Home > Consumer Reviews > Nokia 6280 - Sim Free Mobile Phone with 2 MP Camera

The 6280 is Nokia's latest attempt at an affordable 3G handset, and although it has its drawbacks, overall it is a quality phone packed full of features.

To look at, the 6280 is quite chunky and not the smallest phone about. The phone is of average weight. But bearing in mind all of the features stuffed into it, it was never going to be particularly tiny. You do get a big, clear and brilliant display, plus big buttons for all the main features. The slider mechanism is smooth and the keypad is responsive and comfortable to use. There are also volume, camera and Push To Talk buttons on the sides, as well as a slot for a MiniSD card.

Build quality is good and the black and silver colour scheme is smart. The 2 MegaPixel camera (with flash) takes very good photos, and you can do some basic picture editing on the phone itself. Video is not too good. At the highest resolution it is OK, but below that it can be very blocky. There is also no way of setting the video to limit itself to `message length' so shooting a video to then send by MMS is tricky, bearing in mind most networks don't support message sizes of greater than 100 KB. Video calls suffer from the same blockiness, as does streamed video from the net.

The music player and radio are both very good. Sound quality is excellent and the bundled headphones do a good job. Playing music and radio through the phone's speaker is also surprisingly good. The phone has basic sound equaliser settings, which you can adjust to your own preference.

Photos, videos, music, etc. can be stored in the 6280's internal memory, which is only a few MegaBytes, or on a MiniSD card. You get a 64MB card in the box, I highly recommend you buy a larger capacity card if you want to use the phone as a music player or for lots of photos. MiniSD cards are relatively cheap, so it's not too much of a problem.

Transferring files to/from the phone can be done using the bundled USB cable and Nokia PC Suite software. It is easy to use and works pretty well. The phone also support Bluetooth and infra-red.

Battery life is often not great on 3G handsets, and on the 6280 it holds up well. The battery lasts a good few days even when the phone is used to take a few pictures, videos, calls and so on. A full charge only takes a few hours so it's quite impressive.

Call quality is in line with the rest of the sound on the 6280 - it is excellent. There are plenty of options in the Contacts menu, you can set pictures and videos for callers, voice dialling, Push To Talk (this offers walkie-talkie like functionality but has limited support), video calls and the phone even has its own Instant Messaging client.

The Nokia 6280 is a good phone, but is sadly just let down by some little niggles. To look at, it's an acquired taste and video is disappointing. The latter is a big blow on a 3G handset! But as a mobile phone, it is superb, the camera takes great photos, it's a good music player and is a pleasure to use. Worth the money.

Have this phone about 5 months now and it's the first phone I've had that has given me no problems whatsoever (and I've had MANY phones!) Ok so the battery isn't great. Big deal..charge it! Memory is useless..break out and buy a new card! The bottom line is, it's full of features, the camera is excellent and it's simple to navigate and use. Although an earlier reviewer slammed it because he couldn't use it. (Not exactly the phone's fault!) In my opinion the good outweighs the bad and I would highly recommend it. In fact a friend has just got rid of her Motorola V3X (awful phone) and replaced it with the 6280 and absolutely loves it!

Sourced my 6280 through O2 as part of annual upgrade?My first choice was Nokia N80 but they are way too expensive at the moment.The 6280 is very good...no getting away from that.I've been a Nokia user for years now so I am comfortable with the menus etc.Camera is very good-clarity of pictures copied on to my PC is great! BUT....I agree with comments about the miserly memory both on the phone & the mini-SD Card supplied as standard.Its also quite confusing working out what available memory space u have so come on Nokia more memory please!!!

This is a really nice phone to use and it looks fab. I'd give it 5 stars only the memory card you get with it is VERY small. Trid to bluetooth music from my old phone onto it and I could only get 1 on there! I would recommend the 6280 but get a bigger memory card.

As a commited nokia fan (I find them so easy to navigate, and this one is just as easy) I couldn't wait to get this.Though did think long and hard about diversing to the Samsung D800 but didn't think the speck was as good. Had it for a week now, so had time to play with and personalise it. To be honest as a female with small hands I'm finding it a bit chunky and the slide hard to manipulate and wish it was a bit narrower. Another downside is the memory is ridiculously small (I tried to transfer all my stuff from my old 6230i and could'nt)so would advise buying a bigger memory card. It also doesn't have the wallet feature and I havent sussed yet how to secure just one file to make up for this.

On the plus side, love the way you can personalise the front screen to easy access your most used functions, the camera is brill, sound from music downloads is excellent,telly on your phone is fascinating and videocall means your lippy is kept beside your phone!