NOKIA 8600 LUNA

Do you want a phone which is not owned by every third or fourth acquaintance? To be different, are you willing to cough up wads of money, where as you can  pick up a perfectly functional handset with more advanced multimedia features for a fraction of its price? If answer to these question are yes, then Nokia 8600 Luna is the answer to your prayers. The Finnish mobile giant has released the painfully expensive Luna aimed squarely at the elite market.   The 8600 is a 2.5 mobile loaded with QVGA display, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, quad-band GSM, EDGE data, and Flash Lite 1.1.

DESIGN

This solid high end-fashion phone is all about style and sports a sleek extending design using exotic materials like hardened smoked glass and stainless steel body. Luna tows the middle path in the struggle between feather weight and heavy-as- a-brick phones. The 140 gram phone is stuffed into a 16 mm waistline and measures up at 107 x 45x 15.9 mm with much of the weight coming from the hardened glass slab which entombs the phone. By sliding the slab in the middle, the illuminated number pad can be see. The glass finish also helps in conserving more energy as the stumbling block of its predecessor, Nokia 8800, was its pathetic battery life which was caused by the metal casing since it took a lot of energy to transmit signal out of
it.   The stainless steel frame and detailing give the illusion that this is
one tough boy.  The loudspeaker's metal grill and the chrome-coated rocker volume give the phone more shine. Luna is available only in black... again it maybe because of the smoked glass panel that Nokia decided to stick to this colour rather than making it as colourful as a clown's dress.

However, this eye candy does have its drawbacks. The metallic backplate attracts scratches whereas the glass front is a real smudge magnet, making you use the polishing cloth, which Nokia has thankfully bundled with the handset, very often!!! The plastic keypad feels cheap compared to the rest of the handset and the bottom row buttons is obscured by the dark glass cover.


Design: 8.00