Nokia 6220 classic review: Sharp-witted shooter

We can call the Nokia 6220 classic an attempt to regain some 5 megapixel ground. The compact smartphone carries some serious imaging power. Xenon flash, active lens cover, VGA video @ 30 fps and TV-out do sound exciting, don't they? It would've been all too easy but that's not all Nokia 6220 classic is about. One of the most compact bodies in the Symbian realm squeezes in GPS, HSDPA and Feature Pack 2 for a truly ornate UI. The new classic sure has a range of skills, now let's see if it has the guts for the job.

Key features
2.2" 16M-color display of QVGA resolution 
Symbian 9.3 OS, S60 3.2 UI 
ARM 11 369 MHz CPU and 128 MB of RAM 
5 megapixel camera with active lens cover and xenon flash 
3G with HSDPA support 
Quad-band GSM support 
Built-in GPS with A-GPS support 
Compact and lightweight body 
120 MB user memory 
microSD card slot, up to 8GB cards supported 
FM radio with RDS 
TV-out 
Document viewer 
USB and Bluetooth v2.0 
More visual enhancements to the UI than any other S60 handset we've seen 
Nokia Maps comes with three months free turn-by-turn navigation license 
Main disadvantages
No Wi-Fi 
Xenon flash placed under the lens 
Uncomfortable shutter key 
Cheap-looking keypad, and we mean dirty cheap 
Display could have been bigger 

Nokia 6220 classic is a Symbian all-rounder, which takes photography seriously. The xenon flash, the active lens cover and the best implementation of the S60 user interface are possibly its strongest selling points. The inexpensive price tag makes it really hard to compete with (around 260 euro or 380 US dollars at the time of writing).

Virtually no device with similar features is able to beat the 6220 classic offer. There is one weak spot though, so the competition isn't utterly disheartened: the lack of Wi-Fi can break a deal or two even if everything else seems perfect.