The other Nokia 6100 reviews here on MS have very accurately given the positives of this phone so I wouldn’t repeat them in my review and would focus mainly on some shortcomings I faced.
While this phone is slim and good looking with a nice keypad design, I didn’t like the keypad feel at all. Too hard. If I started gaming on it, I’d end up with sore fingers in no time at all.
The LCD screen inside does not seem to be protected well enough by the outside cover. Pressing the top row buttons (hard as they feel) creates noticeable color distortion on the screen, just like if you press a calculator LCD screen for instance (especially if you get a bit carried away playing Spiderman on your mobile) and Im a bit concerned about its long term effect on screen. Even otherwise, the screen is not very good quality. There is quite a bit of flickering on the screen (in the form of vertical lines ’floating’ from left side of the screen towards the right) and colors clearly appearing in bands/columns. The flickering and banding is very clear in some wallpapers and games.
Another problem I faced in the display is a continuous ’fade out’ and ’bright again’ cycle while gaming, as if the power saving mode is kicking in again and again but is being denied by the game. But Im not very sure if this is due to a poor game design or in my particular handset or present in all 6100 handsets.
The sound quality is not very good and there is a continuous ’hiss’ noise in the background. There is a loudspeaker mode as well but its not all that loud and practically usable only in quiet environments. However the signal reception itself is good enough.
While my phonebook only has about 80 entries, there is an irritating lag in opening the phone book irrespective of whether the entries are stored on the SIM card memory or the phone memory. Menus also feel a bit laggy (as if the phone requires a RAM upgrade hehheheh).
Thats about all. But I would like to add that the battery life is very very good (6 hours talktime reported by the manual). That said, I must admit that the handsets I had used so far (Motorola T-300, Panasonic GD 92, Nokia 3315 and Nokia 2100) were simply not in the same league as the 6100 and that might explain the difference I felt in battery life.