With its foldable QWERTY keyboard, Nokia's successor to the 6800 is the ultimate tool for SMS addicts: Sindre Lia places the Nokia 6820 under scrutiny in this review.
Upon launching its first handset with a QWERTY keyboard, the Nokia 6800, Nokia also became the very first manufacturer to offer such capabilities within a traditional handset form factor. Despite the unusual appearance, customers took liking of the 6800 - and just shy of a year after the introduction of the 6800, Nokia has delivered a worthy successor in the shape of the 6820.
 | The 6820 is Nokia's second handset to feature a collapsible QWERTY keyboard
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Exterior
In its closed mode, the Nokia 6820 appears to be just any other ordinary mobile phone, but just as with the 6800 a quick, horizontal flip of the numerical keypad reveals a full QWERTY keyboard. Despite retaining the keybaord, Nokia has managed to reduce the size of the 6820 to create a smaller and more compact handset at 100 g and 10.7 x 4.7 x 2 cm in closed mode.
A 4,096 colour screen with a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels is placed topmost facing the user, under which a 5-way joystick and numerical keypad can be seen. Rotating the handset 90 degrees to the left and swiveling its keypad all the way open will reveal its QWERTY keyboard, while the screen will automatically adjust its orientation accordingly. The keyboard is naturally divided into two halves on either side of the screen and navigational buttons. An integrated CIF camera with 0.1 megapixel resolution is placed far up and to the right on the hind side of the handset.
Ergonomics
Both the numerical keypad and QWERTY keyboard emit minimal noise in use, and come across as very comfortable despite the small and narrowly spaced of the latter. Furthermore, the handset rests comfortably in ones hand in both closed and open mode, and an additional navigational button for use in QWERTY mode makes for ease of use in both modes. The length of the 6820's joystick is adequate, however it would benefit from reduced noise levels when used as a selection button.
Features
The Nokia 6820 is well-equipped what regards WAN connectivity, featuring GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz as well as HSCSD/GPRS/EDGE for data connectivity. Equally well equipped in the PAN area, the 6820 supports both Infrared and Bluetooth, and comes with 3.5 MB of dynamic memory.
Standard fuctionality such as an XHTML browser, J2ME based e-mail client, PIM applications (Calendar, Contacts, Notes and To Do list) and support for SMS/MMS and J2ME are also present in the 6820. Additionally, we find Wireless Village-based instant messaging, plus voice dial, voice commands, a dictaphone and loudspeaker.
Performance
Nokia's by know well-known Series 40 platform is lies at the base of the Nokia 6820, and in the vast majority of cases the platform appears both stable and user friendly, with interaction between platform and text input in both modes as particularly positive.
There is little doubt that the QWERTY keyboard of the 6820 is its most important feature, and thus it is of great significance that it is both easily activated and comfortable in use. As with its predecessor, only a short amount of time is required to acquire a certain level of proficiency with the keyboard - resulting in waning use of the numerical keypad of our review sample. On a side note, the QWERTY keyboard is also backlit, however this must be controlled manually through a key placed in the top left corner of the keyboard.
Another important feature of the 6820 is its integrated CIF camera, which shoots stills and video clips up to 15 seconds in length. With a resolution of only 0.1 megapixel, however, prospective buyers shouldn't expect much in terms of quality.
As is common with Nokia handsets, audio quality in the 6820 was found to be very good. Its listed battery capacity is up to 7 hours of talk time and up to 10 days of standby time; we experienced approximately 5 hours and 8 days, respectively.
Availability
The Nokia 6820 is now available in most European countries, and sells in the 475 EUR range without subscription.
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