with more "oomph" but don't need GPS then go for an N81.
Need GPS and "oomph"? The US-spec N95 is the way to go.

Great discussion thanks peeps.

Having done some hard thinking here is a list of the features I need / want for the projects we are working on (does this change the thinking?)...

Essential:
3G being GSM for NZ/OZ
802.11b/g wifi
Series 60 3rd Ed

Damn Handy
S60 3rd Ed Feature Pack 1 (just so it is the latest version)
A2DP
GPS
Some expandable memory slot (don't care about the format)

I still really like the E65 but it lacks FP1 - does anyone have details of what FP1 really provided?

FP1 is nice but I wouldn't worry too much if you don't have it.

The main plus point is the S60 browser has been upgraded, it now lets you save passwords, run flash within pages, and allows you to rotate the screen so you can view pages in horizontal mode. The horizontal mode is the nicest thing, it makes viewing pages much easier than before, especially if you also zoom out and set fonts to small.

Other nice things:
-You can create folders and sub-folders (and sub-sub-folders etc), and place any icons in any folder at any level, so you can structure the UI more to your liking.
-The settings menus have all been placed in a single section, which saves a lot of bother.
-There's a blue ring which appears next to app icons which are still running (or next to their folder if you're at a higher level of the folder hierarchy). This is quite handy if you forget to exit applications, it reminds you to switch them off.
-There's a couple of 3D modes for the menu system. They look nice but they're not that useful, I switched back to the old grid view fairly quickly.

Incidentally, there's an FP2 announced which will have more radical changes, but it's not due to enter service until well into 2008.

From an inside source, the upcoming N83 is expected to be usable as a wifi-modem/access point, so you can share a HSDPA connection full speed over wifi. Which is what I'm waiting for

I'm glad BarneyC started this thread. I've been trying to decide on an S60 phone lately also. I think I'm going to go with the N95 US version for sure now. The specs just sound right to me.

@=DC= thanks for that. In an ideal world the uS N95 8Gb would be my phone of choice, but for the simple truth that it is probably never going to get to NZ and by the time it does it will be horribly expensive AND almost ready to be replaced by the next and already announced Nokia phone in Europe or US.

Just to give you an idea - the N95 from Vodafone (we only really have Telecom and Vodafone here) is NZ$1,399. Yesterday we had a news story here showing the median take home wage to be $674. Of course you can get the N95 a lot cheaper if you take on a contract - Vodafone will most likely knock that price in half if you sign up for 3 years.

The upside is we now have half decent 3G data plans being 3Gb for NZ$69 (with an additional 3Gb for another N$10) a month.

To be fair the E65 still really appeals to me if it wasn't for a couple of glaring things:
- still uses that horrible popport (?) rather than mini-USB
- no a2dp
- FP1 (thanks for the update - given that we really want this phone for testing of applications under development and that we have an older S60 phone knocking around I think FP1 must be bumped up the list to essential)

Yeah, I plan on throwing my prepaid T-mobile SIM in the US N95 to keep the connectivity costs under control (that or go SIM-free until I work up the nerve to go the contract route).

Anyone know if there are any issues with using tmo prepaid SIM cards in the N95? I'm trying to get a full-featured phone without the hassle of a full-featured bill.