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Nokia C6 smartphone

Workshy workhorse?

Custom Build

The Symbian OS offers the by now familiar six rows of customisable shortcuts and widgets. At the top is time and date plus phone mode (general, silent etc) and beneath that is a user-defined row of shortcuts that defaults to messaging, Internet, Ovi Maps and the Ovi store.

Nokia C6

The social networking integration leaves room for improvement

There's room for four favourite contacts with pics below that. Then, there's Facebook, e-mail and another customisable row that you can populate with any shortcuts you like – out of the box it came with picture gallery, camera, calendar and notes. It's a solidly capable system that allows you to access virtually everything you need direct from your home page, which is just as well, since there's only one.

Still, it can be a little slow when switching between applications and proved frequently frustrating; taking its time even when all I wanted to do was wake it up to answer a call. The Facebook widget shows your latest three updates and pressing it takes you into the full application. It's a pity though that you can't add your Facebook contacts to your phone book as you can with Android phones for instance. There's no direct integration for Twitter either, though you can add an app from the Ovi store and include it on your home page.

Setting up e-mail accounts is easy enough though, requiring just address and password in most cases and there's support for Exchange, as well as a range of instant messaging options, including Windows Live Hotmail, Ovi Mail and Yahoo Mail.

There's fast access to the Internet with HSDPA or Wi-Fi broadband and the Symbian browser renders pages well. It has a single menu button in the corner to bring up zoom, search and go to options, as well as a deeper menu with bookmarks, keyword search and RSS feeds among others.

Nokia C6

E-mail is a breeze to configure, but the keypad could have featured more options

The browser menu encroaches a little too heavily on the pages, especially when you only want to zoom, but you can double tap the screen for a quick zoom option. If you prefer, the Opera browser is on offer from the Ovi store, though there's not a great deal of difference in terms of usability. Flash Lite is on board but you can't view video on the BBC's iPlayer site, but there is a YouTube app available.

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