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Weighing in at 115 g and measuring 100 x 46 x 21 mm, the Nokia 6280 easily outperforms the 6270 as a slim slider phone, but doesn’t even come close to other 3G offerings such as the wafer-thin Samsung SGH-Z150. The 6280 does, however, offer very comfortable numerical buttons, accompanied by action buttons and a navigation pad of similar build and quality. While the buttons also offered low audible feedback, the slider-mechanism of the 6280 unfortunately turned out to be a little sloppy.

Design
Sporting a vivid 262K colour screen with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels, the 6280 chalks up a high score in the display department. The large screen also enables the introduction of a concept dubbed the ‘active standby’ screen by Nokia, where shortcut icons, recent notes and FM radio status are neatly displayed and rapidly accessed. As with the recently reviewed Nokia 6270, the 6280 also offers Series 40 upgrades such as being able to mark several messages for simultaneous deletion. Minor improvements aside, however, the interface of the 6280 for the most part remains similar in look and feel to that of previous Nokia handsets.

Another beneficial feature of the 6280 is its video calling application, which offers an informative and intuitive user interface; unfortunately, the lack of a dedicated video call button is an equally unintuitive design choice. Furthermore, the included WAP 2.0 browser is a rather mediocre affair which was designed primarily with WAP use in mind and simply isn’t up to par in 2006.

Camera
The Nokia 6280 also features a 2 Megapixel camera, snapping stills of good quality in daylight and of adequate quality in darker environments. Aiming to assimilate the functions of a dedicated camera, the phone’s display, which acts as a viewfinder, automatically switches to landscape mode when the camera is activated. Its various options are then easily adjusted by means of the action buttons and volume buttons, with the handset also offering video recording at a VGA resolution of 0.3 Megapixel and lower. Both stills and videos can quickly be added to MMS messages from within the camera application.

Features
As for phone-centric features, the Nokia 6280 operates on GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz networks, and offers up WCDMA (3G), EDGE, GPRS and HSCSD for high-speed data transfers. Furthermore, we find an FM radio, a miniSD card slot and a bundled 64 MB miniSD card, as well as operator-dependent features such as Push-To-Talk and Visual Radio. The 6280 also supports Java MIDP 2.0, MP3 and polyphonic ringtones, SMS and MMS messages, in addition to sporting Bluetooth 2.0, Infrared and USB 2.0 via Pop Port as connectivity options. Somewhat mediocre stereo soundspeakers are also available, as well as a music player of average quality.

The reception and voice quality of the Nokia 6280 both proved to be good, whereas the phone offered approximately 2 hours of talktime and 4 days of standby time as compared to the claimed 4 hours and 10 days, respectively. As for video calls, our tests maxed out at approximately one hour.

Price and availability
The Nokia 6280 is at the time of writing selling for approximately ?‚¬500 EUR throughout Europe.

Conclusion
Nokia’s 6280 is the most capable Nokia Series 40 handset to date, however fails to impress in light of its fierce competition. Its battery life, browsing and video calling capabilities are all of mediocre quality, resulting in an average overall impression as a 3G handset. On the other hand, the upgraded Series 40 user interface and decent 2 Megapixel camera with VGA video recording could very well render the 6280 this year’s ultimate handset for those who favour Nokia handsets.