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(More customer reviews)This review is for an unlocked version of this phone, but with Cingular (or AT&T nowadays) service. I received this phone from my brother (he used to work for Nokia in Texas) because my other phone broke (nokia 6102i) and my contract with Cingular was for another year (yeah, it sucks).
Background: I was not eligible for the upgrade yet, so that meant I had to purchase a phone at retail price (without the contract) which would have run up upwards of $300 and more. So I got this phone (unlocked) as a gift, and the switch-over was relatively easy and trouble-free. I copied my address book from the 6102i onto the SIM card, and when I moved the SIM card to the 6126, the address book was there (taa-daa!). What I was not able to move were the photos I snapped with the old phone. Those I had to send via email, which I saved onto a microSD card and then was able to move to the 6126 (it has a microSD slot, which read the 1Gb card easily).
Features: I have always liked Nokia. This phone is no exception (except one which I will discuss later). It is a clam (ie. flip) phone and is almost as slim as (but slightly lighter than) my Motorola RAZR. I like the menu layout of the Nokia. The camera is up to 1.3 Megapixel resolution (settings of 1,024x1,280, 960x1,290, 600x800, 480x640, 240x320, and 120x160). The photos are decent in daylight, but not too great in poorly-lit areas (but that goes for every camera phone I've ever encountered).
I like the black and silver coloring. No external antenna (sweet). The button on the side to open it is extra (not necessary). The internal display is nice and large, and colorful. I like the navigation keypad. The textured covering on the rear flap is different (I like it, and is about 50-50 with my friends).
There were plenty of hands-free features. There's a speakerphone, which is loud enough to be used outside, Bluetooth for connecting to a headset or for sending files, as well as voice dialing and commands. There is POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail support, audio messaging for sending voicemails directly to another cell phone, and USB cable support (I haven't used this yet).
There is a large 1,000-contact phone book has room in each entry for five phone numbers, e-mail and Web addresses, a job title and a company name, work and home street addresses, a birth date, etc. The SIM card can hold an additional 250 names. Other extras include standard stuff: vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, calculator, voice recorder, a calendar with reminders, notepad, stopwatch, and an alarm clock.
Hands-free features were plentiful, as well. There's full Bluetooth for connecting to a headset or for sending files, plus voice dialing and commands and a speakerphone. For hard-core emailers, there is also POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail support.
I tested the quad-band GSM phone in San Francisco/Bay Area using my existing Cingular wireless service. I got the same quality as the old Nokia 6102i phone. Call quality was decent.
Now, for the negatives. A minor drawback with the design is that the MicroSD card slot is located behind the battery cover. Although, you don't need to remove the battery itself, but you do need to remove the cover. My other beef is with the battery life. The 6126 has a rated talk time of 3.4 hours and a promised standby time of 10 days. When I maxed out the talk time, I got about 3.5 to 3.75 hours talk-time (impressive). Because I am always on the phone, it is hard to guage the standby time. However, when I paired and activated the Bluetooth, and connected with a Nokia BH-900 earpiece (By the way, the BH-900 earpiece is sub-standard compared to the Motorola HS850, but that is another review altogether) that is when I got a feeling about the battery life in standby. For half a day of minimal use (20 min max), and standby the rest of the day my battery is now at 20-25% capacity. When I turned off Bluetooth, I was able to go a full day with some use and still have over 50% battery capacity. So it seems that when the Bluetooth feature is activated it is eating up more battery juice (which makes sense). I have yet to find a control that tells the phone to automatically turn off Bluetooth when there is no active device around.
Conclusion: The Nokia 6126 is a nice phone with many features. I only gate it 4-stars because of the battery life. This is a must, especially for a frequent traveler (like me) or those who use the phone/Bluetooth earpiece a lot. Nokia has to improve on the battery life, and this is easily done with a patch to automatically turn off Bluetooth when there are no Bluetooth devices around.
BTW, this phone is still offered from Cingular. I just came from the store
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Nokia 6126 Phone (AT&T)If you like the look and feel of Nokia phones, but you've been waiting for a powerful clamshell design from them, the wait is over. The quad-band Nokia 6126 packs a serious punch with support for EDGE data, dual high-resolution color displays, a 1-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, microSD memory expansion, a music player, and a whole lot more.
Design The 6126's super thin design houses an inner display that sports impressive 240 x 320 resolution and support for 16.7 million, yes million colors. Meanwhile, the outside cover of the handset features a supplementary, 128 x 160, 65,000-color display that can display picture IDs, time, call information, battery and signal strength, and more. The phone's camera unit is placed just above this display. Up and down buttons for volume control are placed on the left side and a camera control button is placed on the right. Most of the phone's features and on-screen menus are controlled by a five-way center button on the handset's control pad. There's also an input to accept universal hands-free headsets, as well as a USB port for transferring data to and from the handset. The hot-swappable microSD/TransFlash memory expansion slot is compatible with cards with 2 GB of capacity.
Calling Features The 6126 supports polyphonic ringtones, as well as video-based ringers so you can load your favorite video clips to alert you of incoming calls. Plus, with the phone's picture and ringer ID functions, you can assign pictures and ringtones to your most common callers. If you want to be discreet, there's also a vibrate ringer mode. Meanwhile, speaker-independent voice activated dialing makes calling your friends, family and associates as easy as saying their names. The phone recognizes any voice, so you don't have to worry about pre-recording your commands. The 6126's phone book will keep track of all your contacts, and address book capacity is only limited by the phone's 11 MB of built-in memory. Lastly, there's an integrated speakerphone for talking hands-free. Lastly, the phone's Bluetooth connectivity means that your favorite Bluetooth headset is fully compatible.
Messaging, Internet and Tools The 6126 is a mobile messaging and Internet powerhouse. With support for the MMS (multimedia messaging service), the phone can send picture and text messages, and when coupled with the phone's powerful camera, MMS opens up great opportunities for robust messaging. The phone ships with a built-in email client that supports POP3, IMAP, and SMTP protocols. You can even open and view email attachments.
Getting on the Internet is easy with the 6126. It supports the GPRS data protocol, as well as the high-speed EDGE wireless data service. When used with a Cingular data plan and the phone's USB or Bluetooth data capability, the phone can be used as a wireless modem for laptops and PDAs. The phone is bundled with a mobile Web browser for MEdia Net content downloads and browsing. Cingular's MEdia service lets you receive and send emails, read news headlines, get weather updates, download games and ringtones, and more. Meanwhile, T9 text entry, a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit -- a plus for mobile email and text messaging users.
The 6126 supports PC synchronization via USB or Bluetooth, which means you can manage and synchronize contacts, calendar and other data with your PC. Nokia's PC Suite application makes this process a breeze. A number of handy software tools are bundled with the 6126 including a voice memo recorder, a calculator, a calendar, a to-do list, and an alarm clock.
Imaging and Entertainment This is where the real fun begins. The 6126's 1-megapixel camera takes great pictures and it can also capture video. And when you've got all the pictures you want on your memory card, you can connect the camera directly to any PictBridge-compatible printer for instantaneous printing right from the phone. The phone supports playback of streaming video in 3GPP format, too.
If mobile music is your thing, you can load up your MP3, MP4, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, and WMA audio files and listen to your heart's content via the stereo headset jack. And don't forget about the games! The phone comes with a perennial favorite, Snake, as well as 3D soccer. More games are available from the MEdia Net service.
Vital Statistics The Nokia 6126 weighs 3.95 ounces and measures 3.62 x 1.89 x 0.79 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 3.4 hours of digital talk time, and up to 240 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 frequencies. The phone comes with a one year limited warranty.
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